giraffe jackets for the boys (I'm just a sucker for animal motifs)

  

Phildar pattern book #372, knitted in Phildar Legende
(pattern is out of print, but was also available in german in Lea Sonderheft Baby LA 032 )

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S snuck into bed with me this morning and cuddled for about twenty minutes before he remembered... "my little blankie!" He's asked for it first thing the last three mornings, but it was promised for this morning. True to my word, I stayed up late last night finishing it and even managed to lay it out to block a bit before I went to bed. I pointed him in the right direction, he patted it a little and immediately carried it to the sofa to try it out. Looks like it's just right.

I hope he remembers this.

And hey, look what still fits!

Knitting requests, cuddly boys and another season of giraffe jackets - I'm one happy mommy.

I can't bear to think about weaving in those ends on the leftovers vest right now. I love the Legende yarn though. It's so scrumptuously soft and the fall colors coordinate with each other wonderfully, right down to the tweedy flecks.

I've got quite a bit of this green left over and plan to use it for one of the Christmas hats I've still got to make. I had planned to use the green on one of the boys' giraffe jackets, but decided to stick with the blue (thus my running out of blue yarn for the leftovers vest). Speaking of the giraffe jackets, the boys are wearing them at every opportunity. Between cold and rain, we've actually had a couple of beautiful fall days in the last two weeks so the giranimals could come out to play (a November playground day in Boston - bonus!!).

PS - You have got to check out the giraffe jacket that Sharlyn just finished!

Giranimals jacket, numba two:

Wanna see some more pics? Okay.

Boy in giraffe jacket with runny nose.

Boy in giraffe jacket with bowl of raisins.

Together, at last.

Did you lose weight? Get a haircut? Nope, I got an "afterthought buttonhole".

It was so nice of everyone not to notice (or remark on) the totally missing buttonhole on the neck of giranimals #2. Here's a look at giranimals #1 again and a close-up of the neck with obvious buttonhole. It seems that six months ago when I did the knitting on the second jacket, I, whoops, forgot to put a buttonhole in the neck! Elizabeth Zimmerman to the rescue. One little snip and some some quick seaming and you got yourself a buttonhole. No one will ever know.

Um, except all of you, whom I just told.

The giranimals jacket. You thought maybe I was neglecting it? I guess I was a little. To be honest, I'd forgotten how to attach the collar with the backstitch. After a week of trying and ripping and doing something else, then trying and ripping again, I finally got it.

Now, the jacket is all sewn up, ends woven in, neck and buttons attached. Done! Hey, hey, not so fast. What about that giraffe pocket? Oh, yeah. Back into the finishing basket. One giraffe and about 40 bugs. It's a zoo in there!

March & September

Same jacket, same kids. Six months difference. Grown right into it. (Just as I planned - mmmwahhhahhhaa). Now to make it a pair....

The finishing basket isn't empty yet. But before the fiesta can continue, the remaining projects need some work!

While waiting for my zipper, I sewed in the bands on the front of the ribby. I'm all ready to add that zip, unfortunately it's arrival has been delayed due to a little online ordering form snafu. Next week, I hope!

And here's my progress on the ladybug sweater (The little spots on the bugs aren't so visible in the picture, but believe me they're there. Just feel the need after working three colors in each of those rows to be sure that you know: they ARE there!). One more set of bugs to do and then the steeking and sewing can begin. That last bug row is going to be a bitch though, as the neck shaping begins smack dab in the middle of it and I've got to figure out some neck steek solution to shape it properly and yet not have to knit back and forth (as called for in the pattern - I say "ha!" to that!).

And under these lovelies, at the very bottom of the basket, the second giranimals jacket waits, last touched some six months ago. I pulled the poor, neglected thing out yesterday to see how much needs to be done. Some of the parts are sewn together, but once I've gotten the seaming done, I've still got many hours of embroidery and darning work to do on that crazy giraffe pocket!

The boys were tumbling about on the sofa while I was inspecting the giranimals jacket, and I was amazed at how much they've grown since I knitted these up. When I finished the first giranimals jacket, it was huge on B, but now it'll fit perfectly. I'd better get this finished fast before they grow even more!

