In Which the Pirate Reveals the Surprise.

At last, the veil of secrecy is lifted, and I am pleased to present the Baby Surprise Jacket that I made for Janis’s StarDemon! It is the second Baby Surprise Jacket that I’ve made out of single-ply yarn from 100purewool, and I noticed the same things: first, the yarn is delightfully soft. Second, about 75% of the way through a Baby Surprise Jacket, one hits a wall of garter stitch and lags on making progress because one cannot imagine the sweater ever truly being finished. But eventually, it is done and seamed and given as a gift, and I am quite pleased to be checking it off my to-do list.

I had the bright idea to knit bobbles for buttons. These are great for baby sweaters because they can never come off to become the world’s worst choking hazard. Unfortunately, the bobbles I knit weren’t big enough to fulfill their function as buttons. Instead, they just slipped out of the buttonholes. First I tried to pass that off (“It’s, um, a cardigan! With useless buttons!”) and then I tried to deny the need to make them bigger (“Oh, he’ll only be wearing it for a couple of months anyway”) but then I gave in to the reality that no, they really needed to be bigger. After a couple of attempts to make them bigger by stitching into them and making French knots around them, I eventually decided to just crochet around them.

I tried to use sections of yarn that contrasted with the colours of the original bobbles. The result looks a lot like flowers! But the next time I want bobbley buttons, I’m going to crochet them on after the fact. Knitting bobbles is sort of a pain, and crocheting around them was just a little bit fiddley. If I can avoid that pain and fiddliness, I don’t see why I shouldn’t!