Blissful Jacket and Mama's socks

We finally had a chance to take some photos of my Blissful Jacket!


Pattern - Blissful Jacket from Interweave Knits Fall 2005
Yarn - Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed in Jewel, 7 1/2 balls, Trim in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in burgundy, 1 ball

I was attracted to this pattern because:
1. I liked the idea of knitting a sweater that looked like a suit jacket
2. I always wanted to knit a reverse stockinette sweater
3. I really really wanted to knit something on needles bigger than a size 3

I like this sweater. I don't know if I'd wear it on a regular basis, but it was a fun easy knit and the yarn was from my stash. Yay! I love the yarn - Silkroad Aran Tweed is so soft! Some thoughts:

- Here's a refresher photo from the magazine:

I took off the fringe and didn't put stripes on the collar. But after knitting it, I could see why DB put the fringe - many, many stripe ends to weave in of which I did a poor job. No, I'm not posting a photo, but let's just say I'd be embarrased to take it off in public.

- Seaming a reverse stockinette sweater is hard! The seam really folds in and I still need to give the sweater a final blocking to straighten them all out.

- There are two things that I didn't like about this pattern. One was the collar.

I think there's a mistake in the pattern because for lapel they said to decrease or bind off one stitch every other row. If I did that, the collar would have been way past my sleeve. So I bound off two stitches every other row. I still don't think my collar really looks like a collar but my hair seems to magically cover it up.

- The second thing is the back striping. There are darts about a third of the way through on both sides of the back. I didn't think much of this until I started to install the stripes and Ms. Bliss told me to weave the stripes, "working around decs on back as best you can". What?!?!?! First of all, there were no good photos of this sweater, which should have sent alarm bells off in my head. Second, there are NO photos of the back so they probably didn't even bother striping it. So the back striping took me the better part of an afternoon, with lots of consulting with Rob. This is what I ended up with.

Eh, good enough.

I finished Mama's socks on Friday and gave them to her today.

Pattern - Umm... well, we'll call it a modified Knitting Pure and Simple pattern.
Yarn - One ball of Knit Picks Sock Garden in Hydrangea

Socks are fun! And addicting! And great gifts! I liked this yarn (so soft!) but I didn't realize that it's not superwash, so I probably won't use it in the future. Can you believe Mama never even peeked at her socks? What self-control! She said they fit great. For my family, I kind of just fit them around my own foot and make them bigger or smaller as necessary. That's my kind of knitting, not using the measuring tape.

Last thought - does anyone else have as much trouble taking photos of their projects as I do? I make Rob take so many photos in hopes that one will turn out ok.