Baby SURPRISE!

Yes, this is the famous pattern by Elizabeth Zimmerman named the Baby Surprise Jacket, due to its ingenious construction. Wherein THIS amorphous fabric blob:

Becomes THIS tidy little sweater!

Of course you could have knocked me down with a feather when my Brother #1 called me to let me know that wife was going to have a baby in September. (Nephew #8 arrived in late-August, 2.5 hours before niece #4, who got the February Baby Sweater from the June post). At the time of Brother #1's phone call, I was knitting the Baby Surprise for Brother #2's latest addition. But upon visiting Brother #2 a few weeks after Brother #1's call, I assessed that the weather in that part of the country combined with the rapidly increasing size of the baby would render this particular knit useless to that nephew. (That would be Nephew #7, if you are keeping track... Are you confused yet??!)

A little advice from yet another relative inspired the Gryffindor patch to help "make more sense" of the loud color scheme. If you're going to put the Gryffindor lion on a jacket, you also need lion buttons.

And so we welcome another Gryffindor fan to the family. This child will be classmates with Albus Severus Potter. The first Potter book was published in 1997, at which point Harry was turning 11. Harry would turn of age in 2004, take a few years to wait for the dust of the Grand Finale to settle and become an Auror, marry Hermione and have his first son. Albus, who is the #2 son, was definitely born this year. I don't know about Albus, but I am pretty sure Nephew #8 will have a wand with a core of one white peacock tailfeather.