New tags

The hat was gifted today to Palak (pronounced Puh-luck), who turned 6 yesterday. I'm most certain it is too big for her, sadly. I'll find out soon.

I'm sorta addicted to creating tags now. (click on images below to enlarge). After about 30 minutes of incredible mess on our glass top dining table, I came up with these. The pictures don't capture the sparkle but there's quite some on them.

front of tag

back of tag with washing instructions

Combined knitting hack

I took up my needles and yarn this evening to study the combined method of knitting. I'm equally comfortable knitting with yarn in left hand and the right. For most knitting, I go continental. With stranded color knitting, I knit with a yarn in each hand. So far, this has been convenient for my purposes. I got down to learning combined method just so I could test its worth and efficiency.

IMHO, the combined method demands flexibility on the part of the knitter. To begin with, my continental knitting method was the following: knit with yarn wrapped clockwise and purl with yarn wrapped anti-clockwise.

1. The combo method banks on the back edge of stitches to be the leading edge on the RS of the fabric.

2. To achieve point 1, you've to use different ways of wrapping the yarn for knit and purl. Get comfortable wrapping the yarn either way, for knit stitch as well as purl. Look for combo knitting videos on the net.

3. stockinette straight knitting:
RS: knit in back (leading) edge wrapping the yarn clockwise
WS: purl in leading edge wrapping the yarn clockwise.

4. garter straight knitting:
RS: knit in back (leading) edge wrapping the yarn clockwise
WS: knit in leading edge wrapping the yarn anti-clockwise.

5. seed stitch straight knitting:
RS: knit stitch: wrap yarn clockwise
RS: purl stitch: wrap yarn anticlockwise
WS: knit stitch: wrap yarn anti-clockwise
WS: purl stitch: wrap yarn clockwise

If you swatch 3. 4. and 5. above, you'll notice that the RS is knit just as you would in regular continental, except that the back edge is the leading edge. At the WS, do what you have to, to create a twist. The simplest way it seems, is to wrap the yarn contrary to what you would have normally. That's really all there is to it.

Regarding shaping, I haven't come to it yet, but I'm not concerned too much, really. There are charts out there that help you along with translations. It was the garter that had me stumped initially.

The benefit of combo? Some swear it's faster. Not yet for me. The same people also swear by the even-ness of the stitches. Girl! It's to be seen to be believed - my swatch is testimony. Oh, and a little-known feature - the gauge is tighter than continental, for the same yarn and needles. That was a curious find.

HOWTO: design cards with stencils and stamps

1. Embossing with stencils:
Materials - light box, some wax paper, your favorite metal stencils, card, assorted chalk colors, eyeshadow brushes (to apply the color), embossing instrument
Method - sandwich the stencil between the light box and paper. Place paper right side down. Rub some wax paper to make the embossing stylus move smoothly. Run the stylus along the edges of the stencil. Turn over and color with the chalks.

2. Glitter with embossing:
Materials - glitter glue pen, glitter
Method - simple enough. apply glue, dump glitter on it. Clear away excess glitter.
This look lends sparkle to the embossing. The white glitter looks the best really.

3. Scruffer with embossing:
Materials - color paper with color on one side and white on other, scruffer (soft sandpaper-like tool)
Method - emboss as usual with the colored side being right side. Rub the scruffer on the embossed parts until the white starts showing through
This is an easy way of highlighting the embossing.

4. Layering with embossing:
Method - say you have the stencil of a flower. One method is to emboss it directly onto the main card paper which folds to become your greeting card. Another is to emboss it on a different colored paper, cut it out and stick it to your main card. You can take the layering to the next level by choosing different paper for the petals and another for the center. This is how different colors can be pulled in by using appropriately colored paper and then layering the parts together.

