Well, pretty much. Here it is fresh off the needles:

And folded into position:

In that photo, the seams on the top of the sleeves need to be sewn up. Here it is with the seams sewn:

In that photo, I’ve finished off the neckline. I picked up stitches around the neck and cast them off as I picked them up.

And the buttons from the Button Drawer came yesterday! From Colorado to the east coast, it took just a couple of days. Great service! And I think the buttons I picked are perfect. See?

Seriously, how perfect is that button?

I did cast on a hat and got started on that, but I got a little distracted by this laceweight yarn that also came yesterday.

I wound it today.

Lucy is having a good day today. She was nervous all day yesterday as tropical storm Hanna came through and dumped a lot of rain all day. It’s a beautiful day today and all is contentment chez WendyKnits!

I’m still happily knitting along on the Baby Surprise Jacket. See?

It’ll definitely be finished by Sunday’s blog entry. give you something to look forward to.

I ordered three skeins of the Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport for this, although I didn’t think it would take more than two. Why the third skein? For a matching hat and booties, of course! When I finish the sweater I’ll whip up some accessories.

Speaking of accessories, I recently got this nifty little bag from The Loopy Ewe.

It’s a “Beanie Baggie” from Mind Your Knitting. The Loopy Ewe is sold out of them at the moment, but hopefully they’ll get some back in. They had them in four colors, but for me it was no contest: I had to have the green polka-dotted one.

This is a little pouch to contain your skein of yarn and keep it tidy and in one place. The bottom of the bag has a built-in bean bag to weight it down and keep it in one place. There is a drawstring opening that you can adjuest to suit your needs. It is fully lined and beautifully made. I love mine!

One of the reasons I love mine so much is that the fabric is almost identical to that of a Bobbie Brooks bathing suit and cover-up I had when I was a nubile young teen. Remember Bobbie Brooks clothes (those of you who are my contemporaries)? I wondered what happened to them, so googled. Apparently the company had financial difficulties in the 1980s, filed for bankruptcy, and reorganized. While they are apparently still around, they phased out their line of junior miss clothes.

Just in case you wondered.

Thanks for all the recommendations for button websites. Today I ordered some buttons from The Button Drawer that were quite reasonably priced — $0.90 each. They are blue/lavender bunny faces. These. Aren’t they cute? Check out The Button Drawer — they have a huge selection of very cute buttons and wonderful customer service. My order has shipped already!

Lucy sez:

“Is it the weekend yet?”

Those of you who guessed “Baby Surprise Jacket” were correct — that’s what my current knitting is.

Would you believe I’ve never made a Baby Surprise Jacket before? I’ve admired Elizabeth Zimmermann’s feat of engineering from afar, but my opportunities for baby knitting are not frequent. I do, however, have such an opportunity coming up, as there will be a baby born in my family in a few months.

I’m using Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport in the “Georgetown” colorway and a US 3 (3.25mm) needle to knit this. The recipient will be a boy, I am told, so I chose what I thought was a baby boy-appropriate colorway.

Now I need buttons. I’ve googled around a bit, but if anyone knows of a good online source of cute buttons for baby clothes, feel free to plug ‘em in the comments.

I brought my DC Sunrise shawl to work this morning and hung it over the back of my chair. It certainly brightens up my otherwise dreary office.

There was a question in the comments about the finished dimensions of my shawl: it’s about 70 inches across the top and 35 inches down the center back.

Another question about lace knitting:

Do you have any advice for keeping the center back yarn overs from wandering. I put in a stitch marker but the darn thing ducks under the yarn overs and six rows later I see my center holes have taken a jog to the left by one stitch. All kinds of frustrating!

I gave this some thought — I’ve never actually had that happen. My stitch marker stays put. I’m wondering if it has something to do with the size of the stitchmarker? I use the little rubber ring-type stitch markers most of the time. They stay put pretty well.  They are also large enough so that the yarnover isn’t really able to climb over the marker.

The only other advice I have is to remain vigilant. Look at your center stitch every row when you get to it to make sure nothing wonky is going on!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Lucy relaxes. For a change.

Thank you so much for all your lovely comments on my Shetland Triangle Shawl. It’s really a very simple pattern — a good first “big” lace project for a lace newbie, in fact. What makes mine so gorgeous is the yarn.

As I said, I used handspun wool from Zarzuela’s Fibers. Jessica had dyed some roving inspired by photos I take of the Washington DC sunrise every day. When I saw the roving, I asked her for a custom spinning job on it because I simply can’t spin any more. Unfortunately it aggravates my back problems.

So Jessica spun up her hand-dyed roving for me and I think anyone who looks at my finished shawl will agree that she did a spectacular job of this yarn from start to finish. Jessica updated her shop today, and she’s got a lovely new colorway called Stormy Dawn, along with many other gorgeous colorways, including the one used for my shawl, DC Sunrise. If you don’t spin, you can contact her about doing a custom job for you.

I’ve been giving my hands a rest after knitting the shawl, but I did whip up a pair of socks.

These are baby socks, knit from some leftover sock yarn. The pattern is a top-down, no-pick-up gusset sock with a star toe. Very easy to execute. You can find the pattern in the Fall 2008 issue of Knit Simple magazine (the current issue) and it’s my design. There’s a matching pattern for adult-sized socks as well.

The baby socks take no time at all to knit. Here’s a photo to show you the actual size.

Lucy included for scale.

So I’m on to something else, using this yarn.

Can you guess what it is going to be? Here’s a hint:

Oh, one last thing:

Kitty lips!

Before blocking:

Quite textured before blocking — it looks like a rocky terrain.

Blocking eases everything out!

The pattern calls for 8 repeats for the body of the shawl. I did 12. You can see it is a good sized, lounging on the couch:

A close-up:

And on my mannequin:

Knit from handspun merino wool from Zarzuela’s Fibers. The colorway is called “DC Sunrise” and I had 660 yards, and used every bit of it.

Happy Labor Day!