Always the Classic

My knit-night friend Ginny will be a first-time grandmother later this summer. It has been delightful to see the enthusiasm with which she is greeting this event. And the little one will be a girl, which just opens so many wonderful knitterly possibilities!

I was grateful when Ginny remarked one evening that she was going to knit a Baby Surprise Jacket. She had a nice queue built up of items for this baby. (I keep wondering if anyone has ordered a large cedar chest to accommodate this bounty.) So when I stepped in and asked if I could buy the yarn and it knit it for her, she agreed!

In conversations about classic knitting patterns, the Baby Surprise Jacket comes up again and again. And, yes, I know I've written about it here before. So let me just show you what I did this time.

The yarn is Ella Rae Seasons, which is a rather new yarn. It is chain plied, so it has nice elasticity. The size is heavy worsted. And it has long color changes, similar to Noro. While I didn't try to wet-splice this yarn, I did quite of bit of Russian joining. The chain ply structure took a Russian join easily. While I liked the yarn, I have to admit that of the two skeins I used, both had knots. One skein had two knots. And, of course, the colors are discontinuous at the knots. Disappointing.

Since I had extra yarn leftover, I decided to make a headband. The flower is out of Nicky Epstein's Knitted Flowers book. It is an interesting little flower, as you work a row of yarn overs to create holes, then run a thread through the holes to tighten and form two sets of petals. I put the spare button in the center of the flower. (There were six of these flower-shaped shell buttons in the shop and, while I could have purchased only five, it seemed impractical to leave one orphaned.) For the headband, I used Jeny's Stretchy Slipknot Cast-on, worked in garter stitch, and then used a sewn match for the cast-on. That garter stitch band is super stretchy and ready for anything!