Last minute February sweater

It started when I found out that the baby my dear friends were expecting was a girl. I've long had a dream of designing a funny little tweed suit for an infant. I spent some time searching for the perfect superwash tweed that could be used for the tiny, 1930's style garment I had in mind.

You're no doubt noticing that the above is neither tweed, nor a suit. No. To be honest, the tweed part of the equation was abandoned shamefully early, when I found that most of the superwash tweeds I could find were not in colors I found appealing for my project. I picked up a very slightly varied skein of minty sock yarn. You're probably thinking that the above is also not mint green, and you are right. The minty yarn might have successfully been transformed into my imaginary baby suit jacket, had it not been for one really foolish step on my part: I chose the wrong stitch pattern.


Don't get me wrong - I love the way this woven pattern looks, and I'm sure I'll use it again. However, for the garment I had in mind, it was a disaster. It's very tight, somewhat difficult to knit, and it eats yarn like nobody's business. Even though I decreased substantially (by almost 50%!) at the yoke, this stitch was so tight that it ended up being the same width at the yoke as it was the rest of the way down - not my intention. It also took a very long time to knit, so that, even with a fair start, the baby I was knitting for was born before I was even a quarter of the way through my tiny jacket. It was sometime around then that I officially tossed in the towel and decided to take up the baby suit issue another time.

EZ to the rescue! I pulled out the skein of Sundara Sport Merino I'd purchased on a whim and decided it was perfect for the February baby sweater. I only had the one skein in the Lemon-Lime colorway, but I figured that if I cut the sleeves short I'd be OK. I left the sleeves for last and knit them simultaneously until I ran out of yarn. The project was super fast, the yarn was a delight to use, and I absolutely love the end result. My camera is a temperamental point and shoot, and does not do justice to the brilliance of this yarn, but in real life, the color is less citrus than ripe, juicy Bartlett pear.

Je t'adore.

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