In February Baby Sweater mode

Yikes - Blogger is playing up and this is my second attempt at showing me the result of my first attempt at creating the fabulous February Baby Sweater. I absolutely love the pattern and the result!

This is knitted for a wee surprise baby that suddenly made an entry into the world without its father's colleagues knowing it was expected!

The minute I finished my first attempt I swiftly moved onto my second. I can't wait to see this one finished, as I think it will look really cute and Christmassy and maybe it'll go to my new niece, who is due at Christmas, unless off course she turns out a nephew. :)

More pictures and details can be found on my blog and on Ravelry, where I'm known as teeweewonders.

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)