a silhouette in dreams

My experience knitting baby clothes is extremely limited- I've not had the chance to knit that many garments, and I think this sweater is about my fourth career baby garment.

This is actually the second time I've knit this sweater, but it's been years since the last one. I love how it's a unisex style, looks nice and cozy, and is interesting but not crazy to knit. You're supposed to use an aran weight yarn, but of course I couldn't find one that was affordable/washable, so I decided that gauge didn't really matter and held two strands of Berroco Vintage DK together. It worked out perfectly!

The buttons (naturally) are my favorite part. It seems like I can't knit a baby sweater without button drama, so it came as no surprise that I would need an additional button. Why on earth would I have bought an extra? Sigh, we never learn. Again, luck was on my side and I was able to get an extra at the yarn shop...which is good, because these buttons worked perfectly and provided all the right kinds of contrast. Hooray, my first finished knitting project in months!

try this trick and spin it, yeah

It's finished! Not quite as soon as I would have liked, but it's super cute and I can't wait to give it to the mother-to-be. Knitting baby things is so satisfying because the knitting goes so fast...10 inches and you've got a sleeve! This really would have been done in the weekend I had aimed for if the weather had cooperated...we were in Chicago and it was absolutely frigid outside, so no knitting got done or my hands would have frozen!!!

Funny story about this sweater (and me in general): these are not the original buttons I bought for this project. They look the same, yes...but the little plastic bag with the original five buttons is absolutely nowhere to be found. Those of you who know me well will understand how silly this is...I'm a little OCD about organizing and cleaning, so usually I know where everything is all the time. I fear that this time, though, I got a little overzealous in my cleaning and lost something instead of putting somewhere useful (or logical, apparently). I went to the yarn store right down the road and got SO lucky- they had a whole tube of the exact same buttons! I had originally bought the very last of them at a shop in Plymouth, MI. Phew! Bullet dodged.

I had planned the whole sweater around the adorable fish buttons!

all things go

Thought I would squeeze in one quick blog post to end September...and with it, a knitting challenge...I'm traveling to Chicago this weekend (reference the song in this post's tags) and this baby gift needs to be finished ASAP. I've got the back and one half of a cardigan front done, all I have to do are the sleeves and another front (although this one will be a little slower, it's the band I have to place buttons in).

I'm using an all-acrylic yarn from Berroco called Comfort. I'm usually anti-acrylic, but this one knits up really softly and isn't too snaggy- my only issue is that the ends tend to get tangled around the working yarn and can be nearly impossible to separate. Otherwise, it's a lovely yarn...a good value, good wear, and it's machine wash and dry!

Check out those buttons...I'm in love. Little yellow fish!

pretty baby sweater

Here's the second baby sweater! I'm very pleased with it, finally...let me tell you, this sweater got more angst put into its design than was really necessary. It all started with me thinking I was all clever and could figure out any edging after the fact, so I just knit the basic sweater without any button bands, collar, etc. I thought it would be easy to pick out a contrast edging and knit something cute. At KNITERARY CLUB we tried (I swear) every single color edging, every single possible button...nothing looked good. And I mean nothing.

I left that day with a plan: I was going to knit a ruffle using a periwinkle contrast, then use orange buttons. (See below.) Seems like an okay idea, right? Well...if you edge the entire sweater in a ruffle it will look like a clown suit. I ripped out the ruffle edge and tried to knit a ribbed cuff...it looked so retro and so awful. So it was back to the drawing board. (I even got angry at the sweater for a couple days and stuffed it in my knitting bag and couldn't look at it.)

But then I was inspired, and came up with what I still credit as a genius idea: minimal edging (just one row of single crochet around the collar and down the front), and a cute flower sewn into the center with one button as the closure. And that was the winning idea!

so cute i want to...

I finished baby gift #1...hopefully going to wrap it up and give it away tomorrow! I went a bit button overboard here, but found perfect little green flowers that look adorable with the sweater. It was astonishingly difficult to find buttons that match since this yellow is such a strange color (a very greenish yellow). The nice bright trim compliments it nicely and will help the sweater not look too washed out.

This was a modified version of a Cabin Fever pattern- the sweater was knit from the top down (meaning you start knitting at the collar and increase to begin the sleeves...after the body is done you go back and pick up the sleeves and knit them in the round as well; this means you don't have any sewing to do once the sweater is done!). The crochet edging was entirely my idea, not too bad for a beginner, wouldn't you say?

Another baby gift is soon to come, I cast on for the collar tonight but couldn't gather enough energy to knit. Amazing, right? So stay tuned.....for now, good night to all.