5. Stamping:
a) Backgrounds - this happens to be the single most complex part of the composition, if I understand it right. The backgrounds can be as simple as a spray of color or extremely layered, with words in different fonts, background prints, blocks of color and effects created by diamond glazes and resists.

b) Masking with masking tape - the masking tape product has a reusable sticky surface. You can cut either a positive mask or a negative one. To achieve this, stamp on the tape, the design for which you need a mask. Cut it out on its outline. The inner piece that matches your stamp is a positive mask and the outer, your negative mask. Can be used in a variety of ways to partially expose the coloring or the stamping on the card.

c) Masking with chemical resist - The product called 'micro glaze' is a sealant and also works as a resist. stamp your design using this glaze. Since it's transparent, you would not be able to see the design yet. Now, rub the ink pad onto the paper directly. The parts of paper with the glaze on it does not catch the ink.

d) heat embossing - stamp your design with pigment inks. Before this dries, dump embossing powder, just like you would with glitter. Clear it away. Now use your heat gun and see the powder gain dimension.

e) filling in color - there are a dozen clever ways of filling in color.
i) Use markers to paint different colors on the stamp itself. While applying the stamp, you'll have a multicolor design.

ii) Certain stamps create outlines of design. These outlines you can stamp either with a darn neutral shade (browns/greys etc or black). Alternately, you can heat emboss these outlines. The inner spaces can then be filled in using watercolors, iridescent colors, color pencils - there's a gamut of products out there. Using negative masks to keep the color from bleeding outside the areas is a good idea. Application can be either with cosmetic sponges, eye-shadow brushes, stippling brushes, or with pencils directly.

iii) Pour 3 (or more) inks in a tray, roll a brayer into it. Now, apply this brayer onto the stamp to get an unpredictable combination of coloring. You can apply the brayer directly to paper, to achieve a layered background.

f) using acrylic boards with unmounted stamps
i) Use mounting foam. Cut out in the shape of the unmounted stamp. Adhere on side of it to the back of the stamp (follow manufacturer's instructions). The other side statically clings to acrylic. This method makes it quick to stick and peel stamps to and from the acrylic handles. However, to maintain the electrostatic property, the mounted stamps have to be stored correctly, on sheets available for the purpose.

ii) Use regular glue to stick to the acrylic. Once peeled, you can clean the residue either with baby wipes or stamp-cleaning agents. This method can only be used with unmounted rubber stamps. It gets slightly longer to attach and peel. However, it saves you some money.

g) blending pencil
This, I hear, is the stamping artist's best kept secret. Look up 'Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencil Blender' online.

The cheapest place to learn this art is at a stamping expo - it cost me 5 dollars of entrance fee and a few hours today. The folks at the booths are the kindest I've known. My favorite haunts are the demos at each. Ask a related question and they'll run to the moon and back if necessary to find you the right answer. The samples they create are amazing to watch being made. Don't miss it next time.

Wake up stamp artists!

Not a single stamp design with the knitting theme in all of the stamping fair 'A stamp in the hand'. Not one.

Anyone who's been to Stitches or TKGA will know the percent of population that knits in the US and as far as I know, it's growing. I've seen knitters to be spenders. Have you seen the bags of yarn carried out of the popular knitting conventions? We love to knit and we love to tell the world we knit. Stamps are a great way of advertising our favorite interest. Think of all the interesting tags we can attach to the gifts we knit, the stickers and buttons (the real kind) we can create. Imagine the greeting cards we can make for knitterly friends. There's untapped potential here.

End of free advice. Never mind that I agree with one of the stamps I saw today: "free advice is worth what you pay for it". :)

For Palak

That's Coronet. The pattern did not have instructions for a 7 year old's size. I applied the general guideline I found in the Harlot's 'Knitting Rules!'. Now, she specifies certain inches for a 'child' and certain other for a 'young adult', without defining either term. I infact went for the latter and perhaps have made the cap tad too big for Palak. I'm hoping her birthday gift doesn't disappoint.

Psst: the book is a good read. The humor had me chuckling. She has these general size charts, which seem to have been processed by decades of knitting. These I'd say, are comforting to carry with you, for quick spot checks on your knitting, especially when you're making something for a gift.

A stamp (or 3) in the hand

Card paper, a fresh tea bag, 2 ink pads, and a few stamps later, I had a few tags. Here's one:



A stamp in the hand is in town again, this saturday. The stamping industry is suffering, I hear. I'll visit the expo this year round just to support it in my little way.

