Valentine’s day slid past me with a slight nudge.
14th Feb is a day for reminiscing and admiring one of the strong women in my life. My aunt ( Maami ), born and bred amidst the intellectual and artistic realms of Shantiniketan, married to my charming, easy-going, handsome Uncle ( Mama), spent her life on ships-on-sea, homes-in-gardens, adventure and clear goals. Her daughter is a very charming, sensible and superbly adventurous adult and a dear friend. When I was a young rebel with clear ideas on making my parents miserable, it was Maami who could empathise with my quest for finding answers to the usual questions. She left us all on 14th Feb many years ago, after a brief and brutal time with cancer, and I think of her strong beauty on most days, more on 14th Feb.
Sunday was all about knitting, counting stitches, plotting colours and knitting. Some time was taken out for basking in the winter sun, taking an afternoon doggie nap, watching my latest macabre favourite serial, Hannibal and escorting Biskit on her field trips at midnight and beyond. It is the way my Sundays are spent in Ranikhet and I love that routine, regular schedule.
Three days have passed after the V day, but I have to tell you about knitting the most amazing and neat knitting pattern of the world. My favourite, my ideal, my go-to-when-I-want-to-give-myself-a-treat. I have completed and presented four of these BSJs already. Now the time has come to send out a whole host of these amazing jackets into the world.
BSJ–Baby Surprise Jacket is this iconic pattern which evolved from the brain of one of the most brilliant knitting designers of Mankind ( OK, I may be going over the top, but there is something about Elizabeth Zimmermanwhich turns me into a babbling, delirious fan). Knitted with a mystical and magical set of mathematical calculations, a knitter gets to turn an odd shaped piece of knitting into this smart jacket.
Knitted in garter stitch, which grows and expands in both axes, the jacket grows with the baby. 2 years after I presented this one to a baby, I get this cute video clip of this boy chomping chips with sauce, and wearing that same jacket!! It didn’t look shrunken or small for him at all. And now, his mother, scheduled to bring his sibling into the world on a hot August day, wants another jacket for the new baby.
The latest one, completed yesterday, has been shown to the knitters. One lucky woman gets to scramble her brains while she knits and calculates her way through the pattern! We are all excited about the BSJ and I plan to take orders for this beauty, in colours which appeal to the grand-mom or mother, and make one-of-a-kind BSJ for every lucky baby who had admirers dropping in to read this post.