Two Baby Surprise Jackets for two long awaited little ones.

First, for Emma...due to arrive at the end of June





the one for HE WHO IS NOT YET NAMED isn't finished,but Emma has one month on him.

There's some blue ducky buttons I saw at the yarn store (Yarn Diva in northern NJ) that would look great if they fit these button holes.

meg swansen's saddle shoulder aran

i have knitted my second saddle shoulder aran.

stats:

needles: 3½, 4 and 4½
yarn: 13 skeins of classic elite skye tweed, upland green (discontinued, argh how could they do this to us)
cables: ribbed cable, sheepfold, fishbone, staghorn plus twisted stitches in between cables. (back panel is actually stolen from alice starmore,s inishmore)

i enjoyed everything about knitting this cardigan and i really enjoy wearing it too. it has a very nice fit and i think it is both a sweater a feminine and a masculine sweater at the same time. it looks great on lanky men and even on more ample men if one can use that expression. the colour is very very unusual. it reminds me a bit of a nice indian curry or something like that. and it is not very photographable.

it is the second sweater i knitted from this pattern and i learned a lot from knitting the first. lots of things occured to me as i went. i will probably knit more of them in the future.

now i am knitting the fishtrap cardigan. that is a lovely knit as well and for the first time i am using yarn that meg and elizabeth recommends i.e. canadian regal. stay tuned.

The Perfect Sweater for the Perfect Man

After knowing my husband for over 20 years, he finally asked me to knit him a sweater. Of course I had to turn to EZ for this momentous occasion in my fiber life! Here is her seamless hybrid. More info on my blog

my first tomten

In fact, my first EZ project!

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Elizabeth Zimmerman's Modular Tomten Jacket taken from Knitting Without Tears.
Yarn: Noro Kureyon in shade 148; 100% wool; four skeins.
Needles: 5mm
Start to finish: Sunday 14 October 2007 to Monday 14 April 2008 - this was such a quick knit, I was finished on 2 November 2007, about 19 days of knitting. The rest of the six months has been taken up with finishing - seaming, choosing buttons, making loops for fastening. I need to lift my game.
Comments: Such a great pattern. I love the construction and doing it in a variegated wool highlights this. As I didn't want to put in a zip or knit a button band, I knit an extra panel and affixed it just inside one of the fronts so that when the jacket is done up there will be no gaps for the cold to get in. I took EZ's advice (really, how could you not?) and did some short rows across the back to make it just that little bit longer.

As usual, it was the finishing that let me down, timeliness wise. I think that because the size of this is way too big for baby bear at present (no worries, she's growing fast), I didn't feel any urgency to complete it. But then it just sits around, an unfinished object and weighs on my mind.

It did take me a good while to decide on the buttons - ultimately, black wooden toggles. At first I wanted rustic bamboo toggles but had trouble finding appropriate ones and was then talked out of it anyway (good-o). The colour changes in the jacket are already a feature, the toggles didn't need to be. the fastening loops are i-cord (three stitches or four? can't remember).

A couple of disappointments with the Kureyon though - there was a lot of debris in it and quite a few joins. Oh well, I just picked it out and knit over them. Terrific that I was able to join balls though with a quick spit and vigorous rub between my palms.

This certainly won't be my last tomten - I have already bought some Silk Garden (sigh) to make the next one.

www.bollewangenhaptoet.blogspot.com

Adult Tomten

I knit this with Himalaya Lidya yarn from Jared’s adaptation of EZ’s adult Tomten jacket.Its so lovely.
Thank you Jared !

Ian's Aspen Yoke Sweater

Here is another offering from Kathy's blogless friend, Kim. My last post was February 17, 2007; I've just completed this ski sweater, using the EZ Percentage System, for my 13-year-old son, Ian. My inspiration was the Aspen Yoke sweater in Knitting Workshop. Elizabeth references Wool Gathering #7, and since I didn't have that available, I used the Graphs for Knitting from Leaflet #3 in The Opinionated Knitter for my leaf design (number 13). The Yarn is Knit Picks, Wool of the Andes, in Spruce (main color) and Cloud. I liked working with Wool of the Andes; it is very soft and knit up nicely on #9 needles. Luckily, there is room for Ian to grow (but not too much); it is ready and waiting for next ski season!

alba's aran

i knitted this some weeks ago. i had an urge for red and i think it looks great on alba. the yarn is debbie bliss: luxury donegal tweed. and amazingly childish yarn, if i can say so. the flecks in blue and green makes it very cheerful to look at. i used approximately 5 balls for a size two.

this yarn is cheap but one can order tweed yarn from the exact same mill at www.lavenderyarns.com in ireland.

the design is based on ez's raglan. i have made that for children before and i love the design. the cable is from barbara walker. one side of the cable is moss-stitch and the other stockinette. that is a lovely feature.

and the

Latvian News

Hello Zimmermaniacs!

I have two orders of business: a picture of a new(ish) finished project and a proposal for you all. They're all very much "in the spirit of EZ," though I realize that they they're not exactly EZ designs or concepts.

A picture:

This is Joyce Williams' "Morocco" sweater/jacket from her book "Latvian Dreams," (2000, Schoolhouse Press). It took me far too long to knit (my own fault, I was working on other things, and I knit one of the sleeves to almost full length before I realized that I was decreasing at the wrong rate.) But it's a great sweater at any rate.

In an unusual for me, I basically followed this pattern from the book. Well, I changed the neck shaping a lot, added a collar, and I did the hem in my own way--at the very end and in one long mitered piece--but aside from that it was very by the book.

The yarn is "Old Mill Yarn's" Domy Heather which I knit at 9.5 stitches per inch. It's finer than jumper weight shetland, which is nice because I'm skinny, and this way the sweater is just "comfortably oversized" rather than obscenely oversized.

And now the announcement:

I'm designing and knitting a new sweater. This isn't news in and of itself, but rather than doing so in isolation, I'm sharing the pattern with the internet (that means you!) as I go. The sweater uses 3 charts (and variations thereon) of the more than 250 different charts from the Latvian Dreams book, and I'm writing up instructions including a bunch of different design and style options as I knit. The current version of the chart and design resources is here and I'm blogging the pattern as I go in a special tag of my blog, tychoish.com. There's a pattern and a group on ravelry if that's more your speed.

There's no set start date, but the more distance lead you let me get the better you'll be able to learn from my mistakes. I'm using the same yarn that I used for the Morocco sweater, but you could use whatever you have on hand In proper EZ style, the key number for the sweater is 340 and it's possible to tweak things to get a full range of sizes.

I'd love to have you (all) join me on this project and have you tell your friends about the project if you think they might be interested. This is going to be really fun, and I can't wait to see what you all come up with.

"Knit on, with hope and confidence..."

April Mystery Blanket - finished!

It's a while since I've posted anything here, but I'm back and this time with a new item I never knitted before, namely the April Mystery Blanket.


I love the geometry of this blanket (please note the way my two photos above and below almost square up!) and am already minded to knit another one for a Christening in June.

The squares are knitted in cotton and the edges in cotton chenille.

The finished product is machine washable, soft as a baby's bottom and does not curl and wave as badly as the picture indicates!

All the details of materials etc can be found on Ravelry, where surprise, surprise I'm known as teeweewonders and other pictures etc can be found on my blog.

Blogger is really playing up and I think this must be the tenth time I try to post this. Hopefully this will be my lucky dip!