EZ is a genius.

Behold, the infamous Baby Surprise Jacket from Elizabeth Zimmerman. This is a project I have been wanting to do for quite awhile now, but hadn't been brave enough to try until quite recently. I'm so glad I did. If you're familiar with EZ, then you know many of her patterns are written more as a series of suggestions rather than clear cut instructions. But, as I found out, if you just trust what she writes without second guessing anything you don't understand, but knit on with faith (she is, afterall, a knitting goddess!), you will realize that the bath mat you thought you were holding about halfway into the project miraculously gains the potential to actually become a jacket.

And here it is:

This is what it looks like before seaming. See the resemblance it holds to a tiny bath mat?

And the seaming is a piece of cake. I used the original pattern from her book, The Opinionated Knitter, which only has instructions for one size. She does point out that by using a different gauge with the same number of stitches, you can alter the size. After first starting with fingering weight yarn on size 2 needles, I quickly realized it was going to be much smaller than I was aiming for (a definite newborn/preemie size), so instead I restarted holding the yarn double and jumping up to size 4 needles, ending up with something closer to a 3-6 month size.

The yarn I used was Knit Picks Imagination in the colorway Wild West. Love it!

And since I held the yarn double, I went through my two skeins before I finished the sweater. So I finished it off with some leftover City Tweed from the hat I made baby last week.

All that's left is to find the perfect buttons. 

:)