Psst: Both Amee and Misha have been gifted with the hand knits. I heard from Misha's mom today who was so touched by the gesture that it made my day.

For Misha

Misha is turning 3 this weekend. Little girl loves pink I hear. This is her birthday gift from me: the softest pinkest bolero on the face of this earth!

This one's an original too. My pattern came about thus: I see a fluffy cardi in one of many knitting books I've borrowed from the library, which leaves me with an idea. A week later, I hear about Misha's birthday. So I go to Michaels and get the fluffiest yarn (2 stitches to an inch) in the pinkest shade available. Cardinal rule: design machine washable garments for kids, for the Moms' sake. I then park at the closest Walmart and measure (with my office badge), the shoulder width and armhole depth for something that would fit her. The actual design and development was the breezy part. The bolero length just seemed right.

For Amee

Note: Amee is 0 months old. The spanking new parents are my friends.




Psst: an original design



For the pattern-curious:

Books

I've been foraging library shelves and catalogs for all books knitting. Focus is on baby knits and knitting literature (history, biographies of artists, evolution of style etc).

1. Knitting in America / Melanie D. Falick ; photography by Chris Hartlove.
- Read this to learn about the various American women in professional knitting and their lives. Includes Barbara Walker - I'd buy an entire book on her, if one were available.

2. Paintbox knits : more than 30 designs for kids / Mary H. Bonnette and Jo Lynne Murchland.
The sweetest patterns are in here. I've put this on my wishlist.

3. Simple knits for cherished babies / Erika Knight.
A tiny new-born wrap jumped out of this book. For the rest of it, it is what it claims - simple. And too boring for my taste.

4. Beautiful things to make for baby : knitting, sewing, crochet, embroidery.
Practical knitting, sewing, crochet items you can create. I loved this one as it's focussed more on the baby rather than the craft you're using to making something with.

5. New baby knits / Debbie Bliss.
Beautiful knits.

Hope to be busy making new-born wearables to gift my friends. Brimming with ideas, what with all the patterns I'm practically swimming in! There's also the classic surprise baby jacket that I've unvented and written a script for. Exciting times ahead.

Limping back to 'normal'

I've resumed knitting. And the world seems friendly again.

In the meanwhile, much is new.
1. Icarus is actually making beautiful progress. The lace weight 100% cotton yarn is rendering the shawl cloudy softness beyond imagination. I'm absorbing mistakes and resurrecting the next row of stitch-count rather than re-knit and therefore, I'm not slowed down. It's not going to look factory-perfect at the end of it all and I'll be none the poorer for it.

2. I design patterns, cut fabric and sew with much confidence.
my partner in crime: Brother XL2230


3. I love jigsaw puzzles even more than I used to in childhood. The enchantment has only grown!

When was the last time

I blogged or even read my favorites?! Pathetic!

First, sorry, I'm really behind on the tags. I will though, I promise.

Many exciting things to show in the meanwhile.
1. My new 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. It's Christine Graf art piece called 'Bonny Doon Hills'. I've just only started sorting the pieces. They are so bright and so tiny that it delights the jigsaw-maniac in me. Pics in due time.

2. I've sewn a kameez. (browse google images for a visual on this)
Excited coz I drafted it all.by.myself. I have some designers in the family; mum who is self-taught and sis who also got a degree in it - both excessively at ease with the process and frightfully good at it. So yeah, my accomplishment is not a big deal but for what it's worth, I am proud. I need to click pictures next to upload.

3. Hmm.. that's it I guess. Unless I want to blog about my Kathak. It deserves a separate blog and I've no time. :( Ah well.

meandering along the south rim on my coffee table

I'm wandering into the land of other crafts (with knitting firmly in my hands - I'm not letting go of the pointy sticks this easy, no way!).

