When I found out about the newest addition to be added to the family, I went baby knitting crazy. I was beyond excited about knitting for the little guy, and when I learned about the BSJ
and saw the beautiful ones here and here I was inspired. I scored some hello yarn fat sock (color tundra) back at the beginning of August that was very much intended for a BSJ. I had decided to purchase The Opinionated Knitter when Knitpicks was having a book sale in July so I was all good to go. It was at the top of my Ravelry queue pretty much from day 1.
The book is everything everyone says it is. Funny, witty, and absolutely brilliant. The brain this women had is incomparable. My husband was so amazed by the pattern as it was being knit he said "could you imagine what she would have done if she grew up today, when women are allowed to use their brains for science and stuff". I read this book cover to cover when it first came. It is a pleasure just to read, not even to knit from.
The thing is, with all the appreciation before picking up the needles, I was pretty sure that I had gotten all I could out of the book. I was absolutely blown away when I actually did pick up the needles. One Saturday afternoon shortly before the baby shower I was chugging data and picked up the leftover Baby Ull from the Peapod sweater. I had always intended to make these bootees to go with the set and watching a computer do it's thing for 20 minute chunks seemed like a good time to start. Problem was, my appropriately sized dpns were not all locatable, some were in the car and I was too lazy to track them all down. The straights were there though and Elizabeth was sitting in arm's reach so I thumbed through to discover that there were bootees knit in the "same ilk" as the BSJ. So I cast on. My blind faith kept me going, because my very geometric, scientific, logical brain kept saying, no screaming "you are wasting your time, you are doing something wrong, this will never be a bootee". Right up until the very last statement in the pattern where you split your live stitches in two and graft them together and hello light bulbs! It was brilliant, and look how adorable!
Mom reports that they stay on great too. I used size 3 needles and followed the pattern to a T.When little nephew arrived a tad before schedule the BSJ was still not on the needles, but it hopped on just shortly thereafter. The knitting was, as reported by everyone, fun and entertaining, the garter stitch is soft and squishy, and watching the blob become a jacket is on the whole quite satisfying. I'll let you be the judge of the final result:
I used size 5 needles and it's just a touch too big for the little dude right now, but he'll grow into it. The buttons are actual antique bone buttons that I bought at Brimfield in the spring, with the intention of making them into cuff links for my modified convertible, but that didn't really work out. I think they work perfectly here though. It took just under two hanks, and I'm debating daily if I have enough leftover to make a second pair of those brilliant bootees, and I'm already eyeing some other hello yarn in my stash to become a Tomten, this little guy is going to be zimmermaned out by the time he's 5!
No comments:
Post a Comment