When knitters go to a baby shower

or alternatively, When knitters attack! Ok, not really, we're very peaceful people.

Bethie is having a baby and today we showered her with gifts! What great fun it was!

I wanted to try out this pattern for quite some time and decided Beth's peanut would be my guinea pig. It was time to face my fear of an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern. Wonder why I was scared? Just look at this drawing! Here's what mine looked like before it was seamed up. Fortunately, it looked like the pattern picture.
A lovely blob of yarn, eh? With the magic of some simple origami, voila!

A Baby Surprise Jacket (commonly referred to as a BSJ in knitting circles) is born!

Before I give any handmade gift, I make sure it goes through a tough quality control protocol. Here, The Boss gives her final approval (apparently I sewed the buttons on tight enough if they were still secure after some toddler prodding).
And here's Beth receiving the sweater. Isn't she a pretty pregnant lady? She's a relatively new knitter like me, so I know she'll understand the funky mistakes design features. She tested out whether the sweater would fit the baby based on the size of her tummy. I love that method as it's totally scientific and fail proof;)


Anna made an adorable sweater, too. Um, how cute are those elephant buttons? I have a thing about buttons and these were so perfect! Looks like it will fit the baby!
Lisa made something super cute as well, but it was stuck here. Ha Ha, Beth. I know what it is!

A few musings about the baby surprise jacket-
I didn't like the neckline, but since I finished it at 1:00 a.m. the night before the shower, I didn't have the energy to learn the optional crochet edge or an applied I-Cord. I know, like I didn't have three months advanced notice of this shower! Part of the problem was that my slipped edge pattern just wasn't all that neat. Normally, I would have forged through the wee hours, but The Boss has decided that 4:00 a.m. is a pretty cool wake up time this week. Perhaps Beth will loan it to me so I can finish the neck properly. The other thing I was kind of peeved about was that the two areas where I had to pick up stitches ended up on opposite sides of the work so just one side had it showing on the front of the sweater. I'm not sure if this was an error of mine or not so I will have to look into the issue should I try this again. I'm pretty sure I do want to try it again. I usually feel like this with every pattern I try. The first try is to trudge through the pattern, the second is to glide through the pattern effortlessly. It's a lot of garter stitch though and it can be frustrating that it just doesn't look like a sweater until seamed together.

While the yarn is not self striping like I had originally intended, I just loved the colors and thought it made for a good gender neutral sweater. Contrary to what most people think, I feel blue and purple are gender neutral. In fact, the colors are very similar to the one that Amy did, although hers looks much more neat and tailored than mine!

Regardless, I think the lil' peanut will be warm for a winter or two!