The Surprise Revisited

Don't like the neck

I spent yesterday evening working on the finishing of the Surprise. The shoulders are joined, some of the ends dealt with, and an edging knit for the neck. I thought I'd amuse myself by casting it off with a picot bind-off, but I don't like it. It detracts from the garter-stitch austerity of the whole, and will look thoroughly stupid if we get another boy.
So I think I'll frog it, and just cast off like a normal human being.

But that'll have to wait, as we're going to Kirkmichael today, in very gloomy weather. There will be no more bulletins from the knitting front until perhaps Sunday.

I don't mind the finishing process, in fact I quite like it, even darning in ends -- and I've done some of Kaffe's patterns in my day. The one thing I really hate is sewing on buttons.

I had meant to post a picture today of the yarn for my next project, which is deliciously displayed on a sitting-room sofa at the moment. But that will have to wait, too.

The Baby Surprise

Baby
The big news is that my hero Queer Joe (http://queerjoe.blogspot.com)mentioned me in his Blog yesterday, with a link to this page!

Here is a picture of the Baby Surprise, at it appeared when cast off last night.

SURPRISE

And here it is when successfully folded. It's magic, every time! It still needs finishing and buttons, of course.



I seem to have begun blogging life at a most auspicious moment. There will not always be such a stream of daily images. I'm already worried, clever-Elsa fashion, about what will happen when I next start a piece of lace knitting. That looks like nothing on the needles -- photography only becomes possible when it's finally pinned out on the dining room floor.

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. This dark and gloomy quadrant of the year needs colourful, cosy knitting which should photograph well.

The Philosophy of WIPs

The current socks
I think I'm getting the hang of this blog thing.

Essentially, in later life, I have become a one-WIP-at-a-timer. But there are extenuating factors.

I have one WIP here in Edinburgh -- currently the Baby Surprise which I should cast off and begin finishing today.

I have a different WIP in the country, at our small house in Strathardle. We're going there later this week -- I'll come back I hope with a picture of that WIP (also nearly finished) and one of the house, to set the scene.

And I always, of late, have a pair of socks on the go, for waiting rooms, committee meetings and travel. I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, and got the current pair all the way to the heel flap of the second sock. See above. But sock-production is low in '04. We haven't travelled abroad. I'll only finish three or maybe four pairs this year, instead of my usual six or seven.

The "Striped Fringe" scarf

The finished scarf
This was knit from a pattern in the magazine "Interweave Knits" -- last winter's issue, I think. The point, which is made none too clearly in the photograph, is that the lengthwise stripes deconstruct into a deep fringe at either end. The yarn is Louet's Gems Merino, and the leftovers are being formed into the Baby Surprise mentioned yesterday.

I wonder if I got the right quality of yarn. I bought it from www.handknitting.com, and when I got to their (excellent) webpage, I found that the 50 gram skeins had slightly less yardage than the magazine had specified, so I ordered 100 gram skeins "to be on the safe side" -- so are stashes formed. Only this time it was the right thing to do, as I used about 65 grams for each stripe, and the resulting scarf is pretty heavy. Is there a lighter-weight version of the yarn?

Anyway, it's pretty nice. I've sent it to a stylish neice, husband's sister's daughter, on my husband's suggestion. I think he was afraid I'd sashay around Edinburgh wearing it myself.

The First Blog of the Rest of My Life

Baby surprise, in progress
Well, here we are. I can upload photos, not without difficulty. I got my website address and Queer Joe's into my sidebar. I got my own picture into the author box, or whatever it's called.

I am knitting EZ's Baby Surprise, for the 6th or 7th time. It remains an almost complete surprise. The yarn is Louet Gems Merino, left over from not one but two recent projects, of which more perhaps anon.

I got the pattern from the (London) Sunday Times, 18 years ago. You had to send in for it. My mimeographed copy is pretty tattered by now. I know it was 18 years because I noted on the pattern that I had finished it on the 9th of May, 1986, for"Bernadette Ogden", the pregnancy code-name for granddaughter Helen, who will be 18 in November. There are other pregnancy code names from subsequent years noted on the pattern, too.

It's a double-breasted version, which I prefer to EZ's published one. I sent a copy of my tattered mimeographed sheet to Meg Swansen once, hoping she could publish it in Woolgathering, but her reading of the Sunday Times text was that an unnamed designer had made the changes and probably still owned the copyright. A shame.

A recent FO

This is the shawl I've just finished knitting for an expected grandchild.
And now that I've figured out how to get pictures in here -- assuming, that is, I can remember how I did it just now -- we're well away.

The baby is expected in November, and once it's safely on the shores of light, I'll post more pics and full details on my website, www.jeanmile.demon.co.uk.

But for now, the thing will be to get some more pics of work in progress, and post them.

Saturday September 25

Now, the problem here is going to be: how do I get pictures in? Once that's solved, we're away.