I forgot the best part of my new shiny happy knitting karma. Remember how I was worried that after ripping out the giranimals pocket and losing some yarn to snags, I wouldn't have enough left over to redo the pocket? Well, after binding off the last row, this is what I had left!

The giranimals pocket came out the right size! I 'd like to think that some of my virtuous finishing last month has changed my knitting karma and that this bodes well for greensleeves. I've still got a lot of finishing work to do on giranimals II though, including embroidering the pocket and sewing the whole thing up, but now that I know the pocket will fit and look right, I'm very relieved.

More possible proof of my good knitting karma: I received some books from my Amazon wish list. The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques, (which is totally awesome) and for my sewing, Singer's Sewing for Children (which Cindy over at Knitting Park recommended to me - thanks for the tip, Cindy!). When the package first arrived I couldn't remember having ordered anything and then started getting worried that I'd become some sort of online shop-aholic and had totally forgotten buying the books. But they were a surprise from my mother. Isn't that nice? [I'm going to have to finish her sweater up soon!]

And can I just say that we could all use a little good karma (or good anything) around here, since we've had sick babies for the last few days. At least the blankies that I knitted for the boys turned out good for snuggling.

After a week of otherwise successful knitting, I decided to forgive the giranimals pocket for going bad on me and give it another try. I'm happy to say that it is progressing nicely, with no major problems so far.

[don'tcha just love intarsia?!]

This time I've got the front of the jacket next to me while I work on the pocket so I can be sure that it's not turning out too small again. I've learned that I need to keep checking my knitting against the measurements given in the pattern's schematic. I've tried checking and rechecking gauge while knitting, but I don't find just checking a few inches here and there all that reassuring. Plus, my real question is, is this coming out the right size. So why not just measure that to check that nothing is going wrong? Which is why it really irks me when a pattern doesn't include all the measurements or a schematic at all. This Phildar pattern that I'm using for giranimals has great detailed diagrams for every piece, except the pocket. Okay, there's a color chart, but I'd have to count stitches and do the math to figure out the size. From the problems I've had with this pocket, you can tell that I didn't do that! (Dooh!) The Rowan pattern I'm using for greensleeves has a diagram with a few measurements like sleeve length to sleeve cap, but then no other specific measurements like sleeve width or sleeve cap length. Some of these are hidden in the instructions (i.e., knit until armhole measures 20 cm, then...), but how hard would it have been to write that in the diagram?! Well, since they didn't do it, I'm assuming that it's just about as hard as it would be for me to do the math myself, which as we noted above, I didn't bother to do either. For greensleeves, I decided to simply jot down measurements from a sweater of my own and work toward those.

Perhaps I should add another step to my project preparation process. First swatch and then make up a detailed diagram, including any missing measurements from the pattern's schematic. Seems pretty straight-forward, I'm sure, for those unafraid of doing a little math. But I tend to get so many different answers when I count stitches, for example, that I don't have any faith in the results that I get. I suppose that in order to become a better knitter, I'll have to forgive math for going bad on me too. Hmmmm....

After working on it the whole weekend, I finally finished the giraffe pocket for giranimals II. And then I ripped it all out. It was way too small. The pocket for giranimals I had come out a bit too big (I had to shorten it to make it fit) and I seem to have overcompensated when making the second pocket. Ripping out all that intarsia work was not fun and the yarn is so fluffy from the alpaca content that it kept catching and knotting. I had to cut a good deal of it out and am no longer sure that I'll have enough of the blue yarn to complete the pocket. I'll get more somewhere, but I'm now annoyed with this jacket and don't really feel like rushing to finish it before the end of February. So there.

Who thinks I should start greensleeves?!

I'm chugging along with giranimals II. So far there have been no relapses of the knitting nonsense that had me ripping out the back over and over again. By neglecting native yesterday (bad Alison!), I managed to finish almost all the pieces of the second jacket. It looks like it's just about time to do another giraffe pocket. Gulp.

I've got six more days of February finishing and my resolve not to start a new project until all my neglected ones were done is weakening. Karen made a good suggestion in the comments yesterday that I simply try to weave in a certain number of ends on native each day and then allow myself to do some more pleasurable knitting. I'd love for greensleeves to be that pleasurable knitting, but I think I have to be good and stick with giranimals. Heck, it's almost done now!

