Secret project: baby basketball jumper

I have made my first garment! I couldn't blog about it as I was going because it was a present and that would have blown it. But now I can unveil it - a baby jumper for Google Baby. Here it is, in pieces, in progress: 

It's a simple striped stocking-stitch jumper with a shoulder opening. Or rather, it should be simple. It actually took me three tries just to get past the 6 rows of ribbing at the beginning of the first panel. Once I got going it was pretty straightforward though, as there's hardly any shaping. I was really pleased with managing the ribbing around the neck, and with how fast I was making progress. 

Until I started sewing it all together. Here you can see where I've invisibly sewn my shoulder seam (looks good hey?) and my brilliant neckband. Note to self: finishing takes almost as long as making the garment in the first place. 

There were two panics involved in making this. I was very nervous about having enough of the dark blue yarn, and getting more and more nervous as I got nearer and nearer the end of the second sleeve. I decided to hold my nerve and just hope for the best, and the blue just about held out. You can see in the first picture that there was maybe a yard left over. 

The other big panic was that Google Baby has turned out to be a baby basketball player. The day after I finished the jumper, I talked to Google Mummy and she mentioned how he was too big for 6 - 9 months clothes. *Gulp* 

So I blocked it. 

Some knitters I know have told me how they don't block things as it flattens out the stitches and they don't like the effect it has. On the other hand, if your carefully hand-knitted baby jumper is too small, what can you do? Block it so that it's bigger by half a size, is what. 

Happily, word is that junior Michael Jordan does fit into the jumper (and he looks really cute in it too, if I do say so myself). Although with all I've found out about miracle-blocking, I don't know actually know what happens to a blocked garment when it gets washed. But at the rate he's growing, he'll only be able to wear it for the next two weeks anyway so it might not even need washing, ever. 

On circular needles

I've noticed that a lot of US knitting patterns seems to use circular needles. Like, a LOT. One of the things people seem to like about knitting garments in the round is that there's hardly any finishing involved - no side-seams to stitch up or anything. 

On the other hand, it kind of feels a bit cheaty to knit in the round to avoid finishing. I don't really know why. I just seem to have conceived a distate for circular-needle-knitting. It's mainly to do with not wanting to end up buying more and more equipment - circular needles don't only have a gauge but a length (they could be 40cm, 60cm, 80cm, 100cm) so you could end up with zillions of needles. This pattern for example wants two lengths of 3.5mm gauge needles. Or look at this tank top. It's great (although well beyond my capabilities - intarsia and fairisle? I don't think so) but uses two lengths of circular needles in the same gauge again, plus another one. And it's not even to avoid finishing, as front and back are separate pieces put together with side seams and shoulder seams. 

Either I will have to start buying more and more circular needles (which are an absolute bastard to store incidentally) or I will have to resign myself to not trying any of the really cool free patterns on US sites. 

What's wrong with straight needles anyway? 

Learn mattress stitch. Really.

So I got a new acrylic cheapo yarn in the pound shop, this time at £2.50 a ball. (I know, a bit of an investment.) 

And as the weather has turned autumnal I decided to use it for long wristwarmers. Didn't take long - a couple of evenings each hand. This is the result, and I like them. I shaped them into the wrist slightly with k2tog, and then out again for the hand a bit with m1, so they fit quite snugly. 

In fact today I finished them,  and in order to wear them for the first time - to the supermarket - I went and changed three times to find an outfit that worked around the slightly garish pink shade. (Usually it only takes me two changes of clothes to decide what to wear to Sainsbury's (one in the case of Tesco's))

I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit, because first I spent a an hour finishing them this morning (whilst watching Antiques Roadshow). There's a reason it took so long. Unfortunately I decided to put into practice this fabled 'mattress stitch' for the seam. The reason this was unfortunate was that I only decided to use it when I got to the second one, not the first. 

Once I had done this mattress stitch seam I realised what everyone had been going on about. Turns out that it's makes a really neat almost-invisible seam. As you can see at the top of this picture. Compare with the bottom, which is the hand I finished first, with just an any-old-sewn-up-seam. Oops. 

Obviously I then had to unpick the first crappy seam and re-do it properly with mattress stitch. Eventually I had a pair, both neatly seamed with mattress stitch. Nice. 

Moral of the story: believe what all the books and websites say about mattress stitch. It really is easy, and it really is worth learning. And a good finish really does make all the difference to a project. 

Now I just need to decide whether to go for a matching hat or a matching scarf.