Persistent Knitter

I started this sweater a long time ago. It was one of the things I wanted to finish before starting anything else. I had started the sleeve; but stalled out. I always have to recalculate sleeve decreases and in this case I wasn’t completely confident in my calculations and I had other more pressing projects going on; so it languished. Here I finally got the motivation for sleeve #1, and before I did the cuff we had to do a sleeve-length-sanity-check:

Katie’s always been really good at holding still with lots of DPNs sticking out. Remember when I made her a pair of socks here?

The sleeves should allow for a bit of growth and the cuff is tight enough they just bunch up a tiny bit rather than dropping over her hands. I managed to finish the whole thing, weaving in ends and all:

She didn’t want to model it for me for the picture; was too busy running around like a maniac.

It still needs to be washed/blocked, but for the most part this is what it will look like as the cables don’t need too much blocking. It’s an XO cable; which is really fun to knit, and the collar is a shawl type collar. It’s the first collar that I’ve done like this and I’m not sure I did it quite right. I think I needed to pick up a few more stitches to allow for more fabric in the folding back part. The instructions had me switch needle sizes part way through to give the outside of the collar more stretch than the inside. (You knit it back and forth and then sew down the front parts). The cuffs are really quite tight compared to the rest of the sleeves; if this had been for me, I wouldn’t have made them that way. For a little girl; it looks really cute.

Overall it knit up quickly and the yarn was a good one to work with (Rowan Handknit DK 100% Cotton). It’s not the yarn the pattern called for (of course) but worked well. It’ll be interesting to see if it grows in length when she wears it, I think if it did that would be OK. It’s not very heavy since it’s only a small girl’s sweater so I don’t think it’ll get all stretched out of proportion like an adult sized cotton sweater might. The pattern was easy to follow (I didn’t even chart the pattern stitch which is amazing!) - Bright Traditions by Fiber Trends. I would definately make this sweater again, but next time in a wool yarn. I could make one for Alex in a more boy-ish color; the pattern shows both a boy and a girl wearing it.