So the new goal is to make slow and steady progress on native and at the same time finish giranimals by the end of February. Then I will have been good enough to start greensleeves with impunity (and maybe another amazing project that is already on its way to me from the UK - oooh, bad Alison!).

...as far as you're concerned ready-to-wear means yarn ends are no longer visibly hanging out of the garment.

I spent the boys' naptime yesterday weaving in ends on native and am only about 1/5 of the way through them. Sheesh, this is going to take forever! I actually wore my old crazy socks for months before I got around to weaving in the ends. Then out of sheer boredom, I just took them off my feet one day, wove in the four little ends and slipped 'em back on. Pathetic, I know.

...you long to start a new project.

I am dying to start greensleeves! I saw a pattern in the new Rowan mag that is perfect, perfect, perfect and I try every day to figure out an excuse for breaking my moratorium on new projects during February finishing month. Alas, I have failed to come up with anything that even I would find convincing.

...you can't knit anymore.

The back of giranimals II has been giving me such problems! I knit the back of giranimals I in what seemed like 15 minutes, but this one I had to rip out three times. Ugh! First, I messed up the armhole shaping and only noticed it when the sleeve ended up being too short. So I ripped back to the armhole decreases, fixed them and continued on until it came up short again. Measure, measure. That's when I realized that I had been measuring from the cast on edge and not the end of the ribbing. Rip back to armhole decreases, knit more, do decreases, c h e c k l e n g t h, and see that it is now way too long. Rip.... Finally, I finished the little bugger.

...you suspect yourself of subconsciously messing up a project just so it won't reach the finishing stage!

If the rest of giranimals II goes as quickly as the sleeve went, I'm in trouble!

...you start to actually like finishing.

Impossible.

No pictures of elizabeth today, since I'm ripping out the neck. After washing, the whole sweater stretched out including the already-loose neck. I'm going to try - calmly - to rip out the neck and knit it a bit smaller, adding decreases in the two rows of garter stitch before and after the diamond pattern. Here's a picture of the edge pattern so you can see where I'll have to be adding decreases. I can't believe that I'm back to ripping. The whole sweater has become too large again and there are still those #@*^! stains. What is the point? Someone remind me.

In fact, there's altogether way too much ripping going on here. Last night, after finishing the back of the second giranimals sweater I had to rip it back to the armholes because I messed up the initial decreases and then after reknitting had to rip it out again because I had measured the length from the cast on edge and not from the end of the ribbing and it was too short. I am so tired of ripping!

The first of the giranimals jackets is done! Chalk off another finished project for February Finishing Month. As I mentioned before I tried to make the jacket large enough so the boys can wear it next winter. No problem there, right B? Actual knitting time on this was just shy of two weeks and finishing time another two weeks! I've merrily begun knitting the second one, but am not relishing the idea of doing another pocket, pocket embroidery, or pocket placement. But, as you can see, this jacket is pretty much all about that pocket! It's got to be among the cutest things I've ever made! "Yea, cool pocket, ma!"

Warm fuzzies = making progress on a project. And the stockinette therapy from the night before last brought me almost to the armhole openings on the back of my husband's vest. Daria wrote yesterday about that moment when the rows of stitches start to become a fabric before your eyes and how rewarding that is. It happened and it was good.

Warm fuzzies = cute animal faces on baby clothes. And here's a sneak peek at the giraffe on the first giranimals jacket. I'm almost done!!

Warm fuzzies = yarn arriving in the mail. And yesterday the rest of the Phildar Legende came that I need to make the second giranimals jacket. As I was needing some soothing, I cast right on and finished the ribbing on the back! Ooohh, alpaca.

Warm fuzzies = going to the yarn store. And so I went and visited all the lovely yarns at a good yarn and even bought a few of the fuzziest for a little friend. And for myself, I got these neat little sweater shaped double-pointed needle holders. Funny, huh?

Warm fuzzies = seeing my boys in their handmade sweaters. And since I still decide what they wear, I put their stripey vests on them yesterday. Cute, cute!