I'd picked up a 500 piece jigsaw from the Yavapai point observatory at Grand Canyon. I was working at it last week. Here's how it came along:











See that one little piece? That's just to prove to you that I infact have uploaded the snapshot of an assembled jigsaw and not an image off of the cover! :) The piece was fit in place before claiming the mini-project complete.

Next stop: some pattern drafting and sewing. Long overdue as I've a pile of projects pending. This blog is going to be invaded with jots of my cutting/sewing endeavour. Consider yourself warned.

Art

Anoushka, my 5yr old niece sent me these:
Queen and King. Doesn't the King look like he's expecting a hug from the Queen? :)

A beatific angel with wings, and red hair with dark highlights

A cheerful astronaut - note the lady's transport in the background :)

Also, most joyfully accepted were 2 paintings by Roopa from her original collection of oils: Tinted Thoughts

Under the Maple tree

Lonely beach

Spring Showers - of snow!

My friend Roopa and I visited the Grand Canyon last week. Unexpected snow lent much excitement to the trip, to put it mildly. Take a look:

Yavapai Point on Apr 12 '07

Yavapai Point on Apr 13 '07

On the 12th

On the 13th

Shrugged

Relentless repeating of the IK Lace Shrug drop stitch pattern later:

across the back

over the shoulder

along the arm

Yarn: cotton microfiber blend from Webs (Valley Yarn, Longmeadow) from my stash
Needles: US #5 addis (LOVE 'em)
Mods: repeats were changed across and along to fit the gauge and the yardage of yarn I possessed. Just so happened that by the time I finished with stitching the seams for the arms, I was left with not a scrap more! It was nerve-racking until the BO though as I was staring at the skeins quickly diminishing.

Notes: microfiber cotton is the way to go for summer/spring knits with snug fits. Longmeadow is squishy soft and lovely to knit with as well. I've tried Valley yarns of 3 different blends and weights and this far, I'm a happy camper!

Icarus update:
In the meanwhile, Icarus is trotting along. I expect it to be a while before I complete it and I'm in no hurry either. It's my comfort blanket of sorts. I'll always have something to work on where there's nothing else. The chart is easy enough to memorize. All I use it for it a quick peek every so often to confirm I'm on the right track. I'm marking this my zero-stress project and so it goes without saying that a rare mistake will be taken in my knitting stride and gallantly forgiven. It's a blissful way of life - recommend it as therapy to us compulsive obsessive knitters.

Blue Socks update:
I've been wearing them every single evening and night and weekend since I cast off. They look wonderfully worn although not exactly eye-candy. No holes to worry about yet. This pair of socks is most likely to felt first before wearing thin. If that happens, more merino 100% wool Valley Yarn socks will be knit - and joyfully too.

Title change - why now?

This is a preemptive post. I've made a drastic change to the title and this can spell trouble. I deliberated for all of 30 seconds on my options before I went ahead with it. This, in no way undermines the importance of holding on to a title - it's a brand after all. There was a nasty problem with my earlier one and I've looked away from it long enough. The 30 seconds of problem-solving, in this case, came not a second too early.

Begin explanation: the title this far (An Engineer's Day Out Knitting) was quite removed from the URL which suggests 'Deep-Thought workshop'. End of explanation.

Psst: I've launched a new blog: Deep-Thought Lab: A Linux Diary. Good time to set the title straight, don't you think?

IK on my needles

Drop Stitch Shrug

The mighty Icarus (IK Summer 2006)

Uneventful knitting is on and this I say with utmost satisfaction. I'm in a phase where ideas flow, I find the perfect yarn of the most perfect hue in my stash, I chance upon perfect patterns in my homegrown library, and I'm ready with all the notions I need. I'm spending zero new dollars on new projects and loving it. It's guilt-free knitting at its best.

Oh, and I'm finally knitting for myself. :)

Socks and Lace

Anywhere I turn in blogosphere, I either spot elaborate socks or intricate lace. Often both in a single pattern. The commercial patterns (magazines/books) are struggling to catch up and make hay. The lace frenzy was conspicuous at Stitches this year.

