EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket

What a fun project. As everyone on all the blogs and listserves says, you gotta have faith so I didn't panic. And, it was surprisingly easy to understand how to assemble it, tho' only once I began the button holes. And, what a clever idea EZ has to make them on each side. No fussing where to put the buttons. I'm going to do this each time, I think!

I had so much fun at Annie & Company looking for the buttons. Today I went back 'cause I realized that tho' they didn't have to be all the same, they should be at least from the same series. What a lovely lys Annie's is.

I started this last weekend 'cause I'd forgotten a little vest I was working on at work and didn't feel like sewing the striped sweater/jumper together. I own the EZ books with the pattern, plus the Meg Swanson dvd. However, I also got a great cheat sheet from a friendly not-local yarn store and downloaded something from KnitWiki which was wonderfully helpful. I used KnitWiki's directions for a part of the sweater and followed her advice about changing coloros only on RS rows. Not that it matters with this wild combination. I think it looks rather like an oriental rug, actually. And, I fell in love with the buttons. I'm going to tell Ari that there are two trains because that's how Granny comes to visit.

Materials: ArtYarns Supermerino colorways 171 - the darker (2.4 skeins/250yds) and 172 - the lighter (1.54 skeins / 160 yds)and #6 24" circular needles. I found the yarn a little pilly and hope it wears well. It's about 22" wide.

Another change -- for the collar, instead of picking up 45 sts as EZ recommends or 18/17/18 as KnitWiki recommends, I picked up all the stitches from the fronts and the back so the collar would be full. There were 20 on each side and 22 in the middle for a total of 62 sts. I picked up the collar stitches from the right side and cast off after 8 ridges. Perhaps the collar would fold over a little better .