It seems like my knitting has been just somthing to do with my hands lately.  I haven’t completed anything.  Although I had the best laid plans to join in on a KAL for another BSJ that too seems to have escaped me.  Hopefully, by the time the ASJ KAL comes up, I’ll be ready to wrap my brain around a real project.

Currently on the needles is another slouch hat made with my “recipe” that I used to make the Gray Slouch Hat.  I ended up frogging the Pi Are Square shawl for now.  I do intend to make it, just didn’t have enough of the yarn I was using for it, and would rather it be in a lighter weight yarn anyway.

So what HAVE I been doing?

Well…

1. We did the cold/cough thing for the month of May around here, plus life got busy as it almost always does in the late spring early summer months.   So, that’s my excuse for nothing to post to the blog on actual knitting progress.
2. I’m planting a container garden that started because I was gifted some tomato seeds.  Once you start buying the pots and soil to plant your seedlings though – at least around this house – it seems like now you’ve embarked upon much more than a pot of tomatoes.  We have been wanting a garden for the last few years though, so finally we have been able to actually do just that.  There’s no option for planting anything in our soil.  It’s either rock or clay – and where the clay is workable, the gofers have first option.  So, we’re going with pots.  Besides, where we go, our “garden” can come because it will all be portable.   That’s a good option if you rent.
3. So, with this nice long Spring and late rains, I’ve mostly just been watching the flowers bloom.  Not such a bad thing really, although I do think it’s time to mow the ones that have bloomed in the lawn.

Possible Links of Interest

• Emily Ocker’s Cast-on Tutorial
• Container Gardening
• Elizabeth Zimmermann Books

I’m starting to notice a pattern. A pattern in my yarn-buying/project deciding of late. If I get just a couple of skeins of worsted weight wool, I’m quite likely to turn it into a hat or a scarf.  This is the second time I’ve bought enough yarn to make a pair of felted clogs, and ended up with a different project than intended.

I have wanted to make EZ’s “a very warm hat” for a while now, because it’s such a clever project.  It’s two hats knitted together, and then you push the one up inside the other and voila! “A Very Warm Hat.”

I did the tan part just plain, but decided to use one of her stranded patterns from The Opinionated Knitter and do some colorwork on the green side. The snowflake worked out just about perfectly for this hat.  I then kind of made up a little band of color just before starting the decreases.  The  hat pattern is also in Knitting Around and I believe in Knitting Without Tears only called something like “Two Color Hat.”  It always makes me smile to make one of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s small projects. Some day, I’ll buy enough yarn to make one of her sweaters.  Hopefully I won’t end up wth a houseful of hats and scarves if I do that.

Occasionally I get visitors to my blog who are interested in a free pattern for EZ’s baby surprise jacket. Perhaps there is something out there somewhere in Internetland, but if that is the case, then whomever has posted it is violating a copyright. And, in my opinion, if anyone has earned your money for her patterns – it’s Elizabeth Zimmermann.

Really, there will be no end of the times you will shake your head and smile in amazement at the plain and simple genius of EZ’s “unventions.” Having EZ’s books on my bookshelf is kind of like having my favorite aunt at my house anytime I want.  She’s always there with a great story to tell, and some knitting wisdom to impart.  She makes you fearless, and gives you the courage to just “go for it” – rather than think “I could NEVER do that.”

The Baby Surprise Jacket pattern is one of those times you will experience that feeling of “genius!”   You will want to go show all of your friends what you just knit and have them guess what it is – because it doesn’t look like ANYTHING until you fold it up.

The pattern is found in the book The Opinionated Knitter which, if you don’t have a copy, or don’t want to spend the money for it right now,  can very likely be obtained at your local library. (There is also the option of just buying the BSJ pattern from EZ’s daughter Meg at SchoolHouse Press – which I believe is around $3.00.)

Amazon.com carries the book The Opinionated Knitter as well as the DVD that Meg recently made showing a couple of different variations of this neat little piece of knitted oragami.

Here are links to these items at Amazon.  How ever you obtain your pattern – you may find as many others have – that these little sweaters are kind of like eating popcorn – you just have to go back for more.