I love catching the buzz. But I gotta admit that the excitement puzzles me a little. Either kind of project is knit in fine yarn and consumes considerable time and effort. My Jaywalker endeavour was not the most enjoyable as all the double decreases and increases with #2 US size needles left my joints sore. Then there are the socks with intricate cabling/lace/colour-work designed into them. My worst fear, after pouring love into a perfect pair of socks is that the they'll develop holes. They're socks, they grow holes.

Lace has quite another problem - I rarely find the need for it in my wardrobe. How many formal occassions do I dress up for in a year?

I love to see other knitters' socks and lace though. I am usually in awe. I am working towards them though and am in earnest search for my favourite paraphernelia/techniques. With socks, I'm nearly there. With lace, I have launched on Icarus' shawl from IK using a 100% cotton lace weight yarn bought at last year's Oakland convention.

Lace in cotton? What was I thinking, you ask? Well actually the yarn was bought for a different project altogether, which I later realized was not a good match for the yarn type. I was recently leafing through Amy Singer's 'No Sheep For you' and happened to catch her opinion on cotton lace. Per her, it'll block just as well. I'll find out soon enough. It's coming along pretty though. I'm enjoying the process, the rhythm being quite different from that of colour-work or garment shaping.

With socks, I've nearly found my favourite weight of yarn, size of needles, whether I want a sock-by-sock approach or a simultaneous pair, direction (top-down/toe-up), heel, gusset, and toes. If you'd like to know, it's chunky socks in 100% wool in worsted weight (or perhaps dk if a certain stitch pattern calls for it), top down, and turned heel. Here's a discussion that caught my attention - I'll place this link on my sidebar as well.

I've not tried toe-up but am not too keen either. I get great fit with the other direction and I attribute that to the decreasing (for gusset) rather than increasing. Just today though, I came across a new technique for decreased gusset with toe-up. It's here and here. Really, there's so much going on in this little world that it makes me breathless and excited all at the same time.

Lovuh (a.k.a. Lava)

Liz and Ann, thanks a bunch for replying to my post with your interpretation! :)

I had infact designed it to look like a volcano. Baby blanket being sucked into a molehill was exactly how it was constructed! Among the other interpretations, 'drooping flower' is the best. Life's not always about the glamorous, is it? The last thing I wanted it to look was cute. So I guess my intent was met.

Blue Socks

Speaketh the Blue Socks:

On Fri night, while with friends, I was cast on. #5 16" Addis worked in synchrony on my 'Amherst' Valley Yarn fiber made of 100% merino. Quite early on, I was adorned by a splash of a colour with some mosaic knitting.

I was all but completed on Sat night, if not for a hasty dash to the movie halls to catch '300'. Awesome graphics there, I daresay. I was cast off on Sunday morning, first thing.

Lookie.. I sport a nearly perfect gusset

and a gusset side not quite so.

Despite all, the proud owner dances in her first ever perfect pair of original hand knit socks.

Lovuh

I've been busy and inspired. This baby is my best work yet. 'Lovuh' is a representational sculpture. What does it look like? Leave me a comment. I'll tell you what I had in mind when I designed it but I wouldn't want to bias you right away.





The function Lovuh serves is that of a GPS jacket - well, more of a pullover really. My GPS sits on my dash looking forlorn and quite.. err.. naked. I came up with this project to keep the fella covered when switched off.

The brown yarn was purchased but all other came from my stash. Whatever yarn could be felted, has been. Although the basic conical shape was designed to fit exact dimensions after felting, the rest was free form.

Knitting a cap - design discussion (updated)

Having knit a few caps, here're some notes on the design:

Number of stitches to cast on = 0.85 * stitch gauge (in stitches per inch)* circumference of head (in inches)

If you like a warm ear band of height h:

cast on provisional, knit h inches, purl one row, knit another h inches. Now fold over (along the purl ridge) and join the cast on stitches to each corresponding live stitch. Alternately, you can hem it together during the finishing.

To make the inner flap snug, use 2x2 rib instead of plain stockinette.

