Ladybug Baby Sweater

Baby Sweater finally finished

The invitation to join your blog gave me the final push I needed to finish this sweater. I bought the yarn on July 3 when we were let off work a few hours early and I happened to walk by a knitting store. The Pattern was in Dalegarn, number 152 and the yarn is Dale Baby Ull - a fine baby gauge washable 100% wool. For a baby size 24 months the body had 228 stitches around - more than some adult sweaters in worsted gauge, so it was slow going. My grand niece is already 9 months old, and my brother and sister-in-law say she is off the scale for her gestational age (she was 2 months early), so it's a good thing I decided to make the largest size.

This is a thoroughly impractical baby sweater. If Isabel has any sense she will refuse to wear it, since it is 100% wool and has loops on the back side that could catch her little fingers. Maybe my niece can frame it and hang it in her room! I hope she'll put it on long enough to take a picture! (Actually I hope she'll really use it - and not be worried about washing it. Wearing a hand made sweater is the best way to appreciate it. There's no point in saving it for some better occasion. )

This shows the back side. It's important when knitting a fair isle design to carry the yarn across the back neatly, crossing colors at least every 5 stiches if you have longer than that between color changes, and keeping it tight enough so you don't have loose loops, but loose enough so it doesn't pull and pucker. It was tricky knitting the lady bug rows because they had three colors.

This shows the wrong side, and shows where I machine stitched the armhole before cutting. The pattern said to stitch once, bu I was nervous, so I stiched once, and then used a zigzag stretch stitch, and then stitched again on the other side of the zig zag before cutting. I'm not happy with the way I sewed the sleeves in - and the pattern wasn't at all clear on what to do with the band at the top of the sleeve after knitting it.

There seemed to be some steps missing in the pattern - unfortunately not an infrequent occurence with patterns. This pattern book came with an errata sheet stapled in it - but none noted for this pattern.

I was excited to find the ladybug buttons. The crocheted loops for the buttons were the last step.

Next I think I'll knit a quick scarf for Christmas. I bought some tempting mohair at a shop in St. Michael's, Maryland, several weeks ago. Does anyone have a pattern called "fan and feather"?