Knitting an Amoeba

One of my friends is very clever. Actually I think most of them are very clever but this friend has shown particular skill and organisation at a difficult time. What is it that she has achieved that is so marvellous to my travel-worn and weary little self? She has arranged things so that she will not be commuting to Birmingham during the train disruption (all hail!).

Many people might consider that she merely chose this as the appropriate moment in her life to produce her first child but I know, I have shared squashed and squeezed train journies with her, sat on the floor of the Virgin train vestibule knitting away and happily discussing a pair of socks named Bob and Sebastian and which was being naughtier at the time (we got some great looks that morning) and so I know that it was with a deep desire to thwart the train companies that she decided that a baby due next week would be the perfect thing!

Of course all such efforts of ingenuity must be rewarded with knitwear for the infant-to-be and so last week my stress relieving knitting was the garter stitch joy of a baby surprise jacket:

It starts off looking rather like a mitered corner rectangle and then it just gets crazy!

This is the finished amoeba (sorry), knitwear; pre-folding! I asked H to make it into a jacket shape for me and after several fruitless minutes he declared that it was not a jacket, it was swaddling. He's just been reading over my shoulder and says that it now looks like a taco!

Happily for the baby he was wrong!

Sunday afternoon I had a little raid of my button box - my button box has a huge variety of wonderful shapes of buttons but rarely a set of anything so I was very pleased to find these fish buttons in a variety of colours and just enough to pick out the yellow and the turquoise in the jacket.


My model thought he looked rather smart but I'm sure the baby will look much cuter.

And my friend's response? "It's a Baby Surprise Jacket with the shoulder seams sewn!" - Praise indeed.

Actually the seams were rather fun because there's no shaping on baby shoulders - you start off like this:

Give it a little tug and it all looks like this:

A very satisfying sort of magic!

For enquiring minds who might want to know, the yarn is Regia 6ply square in colour 1125 which I have a funny feeling might be called circus - it's certainly cheerful for a winter's day!something