ASJ Near Final

This is what my Adult Surprise Jacket looks like as I'm knitting. A strange, amorphous blob.

It's also rather big and heavy, which is kind of OK with the chilly weather arriving. When I'm knitting it I don't need a blanket on me.

I'm in the final push now, but although I'm very close to finishing I'm also still very far away.

Now I have to pick up around the perimeter from one orange stitch holder, down the side to the needle, across the bottom and up the side to the other orange stitch holder.

I shudder to think how many stitches that is going to be.

The two flaps sticking up at the top of the picture are not involved. Those are the sleeves.

Not seeing it? Well, maybe this picture will help. This is what it looks like folded up proper.

I'll be picking up stitches from one side of the neck opening, all the way down and around to the other side.

Sleeves!
Since you have no perspective you probably can't tell the arms are 3/4 length at this point.

I left the body and worked on the sleeves for a while in an effort to get in as many colors as I could. This led to me using up the rest of the rest of the turquoise Mist and the dark green Millias. They will not be reappearing in the body. I'm ok with that. Part of the idea of this jacket is to have uneven stripes. (right? right?) And to me it was more important to have the sleeves tie in.

I might make the sleeves longer depending on how much yarn I have left in the end.

They do fit a little better with the addition of the little flap. Not perfect, but I have faith they will stretch.

Flummoxed
The body length is below my butt. The body will get a bit longer because now since I will be picking up around the edge and knitting for a few more rows, which will also close the fronts more.

For all my claims about welcoming uneven stripes I am probably over thinking the edging.

At this point I have the Ella Rae Country Tweed on the needles. I think I'll go ahead and use that for picking up along the edge. For all I know I have such a large territory to cover the Country Tweed will be exhausted on that one row.

If I stay in sequence the next yarn I should use is the blue Araucania Coliumo. On the one hand I like this because it will bring in those bright colors from the top to the bottom. On the other hand, it will also double up on those bright colors at the top.

Part of me is saying I should go back to the Noro Kogarashi that I cast on with. Finish how I started. However, if I make th sleeves longer the Kogarashi is technically the next yarn in line. Of course it might be cool if I could end both the body and the sleeves on the same yarn. Only I don't think I have enough left for that.

Part of me is saying to throw caution to the wind and finish the stripe sequence at the bottom. At this point it would be the blue Coliumo, the bright green Araucania Azapa, and the multi colored Ester Bitran Tirua.

But that is dangerous because the longer I knit the body the longer my final perimiter will be. And boy howdy will I be ticked off if I run out of yarn and have to tear back a bunch of knitting to harvest yarn so I can finish.

I wish there was a way to know how much more I can knit with the yarn I have.

Another part of me, but I'm ignoring it, thinks I should use all the colors in the edging by working just two rows with each of them. For all I know I'll start running out of yarn and have to do that anyway.

It's high drama here. If I'm lucky I'll finish this over the weekend, but I'm not holding my breath.