BSJ fun

After a long hiatus from baby knits, I'm back at one. My co-worker Luis and his wife are expecting a baby in September, and they're being old school and not finding out the baby's gender in advance. Another co-worker and I are planning a co-ed baby shower to let more guys from work come. We're avoiding cheesy games (like wrapping toilet paper around the mom-to-be's tummy) but looking for good ones, like bringing baby pictures and having to guess who's who. I decided to make my first Baby Surprise Jacket since I've got a month to knit the thing.

I dug out this lovely skein of STR lightweight in Marbles that I won in a contest over at Irishgirlieknits ...



and immediately cast on. It makes a great BSJ, but I was a little worried about the colors. The reddish-pink could look awfully pink, and what if the baby's a boy?



So I consulted co-workers (since the dad-to-be is back in Spain for a few weeks, I could openly run around with the project at the office!), Flickr peeps and my mama. I *want* to think that the world is cool with baby boys wearing a titch of pink, but I just don't know how the recipients would feel about the thing. I set the whole thing aside to finish later and went back to my sock yarn stash. This guy was sitting on top:



Why hadn't I noticed it before? The perfect baby green! Onward ...

EDIT: Almost forgot - you can still enter my yarn contest!

my first shawl

First, a reminder - I'm giving away yarn!

Now that that's out of the way, I can share my latest FO: a shawl.



It's the Simple Yet Effective Shawl, knit from a skein of JulieSpins Not Sock Hop - Crown Mountain Farm roving (colorway: "It Takes Two, Baby) spun up into 432 yards of yummy sockweight goodness. I stumbled across it in Julie's Etsy shop a while back and decided to make it my first-ever purchase of handspun.



It was wonderful to work with. The finished shawl is so soft. I foresee myself making another one (or two?) of these in the future. It's such an easy, portable pattern.

My only mod was to keep the center stitch a stockinette one throughout (knitting on the right side, purling on the right side . I also just played each panel of stockinette and garter by ear.

For now, I'm getting back to my Ishbel. I'm afraid it's too small (I'm knitting it on US4s and I am knitting the smaller size), so I might rip it back to my lifeline and do the larger stockinette portion. We will see....

yarny giveaway!

This isn't some landmark blog post. It's no. 233. But in all that time I haven't had a yarn giveaway. I've amassed a lot of sock yarn over the past two years. A kind of scary amount. So I want to give a few skeins away to my fellow knitters!

The goodies up for grabs are:



Fearless Fibers super-soft 100% merino sock yarn in a very generous, 550-yard put-up in a golden-y shade called Greed (apropo, since I tend to be a bit greedy about sock yarn...)



And Knitterly Things Vesper Sock Yarn in Indian Summer. It's a club offering from last summer's sock yarn club - a merino-tencel blend - very soft and shiny!

There's one catch - you have to leave a comment here and tell me about a blog you like, be it about knitting or cooking or fitness, all of which are things I enjoy.

Leave your blog addy or e-mail in the comment form, too, so I can get ahold of you. This is open to U.S. and Canada peeps - sorry to those farther afield.

I will keep this contest open until Wednesday, July 1.

P.S. If I somehow manage to get more than 100 comments, I might throw a third skein of sock yarn into the pot to better your odds ....