buttons and more buttons

It's always about the finishing. You can do the nicest job knitting ever, but if a seam isn't smooth or you pick the wrong size zipper or buttons that don't match, it's just not going to be a good piece. The first thing my grandmother used to do when she looked at another person's knitting was to turn the piece inside out. "Look at those seams," she would say. "Sloppy." The first time she looked at a hem I did by hand she asked me to hand her the scissors and she instantly took out my uneven sewing and rehemmed the pants for me.

Now when it comes to seams, I baste, the more often then not, run the seam through the sewing machine. Okay, I heard that collective gasp. And I've gotten it often from friends and students who abhor the fact that I would finish a hand knit sweater with a machine. But in the end, If the seam looks great, it doesn't bother me that it's not all hand finished. That said, the two little shoulder seams on the Zimmerman Baby Surprise Jacket were a cinch to sew up evenly and smoothly by hand. Which left only the buttons.

Mark and I took a drive into New York yesterday to tape a few video interviews for our upcoming book REAL FOOD HAS CURVES. It's a 7-step plan to get off processed food. And Guideposts magazine is doing an online interview with us. Our publisher, Simon & Schuster did one for their website as well. Anyway, the trip in gave me two incredible side benefits. First, I got to eat Incredible Chinese food for lunch at Szechuan Gourmet on 39th between 5th and 6th avenues. Second, I had a chance to stop in M&J Trimming on 6th avenue and 37st to go button shopping.

Unlike the small, sedate, and classy feel of Tender Buttons on the Upper East Side, M&J (in the garment district) is bright, gaudy, loud, and at times overwhelming. But you will find what you're looking for. I threw the surprise jacket on a counter and started pulling button boxed off the walls—Mark helped.

Kids' garmets are more forgiving. If a button is a little more over the top or just plain silly that can seem kind of cute on a 2 year old.We narrowed it down to glass pears, pewter flatware (the parents are both chefs so it all seemed appropriate), but what finally won out were these Italian glass buttons with lemons - in exactly the same colors as the yarn.

Picking buttons for my henley was a little more challenging—there seemed more at stake. This sweater took 32 skeins of Rowan Wool Cotton at $9 a skein. The buttons had to be perfect. But the nice thing about buttons is that they can be changed, so even if I got them on and didn't like them 2 weeks later, they could always be changed (what's another 5 hours in the car back and forth?).

I tried plenty. Round, oblong, plastic, leather, wood, horn. And in the end went with antler. Thin dark slices off the tips of elk antlers, each drilled with 2 holes. They weren't cheap ($3 each) but compared to the yarn it seemed like a bargain.

most popular sweater, ever

Big words, I know, but Elizabeth Zimmerman's Surprise Baby Jacket must be one of the most knitted patterns ever. On ravelry alone there's a surprise baby jacket group with over 3500 members with topics on classes, buttons, help, and yes, finished projects complete with photos. And that last group alone has over 2400 postings. Holy cow folks, that's a lot of babies being kept warm with this one design. But the best thing about it is that each one is unique. And almost everyone puts their own touch to it. One of my favorites was posted by BUZZKNITTER who used a cherry red yarn and only one oversized button on the top giving the jacket a 60s couture look.

For the nonknitters reading along or for the new knitter who hasn't discovered this right of passage, the Zimmerman surprise baby jacket is wonderful puzzle to knit. Done in one piece with strategically placed decreases and increases (to form corners), the finished "flat" garmet is folded origami style with only two short seams to sew at the top shoulders. And voila (did I actually read that someone wrote Walla recently in their blog???), a beautiful jacket.

Since you're working in one piece and you've made corners, part of a single row goes down the front around the back, and back up the front. This allows for wonderful color work that baffles the average admirer.

The pattern only comes in one size, and by changing the yarn gauge you can make it fit a new born or a 7-year old. Zimmerman says to put button holes on both sides, assuming you don't know the sex of the child upfront. But if you do, just make them on the appropriate side. Left of boys, right for girls. Ah sexist conventions.

