knit parade: baby surprise jacket

as promised, the knit parade continues.

here's a little something i've been meaning to show you for a while. 

the baby surprise jacket is a legendary knitting pattern in which you follow elizabeth zimmerman's (legendary knitting guru extraordinaire) pithy instructions to yield a finished object that begins looking like this.

and then magically looks like this after a bit of seaming.

i finished this project a while ago back when i knew even less than i know now about knitting.  (just look at the girl at 7 months old wearing it.)

my yarn choices weren't ideal. i certainly would not choose the same yarn for this project again. i love the colours but choosing two different yarns, one mostly alpaca, the other mostly cotton, makes the garment kind of fragile and not as hard-wearing as it needs to be for toddler living.

both fibres also stretch, a lot...  which is great, in a way, because the girl can wear it now. so while i love how the girl looks in it, it's kind of a monet of a project. i wouldn't let you get too close.

it's such a cool pattern though. i've already bought the yarn to make the girl another one for the fall. see? 

(yup, that's right. if you're keeping track, you would know that i shouldn't have bought new yarn. taking a knitting class in a yarn shop was not a good idea. thankfully, class is over. but i am left still wanting to buy more yarn. the cycle never ends. in fairness, i only bought the two balls of noro at 30% off. the fibre company canopy yarn was already in my stash.)