Surprise, Surprise!

You remember that strange knitting I posted about on Monday?

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

 

It 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.

Turn 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.

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.

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!

Has anyone else out there made a BSJ?

… and if so, how did you customise yours?