Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

I recently finished teaching my "Refined Baby Surprise Jacket" class. This is one I would love to be able to teach at shows, but it requires three meetings. I usually space those meetings two weeks apart, but this time I spaced them every three weeks. That worked very well for everyone, and it accommodated my trip to South Carolina Knit Inn and a Valentine's Day weekend visit to my Cuddly Hubby in Maryland. I've knit Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jacket pattern multiple times. In fact, I'm to the point of playing around with it just to see what will happen. This time around, I decided to knit one to fit a teddy bear. Atlanta Knitting Guild supports The Georgia Center for Child Advocacy by dressing comfort bears. Children who have experienced or witnessed a trauma may need to be interviewed so that law enforcement can take action. Bears are typically given to the children afterwards. Did you know teddy bears and babies do not have the same proportio...

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 tr...

Because I've taught the Baby Surprise Jacket several times, I've worked up several of them in different yarns and with slightly different details. This striped example requires about four skeins of Trendsetter Tonalita. Note that Tonalita is a variegated yarn that does not have a pattern repeat -- the color changes are completely random. The color changes are also several feet apart instead of just a few inches, but not the many yards apart of Kureyon, Karaoke, Paintbox, or Mini Mochi. On this pattern, the color will change about every-other row. You can see that the stripes on the left side of the picture are more solid, while the stripes on the right side are more broken. This occurs because of how odd-colored blips poke through in purl bumps. I am to the point of trying things out on BSJ just for the sake of seeing what happens. For a change of pace, I used a Debbie New's double increase instead of the make 1 left and right Elizabeth Zimmermann recommends. I a...

I've been teaching Elizabeth Zimmermann's classic Baby Surprise Jacket as a class that meets three times. This is such a fun class to teach, as every student ends up with something different. This is a pattern that can be customized in a variety of ways. I've had some students make it with doubled or tripled yarn on large needles so that it becomes a jacket or coat for a young child. One student was knitting for her twin grandsons, so she made two in coordinating but not identical colorways. It always looks good. And it is always fun to watch people's faces as they try to figure out where they are as this thing unfolds on their needles. Most times that I teach it, I knit another Baby Surprise Jacket. It has been fun for me to try different things. This little jacket is made from Koigu KPPPM (the orange and the purples) and Plymouth Happy Feet (the red). The whole jacket weighs 65 grams, with the buttons. Note to self: finding small orange buttons is not easy. ...

In spite of the frenetic pace this month, I somehow managed to knock out a Baby Surprise Jacket for the shop. I'm not sure yet if I'll be teaching this as a class or as a knit-along. As this is my third time through the pattern, I'm to the point that I'm making refinements. Some of those I'll save for class, but I thought I'd share the seaming refinement with everybody. Here's the trick -- in the initial cast-on, use a crochet cast-on. The crochet cast-on, when not used as a provisional cast-on, involves throwing the yarn around the left-hand knitting needle in between the formation of each crochet chain. The result is a chain edge that looks just like a bind-off. Why is that such a great thing for this pattern? Because there are two unavoidable seams in this pattern. And to make matters even more interesting, those seams involve sewing a cast-on edge to a side-selvage of garter stitch. And those two seams sit on the top of the sleeve, not hidden...

This is the classic pattern by Elizabeth Zimmermann. The cast-on edge is at the cuffs and across the back. Double-decreases lead to arm shaping on the back side of the sleeves. Then double-increases lead to shaping on the front of the jacket. There is a little bit of neck shaping by casting-on and off stitches. Extra rows are worked at the back for length across the diaper-clad tush. Buttons and button bands are at the end. The last step is one seam -- the top across the shoulders and sleeves. And the whole thing is in garter stitch. If you haven't knit one yet -- why not? This is one of the classic, top 10 patterns of all time. This is my second baby surprise jacket. Last year I knit both a baby surprise jacket and an EZ surplice baby jacket (see Vogue Knitting, spring/summer 2007, pp. 28 & 30) for a friend who was expecting twin boys. For this second time around, I used a provisional cast-on so that I would have live stitches for the i-cord edging and seam at the end. The c...