workdateknit

Not to brag or anything, but, I found a treasure trove a couple months ago. My mom’s a doctor and one of her patients left her a box of her knitting books and patterns when she died. So, really, I guess it’s my mom’s treasure trove. Technically.

I was at my parent’s house with my sister having a “sewing party” so we could get sewing help from my mom. Both of us are beginners and my mom’s awesome at it so we brought our sewing machines to her house and set up shop.

However, I soon realized the kit I’d bought the year before (this one) was missing the pattern pieces! No wonder I couldn’t figure out the instructions on my own!** My mom had bought the same kit so I went down into her craft room (or, as she calls it, the crap room) and tried to find hers. What I found instead was awesome.

The patient’s box of knitting goodies had ALL of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s old newsletters. Plus these four awesome books. I stayed downstairs looking through all of them for so long that I got yelled at by Annie and mom for missing out on family time. I don’t care. I sorted them all chronologically and looked at all the patterns, searching for the Baby Surprise Jacket pattern. It was hiding in the Knitting Workshop but I enjoyed looking through all the newsletters anyway. I stole two of them since they had really fun afghan patterns, where the structure changes due to miter shaping, like this.

I was most excited about the Baby Surprise Jacket though, I’ve been wanting to knit that for years but never got around to buying the one book missing out of my Elizabeth Zimmerman collection. Obviously, since my sister is having a baby girl in February, I immediately cast on using some baby yarn remnants I had hidden in my remnant drawer. They’re all various colors of Knit Picks Shine Sport. And sweet Jesus, is it appropriately named. It looked like a mess!! I had no idea what part I was knitting at any particular time. Plus I found it really hard to figure out where I was in the pattern based on the decreases/increases. Usually when I’m knitting I can just eyeball it, but I really couldn’t for some reason. Maybe it was the garter that was hiding the stitches from me…but I kept messing up. I think I should’ve looked up modifications on Ravelry to figure out how people used markers. Regardless, I think it turned out pretty cute!!

Note, all of these pictures are from my sister. I gave this cardigan to her for Christmas but completely forgot to take a picture ahead of time. My pictures NEVER look this amazing. (If you’re in the Portland/Salem area, my sister is an amazing photographer and will capture all your awesome family memories)

This was a really fun pattern so I can see why it’s SO popular. I think I have enough remnants for another sweater, though I’m not exactly sure how to upsize this pattern…

**I should mention that when I emailed Gillian, she immediately sent me the missing pieces plus an additional bag pattern as her apology, very sweet.