Saturday 28 March 2015

Surprise, Surprise!

P1000863You remember that strange knitting I posted about on Monday?

Mags and others suggested it might be a sailor collar. Wrong!

 

P1000869It isn’t a shawl collar either. It took me less than a week on my circular needles to create this rather weirdly shaped piece of knitting. Look at where the cast on and cast off edges are.

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P1000943Turn it upside down, and flip the top edge down and the bottom corners in – and surprise, surprise, it becomes a baby jacket. I am still marvelling at this genius piece of knitting engineering!

Here’s the finished item, with the buttons and shoulder seams sewn.

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I did have enough red wool in the Great Stash to have knitted it all in one colour, but I decided to do the stripes in order to give myself a better understanding of how the pattern comes together. Its called the BSJ – Baby Surprise Jacket – and was designed by the doyenne of USA Handknitting, the great Elizabeth Zimmerman.

I bought the pattern in I Knit London two weeks ago. I had seen it on the Internet but was reluctant to shell out £9 without knowing exactly what I was paying for. The pattern book contains ABC sizes [Adult, Baby, Child] and extra instructions for adding hoods, collars, and making the jacket longer. As I shall definitely be doing this one again, I think I will get my money’s worth from it.

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There are loads of bsj examples on the net. I found these 3 – one with a collar, one with contrast crochet edging and one with a hood – lots of ideas for making variations on a theme. Stripes are optional!

bsj

Has anyone else out there made a BSJ?

… and if so, how did you customise yours?

9 comments:

  1. The jacket is beautiful and what a clever idea.
    Carolx

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  2. Oh jolly clever!!! That looks a super idea!x

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  3. Wow, what a clever pattern. Thanks for sharing, Vee x

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  4. That is amazing. Just one more fabulous yarn project that I will not be trying!

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    1. But please DO share it with the Hookery Crowd, Mags, I am sure one of them will enjoy it!

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  5. I knew it was going to be the EZ jacket before I read the next paragraph! I haven't tried it yet but with another set of new twins on the block (my friend's daughter in NZ has just had them), that's 5 new babies so far that I could try it out on! Yours is lovely, Angela. Happy Palm Sunday to you. x

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  6. So that's "EZ x 2 = NZ" then!

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