Starting my first BSJ

I cast on for my first EZ Baby Surprise Jacket today - I say first, because everyone in blogland seems to knit this pattern repeatedly. My first yarn choice went the way of the petal bib - too thick and hence way too big. I settled on a thin sock yarn which is giving me a much better size.

I've worked through the decreasing section and have reached the bind offs on the increasing section. I can't see which parts of the knitting will form which parts of the garment yet, but I have faith. If anyone is thinking of knitting this, I highly recommend Dawn Adcock's row by row notes to supplement the original pattern.

I'm plugging away on MS3 clue 4, and am now knitting it in cars and in other situations where my concentration is less than 100%. I figured I would still make more progress even allowing for frogging rows where concentration lapses. Clue 6 or 7 has now been published, so I'm falling well behind the pace again.

The Lutea shell continues to knit up quickly. I am now knitting the front and back separately. When I tried on the first half, the decreases made it too revealing, so I decided this would be the back, and have tried to maintain more stitches on the front. Not sure if it will work or whether I will have to frog back to the armhole.

Mystery stole clue 2

Progress continues on MS3. I did make a mistake a few rows from the end of clue 2, and kept trying to knit the following row and not understanding why it wasn't working. I eventually realised the error was on the previous row, and to my surprise, found I could quickly identify the missing yarnover visually, and furthermore, insert it on the following rest row. I think I finally understand what they mean about 'reading' your lace. Flushed with success, I raced through the following rows to finish the second clue.

The Lutea shell has become a commuter project for the foot of stocking stitch, so is also moving along well.

Halfway through clue 2

After a concerted effort, I am halfway through clue 2 on the mystery stole, but seem to be falling further behind! I was hoping to catch up during the Harry Potter break week the designer has given us, but this week's installment is an alarming 135 rows!

The Lutea lace shell is knitting up quite quickly due to the bulky yarn.

Clue 1 of mystery stole

A riveting Wimbledon final on TV and losing my needle threader combined to slow progress on MS3. I'm now halfway through clue 1, but don't think I'm going to catch up this week.



Argosy is half done, and I've figured out why the points are curling. I was careful to cast off loosely to avoid the edges pulling, but it seems I have been doing it too loosely, causing a curl. I'm too far through to frog, and will look to blocking to try to remedy.

Sahara is languishing neglected. There really isn't much to do on it, but I've lost interest.

Re-emerging blinking

I'm back.

Yes, I spent a week immersed in the highly addictive Ravelry, enaged in an introspective review of my oversized stash. Even I am slightly horrified to find I have logged 240 different yarn / colour combinations. There's still more to go...

I have however, managed to keep knitting. Two new cast ons this week; Argosy and MS3.

Last weekend was busy and involved a fair amount of travel, so I cast on Argosy in the car. I bought some Rowan Tapestry using my 10% discount voucher while looking for beads for MS3. It's now working as my commuter project, although it's slightly more complicated than is ideal for short distance, interrupted travel. It is growing quite quickly, but the points curl badly, so it's going to need strong blocking.

With one thing and another, I only got to cast on for MS3 last night, so not much to show yet. I'm tethered to a huge cone of yarn, so this is definitely not portable. The beads are so tiny they don't really show up much, but I like them anyway.

Someone in the group suggested using a needle threader if the crochet hook was too large for the bead, and this turned out to be a genius suggestion. There are other good suggestions, but the group is currently generating an insane amount of email - several hundred per day!

(S)watching and waiting

I've put my name down for Mystery Stole 3, and while waiting for the first clue on Friday, I went stashdiving. I hunted high and low to find a mystery angora/wool yarn that I knew I had in there somewhere. I'd bought it as a so called 4 ply, but it was clearly too thin for the intended purpose. After balancing precariously on a stool and rummaging through the overhead cubes, I found the cone, and swatched up. I was delighted to find it was a perfect laceweight and showed off the pattern beautifully. It's a really great feeling to find the perfect yarn in the stash.

I've even managed to get some beads in the right colour. They're smaller than the pattern suggests though, and no way can I get a crochet hook through them. I think I'll try pre-threading and hope for the best.

My first attempt at blocking went well:

It's keeping me busy while I wait for my Ravelry invitation...