Ah, the sweet smell of finished objects

Today's post is all about basking in the glow of Finished Objects, fresh from the oven. I need to write about them, capture them, so I will be able to tear myself away from their warm embrace and send them off into the world. Sometimes it's hard to watch the FO's leave the nest.

Lessee.. where did we leave the 2005 count? I think the last official number handed out was FO-2005-12 for Blue Stripey, so I suppose #13 was the Granny's Flower Basket "shawl" and we'll let 14 be the trio of identical Cascade Jazz hats. It's a little weak, but I'll give #15 to the pair of bias-knit sequin scarves knit during the Lost Week of evil head cold. They were my first Christmas knitting, after all.

And today we have FO-2005-16: Devan and his little pal FO-2005-17: Toddler Jacket with turquoise buttons

FO-2005-16: Devan

... has been off the needles for weeks, but unseamed. Devan is a Knitty pattern from Spring 2004 and uses self-striping sock yarn for the sleeves and fronts (Schoeller and Stahl's Socka Fortissima Colori, color 9045 - Acapulco from the Safari line) with a coordinating solid (Wildfoote luxury sock yarn in color SY-042 - Mistletoe) for the back and the cuffs/button band/hems. I used up all but about 10 yards of the Fortissima, but I have 95% of my second skein of Wildfoote left. What the heck will I do with it? Anklets?

The knitting was quite straight-forward on teeny tiny size 2 needles. Some of the finishing was a bit fiddly, like deciding how to seam the cuffs so they rolled properly and making sure I picked up enough stitches around the neckline. I never read neckline pick-up directions anymore, since a January class with Sally Melville. I also did some tiny modifications around the shoulders (three-needle bind-off) and back of neck (left the stitches live instead of binding off & picking up. Works either way.). And there was one dramatic knitting rescue provided by my darling spouse-o. "How are you going to fit buttons throught those little tiny holes?" Oh. I re-did the button bands, wrapping my yarn-overs twice to make the buttonholes large enough for my adorably cute 5/8" buttons.

And so after much fussing, Devan is here, seamed & pressed. I *love* this little sweater, enough to apply one of my 6 remaining "Hand Made by Mary" labels* to it. It's now ready to wash and deliver to Baby Sreekar, who was born on October 5th.

*(Poking around the web tonight, I found a source for those "Hand Made by.. " labels. I think I'l order up another 20. The first batch lasted from, oh, 1989 to present. I'm guessing another 20 should hold me until 2021.)

FO-2005-17: Toddler Jacket with turquoise buttons

The Toddler Jacket using one enormous skein of a yarn from Plymouth called Italia Fingerpaints color #58 "Autumn Leaves" (I did *not* pay that much.) This project is is a complete antidote to Devan. Size 17 needles instead of 2's. No need match the colors of any part of it to any other part. This sweater has been finished since September 25th, except for the buttons. I found these cute triangles during a lightning raid on Imagiknit last Friday and finished all seaming & weaving Sunday at S-n-B. I'm in love with this yarn and this cute little pattern.

My big advice on knitting this sweater is Do Not Cut Your Yarn Between Sections. I left everything attached as I moved from the body to the sleeves to the collar until I was certain I had enough yarn to finish the whole project. And I did re-knit the bottom of the body about 5 times until I felt like I had enough yarn remaining for two whole sleeves and a collar. After much cursing, I decided to start the sleeves 2 rows earlier than the pattern called for (13 sts in each front, not 14) and adapted the trim for each section to have 2 garter ridges, not three, to save yarn. I ended up with exactly 1.5 inches of tail after fastening off my much-shortened collar. Phew!

The Toddler Jacket goes to 7-month-old niece Sarah in Philadelphia, where she can really use a nice warm jacket for fall. Here's hoping my smallified jacket will fit her!