This week – at the eleventh hour – I busted out an emergency Baby Surprise Jacket in time for the imminent arrival of Mark’s wee nephew, Ben.

Knitting this made me remember everything that is good and true and wholesome and wondrous and restorative about knitting, and I am jazzed about knitting in a way I can’t remember having felt for months, and I have already ordered yarn for my DECO cardigan!

The Baby Surprise Jacket is a triumph of design, and Zimmerman is a genius. I love the simplicity of the garter stitch, the back and forth straight knitting, the pleasingly-placed increases and decreases, and the always delightful finale when your strangely-shaped little bit of work is magically transformed into a jacket via a couple of nifty folds. There’s a video here which shows the process perfectly; it really is a very clever pattern.

I knit Ben’s BSJ on the plane to Belfast, on the train to Gatwick, and in the evenings on the sofa. We didn’t know until 8am on Sunday morning that the new arrival to the clan would be a boy, and so the buttons were sewn on in the car on the way to the hospital.

The colourway – which is called Robin – was dyed by the fantastically talented Jeni at Fyberspates. I hope it will keep Ben warm this Winter. The BSJ is a little on the big side now, as Ben is still super tiny and when we saw him yesterday (aged 11 hrs) he hadn’t fully uncurled from the wee seedling pose assumed by the very newly born.

Specs:

Pattern design: Baby Surprise Jacket by the redoubtable Elizabeth Zimmerman
Yarn: I think it’s dk scrumptious, dyed in Robin colourway, by the talented Jeni at Fyberspates
Needles: 3mm knitpicks interchangeables
Ravelled: here