The Baby Surprise Jacket is done, and is quite as charming as I hoped it would be. It is called Surprise, because it looks nothing like a sweater as it is being knitted, and even when it’s done it looks rather mysterious.

Mysterious knitting

Some have said that it looks like a manta ray at this point.  But make the first fold

Less mysterious

and it begins to resemble something wearable; make the second fold

It

and you can see that it is, indeed, a sweater.  The knitting started with the dark purple, and notice how that stripe has become the cuffs of the sweater and also a bold stripe across the top of the back.

Back at you

I love the bold graphic look of how the stripes fall with this pattern. I had some nice slightly irridescent buttons in my stash, so I sewed them on firmly, blocked it, and it’s done.  I don’t have Toddler Mary around to model it at the moment,

Slightly big

 but was able to press someone into service — it bearly fits, but you get the idea. The colors are loosely  inspired by a painting that Mary’s dad, who is also my cousin-in-law, artist Jeffrey Simmons, did, which graces our living room — although the color balance is a bit off here:

Agoard, 1996

from his Rotary series.