Sue finished the most amazing vest ever for her daughter Samantha.
Before I show it to you, I need to tell you the backstory.
When Samantha was a child, her music teacher wore intarsia sweaters every day. Apparently this teacher had many wacky intarsia sweaters in her wardrobe, and she was not afraid to wear them.
This became a running joke between Samantha and Sue. So when Samantha grew up and became a music teacher at a middle school, there was only one thing for Sue to do: Knit Samantha a crazy intarsia sweater.
Sue found a pattern with a cat theme. When I say "cat theme" I don't mean one little demure cat. I mean lots of frenetic cats climbing and jumping all over the place.
But that wasn't enough. So Sue knit the cats in pink, and added some angora to make some of the cats fuzzy, and some boucle to make some of them look like those curly-haired LaPerm breed cats.
But that still wasn't enough.
So Sue added a few cat paw prints along the bottom edge. And some mice.
And since even that wasn't enough, she added some button eyes to make the cats look a little crazed, and took the time to add some picot edging, and then - what the hell - some large pink buttons for good measure.
So here it is. The Leaping Cat Vest*:

That's the front, and here's the back:

Isn't it WONDERFUL?
Isn't it CRAZY FUN?
Sue told Samantha about the vest as she was knitting it, and Samantha was incredibly excited. In fact, she was SO EXCITED that she told her students what her mother was up to. And then her students got excited.
I am sure that by now Samantha has worn this masterpiece to class, much to the amusement of her students. I only wish we had a video of that.
Brava Sue!
*Update: The pattern is Leaping Cats by Janice Wright, available in the book Masterpiece Sweaters.