The prospect of a finish-along with Becky motivated me to pull giranimals out of the finish-me-now pile next. After doing a bit of seaming and early trying-on, I can tell that this is going to be waaay big for either of my boys to wear now. Which is good! These jackets were planned for next fall and I started them early just for the opportunity to knit along with Becky (cause she's so fun and talented and helpful...). So I was hoping that they would be large enough for the boys to grow into them. This one sure will be! I sewed up all the seams and then attached the neck with backstitch (cause that's the way they do it there in Phildar-land). I'd never done a neck that way, but Becky talked me through it and it came out looking pretty neat. What's left is the pocket, which is a big pain in the tushie! One little pocket with about a bazillion ends, then embroidery, and finally another tricky attaching moment. Gimme a day or two!

I got a lot done over the weekend and have moved one step closer to my first february finished project. The last piece of giranimals is done - the funky asymmetrical front panel. Here is how the two front pieces fit together. Neat, huh? I laid everything out before blocking to see how it's gonna look. Becky seems to be at the same stage in our tweed jacket knit-along, but has been making some improvements to the pattern. Impressive!

So, how much do I love that little giraffe on the pocket? Well, check this out: hmm, cute jacket; oh yeah!

So all the pieces are done and being blocked now. Once the jacket is done blocking, I'll get out Elizabeth III and start blocking the front and back, which I finished reknitting in the Fall. Then those pieces can lay there staring at me as if to say, 'sleeves, woman; we neeeeed sleeeeeves'.

Wow, both of my active projects are approaching the finishing stage. I finally finished the giraffe pocket for giranimals jacket #1 and managed to knit the small button band side of the asymmetrical front, which leaves only the large front panel to be knit. And the final steek has been cut on the first Dale bug sweater! I've begun binding off the shoulders to attach the sleeves. It's my first time using the three-needle bind off and I love, love, love it!

And now that I think about it, I've still got two old, long-neglected projects, native and elizabeth III, which are slowly becoming official unfinished objects. They will never get done if I don't somehow force myself to pick them up again, rip what's gone wrong, knit what's left and sew 'em up! So with all this finishing to be done and since all the other months seem to be dedicated to starting, I'm going to try to make February all about finishing. Here goes nothing: no new projects until these are done.

Exceptions: (You didn't really believe that up there did you?) I already started brown butter on Wednesday, therefore it's not really a new project and I could work on that. And technically speaking, the on-going giranimals and Dale bugs projects entail two sweaters each, so starting giranimals 2 or the second Dale bug sweater would also be kosher. But besides that no new projects. Come on people, that's still tough! That means no fuzzy feet felt-along for me. No Charlotte. No big, slouchy cardigan. No greensleeves. And no, no, no buying yarn for that as of yet undiscovered perfect project that I just know will turn up in a week or two.

Didn't get too much done yesterday on my two craft-alongs. I started the cute giraffe pocket for the giranimal jacket, but man, it's going slow! The pocket is knitted with a single strand on 3mm needles (whereas the rest of the jacket is knitted doubled on 5mm) and it's intarsia, so I've got tiny needles and big skeins to move around over and over. Ugh! I've only done about an inch and that's all curled up since it's stockinette, so no update picture today.

I did almost finish sewing my needle case (I love the fabric - very Hundertwasser , don't ya think?). I know the case really doesn't look much different from the last picture, but now the seams are all done. Unfortunately, they're all a bit wonky. I'm pretty sure that I don't have any idea about how to properly select the tension and stitch length, etc., so that may be the problem. I'm happy with it though for a first project. It will definitely work (now that I ripped out the first seam and shortened the pocket, my little dpns fit inside) and it rolls up real nicely. I still have to make a little tie to hold it closed. Many, many thanks to Rebecca for her help! I think it has been a great introduction to sewing. (Did you know that there was so much ironing in sewing?? Who knew?) I've got extra fabric, so I think I'll try to make another little case for my sewing notions.

For all out there following the tweed baby jacket/Phildar Legende knit-along, I've made some progress on mine. I finished the first sleeve and then thought that the second one looked so funky in the schematic that I just had to knit it right up as well. As I mentioned before, the front is both wierdly assymetrical and has raglan armhole shaping. That means that at some point the sleeve takes over button band duty. So that's that strange little piece hanging off the second sleeve. I think Becky went ahead and took on the challenge of doing the front. I'll have to see how she managed before I give it a try! Kerrie has posted on her progress with her Legende baby jumper and Clemence is now working on a sleeve for her own Legende pullover.

