Weedy Surprise

And no, I'm not talking about my garden. It's that Baby Surprise Jacket again. (I'm a little too pleased with myself for dyeing some yellow yarn and calling it "Mustard Weed" so that not only the color, but also the name coordinates with the blue/yellow "Flowering Weeds".) But in today's installment, the jacket is fully completed--buttons and all. I thought I'd mention the rounded neckline, since that's the only modification I made to the pattern.

The original pattern has a squared off neck. I wouldn't normally mess with a square neck, because I really like square necklines, but I just wanted to see what a curving neck opening would look like. In the pattern, when it directs to cast off a bunch of stitches on each side for the neck, I simply cast off 3 at the beginning of the next two rows, then cast of 2 at the beginning of the next two rows, then cast off 1 at the beginning of the next bunch of rows until I had cast off the originally specified number of stitches. The edge was smoothed out with the applied i-cord, but I think it's still maybe a little lumpy. I think I'll be doing the regular neckline in the future; the angles of a square neckline echo the shaping on the front of the sweater, and it just looks right. Favorite part of this project? Doing the i-cord edging. It's such a perfectly gratifying way to finish off an edge. I want to put i-cord on everything now.

I have 2 skeins of Hello Yarn Fat Sock (DK-ish weight, super-springy merino) in Zinnia. I've been trying valiantly to make socks out of this yarn, but every time I get about an inch on my needles, I start having visions of a particular Baby Surprise Jacket (that's a Ravelry link) that I saw in the same yarn--and it was soooo adorable. My real problem is that I'm too selfish to give away anything made out of this treasured yarn, so I've resisted the BSJ urge. Alas, resistance is futile. My weapons are useless. (Save yourselves!) (Does anyone else have lines from Star Trek Next Generation and Tommy Boy flitting through their heads?) I want to cast on today. And it can be my new car-knitting! And I could just knit the sleeves and body a little longer to make it big enough for PeeWee! But maybe I ought to finish the Bog Jacket collar and button bands first. Hmmm.