Way(le) behind schedule

So, work (and life in general) is currently getting in the way of blogging. So I'm quite glad to be able to sit down now for five minutes to say hello. The past couple of months have been exciting, with no less than five new babies to coo over! Five! That's more in two months than usually arrive amongst my friends in a year. And there's another due in a few days time. Very exciting.

All these babies arriving does mean I am a little behind on the baby knitting schdule though. The recipient of the whale blanket arrived on Saturday, on his mum's birthday (thank you - just a name to remember and not anohter date!), and this is the current state of play of the blanket: 11 squares complete (including three whales, although they don't have features yet, so technically they're not actually complete, but close enough), 5 squares and a border to go (and some seaming and swiss darning). I have sent chocolates, a card and an IOU - just keeping up with tradition, their wedding present was six months late!

The two babies that arrived last month already have their presents: robot and dinosaur blankets. Neither of which I've written about yet, but I'll get there in the end.

 
My son's nursery worker has had her baby, hope she liked the blue and green Beyond Puerperium.

And the other baby is a co-worker who is not expecting a present, so I don't have to make something if I don't have time, and if I do I can just make something small, possibly some cute baby boots.

Yardage chicken, round 2

I told you last week about my last round of yardage chicken, that thankfully came out in my favour, but the final cardigan was too girly for the person I was making it for. So I cast on a second in a more boy appropriate colour way.

This yarn (Hayfield Bonus Buzz) is really well thought out, with the lengths and order of the three colours constantly varying so you don't have to worry too much about the crazy pooling that sometimes happens when you're working with variegated yarns on a constant number of stitches. I did find that it went a little static occasionally while I was working with it, but that might just be me.

I skipped the tension square phase as I've recently used Hayfield Bonus DK and, in my head at least, they should be comparable. I happily knitted the yoke, using my birthday fruit stitch markers, which really made me smile, then sped through the body. I made the buttonholes slightly closer together than on the last Beyond Puerperium, my plan being that I would end up with one more buttonhole for the same number of rows. To be on the safe side I measured the cardigan after the sixth buttonhole and realised it was already the right length. Apparently my row gauge was rather looser in this yarn than with the Stylecraft! So six buttons it is, which is fine by me - more chance of winning the game of yardage chicken!

I managed to finish both sleeves with only a little stressing about whether I'd have enough yarn, and when I finally weighed the finished cardigan I discovered it to be a pretty close call as the cardigan weighed 99g! I added some cute green star buttons to finish, and am really pleased with how it looks. Hopefully it will be appreciated by its new owner.

The classic knitters' game: yardage chicken

Every knitter has the occasional project that they know, before they even cast on, is a bit of a risk, yardage wise. And while they know that they might have to knit the cuffs in another colour, they go ahead anyway, playing a game of yardage chicken. A few weeks ago I cast on one such project.

One of my son's favourite nursery workers is currently expecting her first baby, so I said I'd like to knit something for the new baby. She responded that yes, that would be lovely, and that she wasn't keen on classic baby colours, preferring brights and rainbow colours. So I went ahead and chose a pattern (Beyond Puerperium, a simple baby cardigan that looks great in pretty much any yarn, and provides the opportunity to use lots of novelty buttons), and some bright rainbow coloured self-striping yarn. The yarn isn't something I'd normally go for, but it met the criteria, so I decided to buy one ball, and knit the cardigan in the largest size I could. Yardages given in patterns are often on the generous side (no designer wants complaints that the customer bought the amount written in the pattern, only to run out with a sleeve still to knit), so I decided that I'd risk the 6-12 month size, even though officially I was going to be a few metres short. 

I cast on and happily knitted the body, the yarn growing on me with every stitch. When I cast off the body I weighed the remaining yarn: 32 g. Would it be enough?

I was aware the even if I did have enough yarn, I almost certainly wouldn't have enough to stripe match the sleeves, so I just joined the yarn for the first sleeve as it fell and knitted the first sleeve, weighing the yarn occasionally for reassurance. And I made it to the end of the sleeve with plenty to spare! Hooray!

And when I examined what yarn was left I was delighted to clearly see both a purple section and a blue section, so there would even be enough to colour match the sleeves (approximately at least).

I finished it with some wooden apple buttons (wood goes with all the colours!), and the finished cardi is pretty cute (it must be, even my husband said so). And the yardage chicken played ball - after stitching on the buttons I had 9g of yarn left, plenty!

But you know the best bit? This yarn has knitted up way more girly than I expected (the pink and purple are both rather more pink than I expected from the online pictures I could find of the yarn knitted up), and it turns out the baby is a boy, so I'll be playing the yardage chicken game again when I knit a second Beyond Puerperium in this slightly more boyish colour way...

Should you wish to knit your own super-bright rainbow baby cardigan, I used Stylecraft Wondersoft Merry Go Round in Rainbow.