Other techniques for making the ear band warmer:
1. Fair Isle/colour stranding: this creates a double layer, making the ear flap 3 layers thick.
2. Line with soft felt. This although may seem like work, will make the cap that much more wearable in winter.
3. Knit ear flaps like the South American Chullo. To make this, first knit 2 ear flaps for desired length which you can join at the appropriate positions once the ear band is knit for 2 rows.

Update:
The no-rib ski cap I'd knit recently hadn't turn out quite as warm around the ears as I'd wanted, possibly because of the acrylic content in the yarn. Also maybe due to a lack of colour-work or ribbing. So you see, the 3 points I'd written above were what I learned from the project. Option #2 seemed to be the best fix and I got right down to the task. I knit and fulled 2 strips, placed them on the inner side and hand-stitched them in place.

The no-rib ski cap with colour stranding

Inner flap lined with fulled strip

Here's to a toasty cap!

Cardi-3d - a design discussion

First, the test results from a sample I knit using the PERL calculator.

Attributes used:
#
#Gauge:
#
Stitches per inch: 5

#
#Dimensions in inches:
#
Circumference of sleeve: 6
Width of jacket: 5.75
Length of jacket: 9
Depth of neck: 1.5
Width of neck: 2.5
Width of placket: 0.8

Test result: Success.

Realistically, I was off on the intended gauge by about 3/4th of a stitch and so the cardi was slightly larger when finished.

Pictures of the knit sample:

Flying carpet? Or a stripey tail-less ray swimming away?

Note the 3 buttonholes.

See the reversing symmetry in the colour striping?

Some issues that I had to ponder over:
1. Technique for double decrease:
This was relatively simple. The one I selected was:
slip 2 knitwise, knit 1, pass slipped stitches over the knit stitch. This one works well as it gives a neat symmetry to the double decrease with the middle knit stitch sitting uppermost and prominent.

2. Technique for double increase:
Here I had a few options that I tested.
a. M1 left and right by knitting into the stitch 2 rows below the new row being worked.
This method creates large holes.
b. yo appropriately and knit into them twisted on the reverse row.
This too has much too much yarn for the stretchy garter to handle.
c. kf/b twice consecutively.
Not tried. If this one doesn't create a row of holes, it will be perfect as the look will match that of the double decrease of choice.
d. pick bridge yarn between 2 stitches, twist and knit into it, knit the next stitch and increase again like the first.
This was my choice as it gives strength and stability by knitting away the excess yarn. No holes to worry over whatsoever. However, the look does not match that of the double decrease.

3. Shaping on the RS or WS
If the increases and decreases all occur on the RS (or the public side) of garment, the stitch pattern thus caused will be available for all to see. If implementing this way, you'll have to select your double increase and decrease patterns to match up nicely in appearance. However, as the ones I had used were not so, I chose to do the increases and decreases on the WS of the cardi. The look is subtle and the stitch pattern in the corners (where the inc/dec occur) do not really become the focus. I liked it this way.

4. Striping
Any guesses on the striping design?

5. Discoveries
Garter is much slower than stockinette-based stitch patterns, and uses much more yarn to knit up the same surface area of fabric.

The cardi-3d is a basic pattern that can be used as template for incorporating stitch patterns and colours to make it more interesting. It's also a warm wrap for infants, the front-open making it easy to put on and slip out. Perhaps a knit belt can turn it into an infant bath-robe of sorts. I also have some ideas on changing the shape of the button panel using short rows.

Derived Inspiration

Every now and again, I spend time running a deep-search on the web for new blogs that suit my taste - some that contain serious study of 'The Stitch' and others that provide knit-eye-candy.

Sara's a personal favourite when it comes to the former. She discusses the nitty gritties of yarn overs, of weaving floats in color stranding, of twisted stitches in relation with the twist of the yarn. This is pure geek if you ask me and I love every bit of it.

Wendy also discusses techniques. Very handy.

I chanced upon 'Joyous Knits' a few days back and discovered her finished-object albums. Just take a look at the gallery and you'll know what I mean!

And look at this: It takes imagination and creativity to take this pattern to this.

Finally, a new set of free patterns: here.

