Knitting Through the Year - January

"It is a cold and snowy January. The holidays are done with, and Twelfth Night will be any day now: what better time to embark on a long and lovely project?" ~ Knitter's Almanac, Elizabeth Zimmermann

EZ, dwelling in the cold and snowy north, suggests an Aran sweater as the perfect January project: all-white and decorated with cables and knit-purl stitch patterns. However I, who have never seen a white winter, but only the very occasional white weekend or white couple of days, chose a more colorful winter project.

The fact that I had intended to finish this project for Christmas and failed to do so may have also been a factor. Knitters beware: five year old boys take very poorly to a promise and a bagful of yarn as a Christmas present.

Mei-Mei, Twinkle and Munchkin, all with varying levels of enthusiasm.
The green in Twinkle's sweater is more prominent than this picture shows. 

This pattern is also an Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern, the Baby Surprise Sweater. It is one of the more iconic knitting patterns out there. (To the non-knitters: Yes! Famous knitting patterns! Whoda thunk?) It has only two seams, which means that you kit a shapeless blob that looks nothing like a sweater, just blindly chugging along making increases and decreases as directed. And then you cast off and sew along the tops of the sleeves and suddenly you have the cutest little garter-stitch cardigan.

This yarn is called Crazy Yarn and it is made from the leftovers from spinning solid colors. Crazy Yarn and Baby Surprise Sweater is my favorite yarn/pattern combination. I have made it two other times before this little trio, once as a 12 month size and once as a 3T, and I can probably say that this won't be my last time with this combo. There's just no version of this sweater and yarn that's not awesome.

The sweaters were finished in January, but photographed later, hence the green grass.

I love it - and them - to bits.