This one is for my friend Denise's baby - due any week now. I used Berocco Comfort so when the kid throws up on it (as kids are wont to do) it can go from washer to dryer and back to baby in no time.

Frogging on the high seas.

Most of my friends thought I was nuts to bring wool knitting on a Caribbean cruise. Mark and I do a fair number of cruises on Holland America as the guest chefs. We come on board and do a cooking shows and hold private cooking classes on days at sea. Right now, we’re on route south from the Bahamas to Barbados. Which means tomorrow we’re at sea and are going to present three spectacular cookie recipes from THE ULTIMATE CHOCOLATE COOKIE BOOK in the morning in the ship's Culinary Arts Center.. After that, the day is mine to knit on deck.

I grabbed 5 skeins of Classic Elite Water Lilly on the way out of the house 2 days ago to make a reversible cable scarf for my friend Rich R. What I didn’t know was that the yarn was in 2 different dye lots. Ugh. Pay attention folks. No one at your LYS is going to point that out to you, lest you decide not to make the purchase.

As you can see, I sat on the deck this morning working my way through skein one. And 2 inches into skein 2, I noticed the difference. Maybe if I had nixed that mid-m

orning pina colada I would have caught it sooner. But as you can see, there’s a lot to rip.

So what’s the best way to deal with crossed dye lots? Alternate rows. It’s easy to do with circular needles. Luckily I always travel with circular needles instead of straights. I ripped out the scarf and started again casting on with both versions of yarn at the same time using two needles. Then I worked my way across the first row splitting each stitch into the individual yarns. So my cast on and my very first row had a nice combination of both dye lots. Now here’s where circular needles save the day. I worked my way across the next row using the yarn from ball A. The instead of turning my work, I slid it back to the other side of the circular needles and worked my way across it again using the yarn from ball B. Then I repeated the process alternating yarn from each dye lot in each row.

It’s actually making for a much more interesting colorway. But as I said, I have 5 skeins of yarn and 3 are from one dye lot and 2 are from another. So I’ll work 4 skeins this way and see if the scarf’s long enough. I’m making it an inch narrower to make the yarn go that much farther. I’ll post the finished piece when we get to Barbados in a few days.

ON YOUR MORNING

Lucky Me -

I'm lucky. My spouse Mark (yes we were married last year, woo hoo!) wears everything I make him. Well, almost everything. He has one raglan sleeve sweater in Malabrigo that I made in the round from the top down and he'll only put that on when it's in the single digits outside. This man sweats at the thought of wool. And he won't touch a hat, so I don't bother to make them for him, much as I would like to.

But for the most part, he picks out the yarn, scours the patterns and books in my studio and picks out what he wants. He just asked for the 6-button henley that's in KNITS MEN WANT. By the way, the photos for the book, including the henley shot below were taken by Jared Flood, AKA Brooklyn Tweed.

Mark picked a brown rowan wool cotton from my stash for his henley, a good choice for a guy who sweats. But like most men he hates fittings and I know better than to try and get him to try anything on. I measured an older sweater of his for the measurements, but didn't take into account that he's trying and succeeding in losing weight. I should listen more when he tells me his clothes are starting to hang on him. The body finished and the sleeves ready to be picked up and knitted down, I slipped it on myself to get a sense of size. You know that feeling when you put on a piece of clothing that fits so perfectly and hangs so well on you that you never want to take it off? Uh oh. If this fits me so well, his new slimmer physique is going to go for a swim in this sweater.

And here's where the lucky part comes in. He comes in to my studio, sees me in his sweater, sees how amazing it looks on me, and before I could even offer to rip it out and start again, he tells me that he would be delighted if I kept it for myself and just made him something else when I'm done. So what's he going to get? Probably the same henley, but in a different color than mine.

Which, by the way, has 1 sleeve left to go, then it's off to Tender Buttons on east 62nd street for the perfect finishing touch. I'll share pictures of that experience in a few weeks.