Learning with Two Tomtens

These are my first attempts at Tomten sweaters, and I enjoyed them very much.

I made the variegated sweater first, in a 2-4 year old size, so I could see what I was doing. I used acrylic worsted weight because of wool allergies in our family.

I liked the colorful effect, and I put the green stripe in because it's the baby's cousin's favorite color. :-) I used a blue zipper and sewed it in by hand from the front, as EZ says to do.

The colors are redder than the picture shows.

One challenge was that I counted the rows wrong for the hood and had to rip back and begin that part again. Another challenge was getting the right color red for the I-cord -- it took three tries (and two ripping-outs) before I finally got what I liked (and I've lost the wrapper so I can't tell you what it is).

While knitting this jacket I learned garter stitch weaving, sewn casting off, and I-cord. It was invaluable to have the DVD "A Knitting Glossary" to look at again and again -- and again!

Yarn - Caron Simply Soft, Embroidery Print - 3 skeins, 208 yards/skein
Needles - size 6 circular, bamboo
Zipper - 14" separating zipper

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Then I made the little pink tomten, in infant size. I started with cheap acrylic yarn which split and looked dreadful, so I got new all-cotton fingering yarn and started over. I'm glad I made the larger tomten first, as this size was much harder to keep track of what I was doing.

I used a contrast row of purling on stockinette at the sleeve joins, and I liked the effect. I got brave and used I-cord buttonholes, which were fun to do.

One worry was how this would launder. I wanted it to be machine washable and dryable, so (after I'd knit the tomten) I knit a test swatch to launder. It came through just fine. Whew! I think the stitches tightened up a bit, but I had knit them a bit larger on purpose for just this reason.

Yarn - Dalegarn "Stork," 100% cotton - 4 balls, 195 yds/ball
Needles - size 3 circular, Addi
Buttons - from Wal-Mart! (the cute little rose design doesn't show in the picture)