The Solution, Part Two: Reconstruction

Picking up the stitches on the sleeve....



knitting the patch...



and weaving the pieces together.
You can see the underarm area still needs to be connected.



It sure looks funny!
I think it'll be fine after I finish the other side.
Sorry about the bright flash photos--I worked on this one late evening.
Daylight photos work so much better.

The Solution, Part One: Deconstruction

I figured out that I could cut one row on the sleeve and unravel it all the way to the top on the front (F), and a few stitches into the back (B). The rows make a sharp right turn at the armpit--the rows are running vertical at the sleeve, but turn to run horizontal on the back. The cut/unravel line is in green. Then, since the front left panel would be disconnected from the left sleeve, I could roll the excess fabric from the back to the front (blue arrows). I'd end up with a gap between the sleeve and the front panel, so I'd have to pick up those stitches and knit to reconnect the sleeve with the front panel. Make sense? It sure seemed like it would work, so I tried it.



With a needle and yarn, I secured the stitches along both sides of the row I would cut.



Very carefully, I made sure I was cutting the correct piece of yarn, and started to unravel that row. If you do something like this, make sure to cut at the middle, so when you unravel (the yarn--ha!ha!), there's enough yarn at both ends to weave in later.



Unravelling. The top edge is tricky. I can never quite figure out which loop along the edge is the correct stitch for that row.



See? All I have to do is pick up the stitches for the sleeve and knit a patch to reconnect with the front panel. Then I'll have to weave along the bottom edge of the sleeve to the underarm, and then a bit along the front.

The Problem

The back is really big. In attempting to resize, I've made a mess of things. By decreasing the circumference of the sleeve, I arrived at the armpit very quickly, thus increasing the width of the back. If you've not made the Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby Surprise Jacket before, this probably makes no sense. Even if you have, it might not! The Surprise is that you knit the jacket all in one piece, magically fold it, seam just the tops of the sleeves, and viola--a jacket! So you're working on several parts of the jacket all at once, making it difficult to resize by just changing the numbers. You're better off using the numbers given, but switching to a thinner or thicker yarn to change the size.

What's interesting is that the wrist-to-wrist measurement is correct, the front left and right panels are pretty much correct; it's just the back measurement from armpit to armpit that is incorrect.

After a night of rumination, I did actually come up with a solution. You can't wait to see, right? Tomorrow.

First, the good news.

The winner: one clasp, towards the top.
I think it's pretty cute; I just hope it works ok.

Tomorrow: the bad news.

Aaurgh.

So, last night I spent way too much time inserting a zipper into the Tomten Jacket. I put it in, it didn't look right, I ripped it out. Repeat. Finally, it was in all the way--I zipped it up, and it looked....not so good. Sigh. The zipper seemed fine when I picked it out, but now it just looks like a giant piece of masking tape down the front. I know I could put it in so that more of the fabric overlaps, but I'm worried about the zipper getting caught in the yarn.

I decided that using buttons is the way to go, so at lunch today I zoomed over to JoAnns to find something good. After navigating the holiday shopper traffic (JoAnns is near THE MALL), I ended up picking 3 options: One large button for the neck area; three clasps for spacing out along the front; five clasps for along the front. Tonight I will choose the ultimate winner.

Tomorrow is the last day I can send out a package of gifts Priority Mail and have it arrive before Christmas. Do you think I can get the jacket finished by tomorrow? How about the Red Baby Surprise Jacket? I....am not hopeful. Well, hopeful but also worried. I'm trying to resize it for a 3 month old, but instead of using a thinner yarn, I'm changing the numbers. Unfortunately, I've figured out that the construction of this sweater makes this hard to do. I made the sleeve circumference smaller, which ended up making the back wider. I think the baby will end up with a large, short-sleeved sweater. We'll see!

A Wash and a Zipper

The Elizabeth Zimmermann Tomten Jacket is almost complete!
As the title of this post clearly states, the jacket only needs a bath and some closure.




Hmm, these colors look familiar....

Just Imagine

I could take a picture of my progress on the 2nd sleeve of the Tomten Jacket, but I bet you can figure out what it looks like.

Instead, here's a pile of garter stitch dishcloths from this past year. I sure wish the 1 lb. cones came in a few more colors. It's so cheap to buy the yarn on the cone, especially with those ever-present 40% off Michaels and Jo-Anns coupons, but sometimes I do buy the little balls, just to spice things up.

Brr! Who left the freezer door open?

I finished one sleeve last night. Well, I finished knitting it at least. Now I have to pull out about an inch, because it's too long, and then I can sew up the bottom seam. Part of the sleeve is actually part of the body, and the rest is, well, sleeve.

I wonder if I should have done the red and white sleeve accents at the wrist instead of the shoulder.

Now, Where was I?

Oh, right...Bubby!
Bubby is a little bear from Knitty.com.

I knit him this past summer for my 2.5 year old nephew.
I remember having a little problem making Bubby--the pattern calls for knitting the head and body in one piece on dpns, but since I knit my circular stuff with the right side inward, at one point I had to turn him right side out again. It was hard because the neck is quite small. Fortunately, yarn is stretchy!

The yarn used? Leftover Jo Sharp DK Wool. Eventually I'll find the photos of the original projects in that color!

I think I stuffed him with some acrylic yarn.

For Instance...

Super Fast!

Look how far I am! Yeah, right,
like I really did that all in one day.

I started this jacket on November 8th
and was sewing in the ends on the 14th.
Tonight I picked up stitches for a sleeve
and finished about 5 ridges.

I don't think I did any knitting for a whole week.
It's a good thing I have a large pile of photos
of past projects to post!

It's a start...

This is the 2nd Elizabeth Zimmermann Modular Tomten jacket I've started; the first is finished, hanging in a little boy's closet, waiting to be grown into. Even with his measurements, I made it about a year too big.
Oops!

This one is for a niece, and I hope to get the size a little closer, so she can wear it this winter. At first it was going to be blue and white, but it just looked so sad and washed out. The red really brightens it up. I hope to add a few girly flourishes later, if it looks too boyish.

Clean Dishes

Do you have a project that always exists--no matter what else is on the needles?
For me that project is dishcloths. Plain cotton dishcloths, knit in garter stitch, over and over again. I like having a mindless knitting project always available, and they make nice gifts.

A Good Way to Start

A swatch is always a good way to start off a project, and since I have quite a bit of Jo Sharp DK Wool, I'm working on a pretty big swatch of it. I began with size 4 needles and will probably work my way up to 9s. It'll be nice to have a reference to look at as I work through my Jo Sharp stash.



A while ago I made one from Jo Sharp Cotton, but only used needles 4, 5 and 6.
Aren't the eyelets pretty?

Welcome and Hello!

Eventually, I'll actually extract my knitting photos from my camera and pop them up.