FO - Adult Surprise Jacket

When my mom first taught me how to knit, she was your typical knitter of her generation. She didn't have many patterns but she had knitted for some time so had reached the point where she didn't need a pattern to make the basics. She had two books, Mary Thomas' Knitting Book and the Reader's Digest Book of Needlework. But she never did any knitting patterns from Elizabeth Zimmermann. I don't know if she ever watched her Knitting Workshop or other TV programs.

When I took up knitting later, I discovered Elizabeth's books and methods. Her writing encouraged me. My first lace shawl was her Pi Shawl. I tried the Baby Surprise and after a couple of attempts was able to complete it. I've looked at the Adult Surprise Jacket and wondered what I could do with it. The possibilities were endless.

When the February Lady sweater was popular last year, a number of my buddies knitted it. I tried it on but I didn't like how it looked on me. But as the months went by I wanted to make a sweater. Other projects were on the needles and wheel that required my attention. During the secret project time I revisited the Adult Surprise Jacket and looked through my stash to see what I could do with it. It naturally lent itself to being striped but the examples I had seen didn't appeal to me that much. However, the construction intrigued me so I went hunting in my stash to see what I could come up with. Several colors were in my Cascade 220 stash to do the job, so I gathered them up to hold until I could start the sweater.

The sweater took 2 skeins of 6 colors and one skein of ivory. It was knitted on size 7 needles and took me less than a month to complete. A friend of mine had said she had done it in one color and found herself growing bored. The color striping made my sweater fun to knit like self striping socks so in no time I had it completed.