Sneak Peek at my pattern-making

'Cardi-3D' - It's what I'm calling my interpretation of EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket. The beauty of it is in the unique 3 dimensional knitting where you sculpt out the garment as you knit.

I have not yet read the original design but I am most certain that despite similar geometry, it has none of the cleverness that is EZ trademark.

I spent a good part of the day today developing a calculator for my recipe in PERL. User provides desired dimensions of the finished cardi and the stitch gauge. The formulas I developed converts this into complete knitting instructions and prints it out.

Here's a preview. The attributes listed below are stitch counts that are derived from user-given dimensions and the gauge:

-------------------------8<--------------------------------------

sleeve (X) = 36;
jwidth (W) = 90;
nwidth (N) = 30;
ndepth (D) = 13;
pwidth (P) = 6;
jlength(L) = 180;

                   |<---------------- Y ----------------->|
                            |<------- W ------->|
                                |<--- N --->|
                   |<-X/2->|        <-P->
             -     +--------.---n---p----p--n----.--------+ -     -
             ^     | \          |           |           / | D     ^
             |     |   \        n........]..n         /   | -     |
             |     |     \          [    ]          /     |       |
             X     |       \        [    ]        /       |       |
             |     +--------|       [    ]       |        |       |
             |     |        | \     [    ]     / |        |       |
             |     |        |   \   [    ]   /   |        |       |
             |     |        |     \ [    ] /     |        |       |
             v     |        |       [    ]       |        |       |
             -     +........|       [    ]       |........+
                            |       [    ]       |                L
                            |       [    ]       |
                            |........    ].......|                |
                            |         \  ]       |                |
                            |          \ ]       |                v
                            ========[====]========                -

------------------------->8--------------------------------------

The script has been tested for accuracy. I will now proceed to knit out larger samples using the numbers derived from this tool and keep you posted.

International Knit-off

Link here. I have nothing to say on this subject except that I missed it. Yeah, sore about it. And I thought I had my ears to the ground this year. Delusional, you say? Waaa

Nooo... it can't be the..

baby surprise jacket, can it? I have not read Ms EZ's books, and neither have I watched her DVD/tape. I did not even know of the existence of such a pattern - rolling your eyes, are you? It so happened that at Stitches, as I went about studying the knitting techniques showcased by the knitwear on display, I found every now and again, a curious baby jacket with a perfect T shape.

The jackets were knit in garter and had some curious shaping - like the kind where you use the 'dec2' stitch every alternate row to form a right-angle in your knit fabric.

Once I returned, I parked the observation and went about with life as usual. Ie, until I read Ms YH's recent post 'Garter is good' where she linked to this previous post. Ah, so the pattern I'd seen at Stitches was copyright Ms EZ and had a name to it!

The knitting community is remarkably polite (save for hints of racist attitudes I run into every now and again). I googled and found that noone was rude enough to squeel the pattern to the online knitting community. Now feeling warm and fuzzy and also equipped with lotsa pictures (google image search) of the jacket, I did what anyone in my position would've: try a hand at architecting the pattern myself.

So out came some graph paper and tape. I cut 2 T shapes, cut one of them in the center (front of jacket) and notched out the square neck as well. I taped the lower edge of the sleeves leaving the upper edges free. I also taped the sides together.

Before I started though, I had 2 options for cast on:
1) lower edge of the baby cardi and knit upwards (seemed more intuitive)
2) upper edge (though I hadn't yet understood this bit)

I left all upper edges free so I could analyze the options using the paper template.

Paper mock-up

I pondered over my 'sculpting' options. There are 3:
1) inc symmetrically
2) dec symmetrically
3) short rows

Thus equipped, I figured out one method (of many, I'm certain) for achieving the end product.

And launched:

So far so good. Number of stitches CO: 20+9+9 = 38

The completed piece looks somewhat like a flying magic carpet, no? :)
all knit up and cast off

And there it was, the curious jacket, the tricky recipe uncovered:
The back.
Observe the change of stitch-orientation on the sleeves

Scale of the miniscule jacket