My sew-along is also progressing. Rebecca has started her needle case, but seems to be having trouble posting pics on her blog. (Frowny face.) She was generous enough to write up some beginner-friendly directions for me (thankful, smiley face) and following those, I managed to sew a hem on the inside pocket piece and then one seam joining the various pieces. I think it looks pretty good so far (and here is a close up of my crazy fabric!). But I've stopped at this point because I can tell now that the pocket will be too deep for my short double-points (yes, I generally prefer the little, short, plastic ones, but I do have normal dpns too). So, I am anxiously awaiting further instructions. Sewing class is on Thursday. We're only up to cutting out pattern pieces, but maybe I can ask for advice after class.

I haven't done too much knitting since my last post, mostly just thinking about what to tackle next. After finishing the back of the first of the giranimal tweed jackets, I thought about starting the front. Logical, right? But then I took a look at the pattern for the front pieces. If you look at the picture, you see that front is asymmetrical, with two different sized front panels each with raglan shaping and a sweet little curve near the neck. In addition to the giraffe motif, the unique style is what really made me want to make the jackets. But, the directions are a little complicated with lots of 'while doing these decreases, also on left side do this and at x cm start doing this other thing...'. Yikes! I've been a little too sleep deprived to be working my way through that right now. So, I thought I would just start on a sleeve instead (the colors are pretty accurate this time!). Besides, I really wanted to get to that chartreuse accent color. It looked so scrumptuous in the bag!

I'm thinking about trying the armhole steeks on the bug sweater this afternoon, that is, if the boys can take a nice long nap for me. And I've also been thinking about this yarn that I got from the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless in trade for lots of acrylics. I'm daydreaming about another Phildar sweater, this one a nice big slouchy cardigan.

The knit-along continues. Becky has begun her tweed jacket and mine is also progressing. Here is the back completed. I can't seem to get the color to come out right in the pictures, but my yarn is unfortunately not as bright as the blue in the catalog photo or the photo on Becky's site. Different dye lot, maybe? It's still lovely though and the accent colors are really cool, so stay tuned for them! This yarn is really great to work with. It is so soft to the touch and is just sliding along my needles (in a good way, that is). Clemence, of ...au fil des augilles... is also making a sweater with this yarn and singing its praises as well. And I hear that Kerrie is using too, but no reports of it yet on her blog!

On the sewing front, I'm hoping to do a sew-along with Rebecca. Yesterday she mentioned wanting to make one of those knitting needle holders that everyone seems to be making and I thought what a great idea! I've seen so many of you make such cool cases and thought that would be an excellent first project. Remember Ivete's needle holder, which she made after getting a sewing machine for her birthday? Check out the incredible one Inga just made with fabric by Kaffe Fassett. Inga's was inspired by this lovely case that Tracy made for Wendy for her birthday. I found a link at homemade slice of chaos which brought me to this little pattern at Miasma. And she was inspired by fellow knitblogger, The Knitting Queen, and so on, and so on...

Stuck at the steek again. Back neck steek this time. The VW sweater instructions say to cast off 35 stitches to begin the back of the neck. I placed them on separate yarn instead of casting off and then was about to cast on 5 steek stitches as I did for the front when I realized that my circular needle was just too long for my new number of stitches. I needed shorter size one circs and the yarn store is closed Mondays and it was a holiday anyway, so no chance.

Never fear, a new project is here!! Becky hooked me up with this fabulous Phildar baby catalog a while ago and it turns out we both wanted to make the same jacket pattern. I was saving these until next fall, but Becky wants to start hers now, so I just had to jump on the virtual bandwagon with her and do another knit-along. Fun, fun!

Since I couldn't continue with my Dale sweater, I swatched a bit with the Phildar yarn, a wonderfully soft alpaca tweed called Legende, got lucky with the gauge and started the back. Sorry to jump ahead, Becky, but what's a girl with the wrong sized needles to do? Today it's off to the yarn store and then back to the bugs!

Check out fluffa! as our knit-along gets underway. And in other virtual knit-along news, be sure to watch Emma and her friend Sissel's knit- and felt-along.