Adina's Welcome

I finished another baby sweater. This one is for my cousin's daughter, Adina. I really love making baby stuff. You can get all the details and interesting construction of an adult garment but the nearly instant gratification of doing it on a much smaller scale.


I love so many things about this sweater, staring with the yarn. I used KP Swish DK in Tidepool Heather and I'd use it again. I chose it because it was superwash and offered many colors. I'm very into nontraditional colors for baby gifts and I think this fits. The blue-green is really nice but the heathering makes it truly lovely and soft. Speaking of soft, this yarn is really, really soft. It was perfect for the purpose.



The pattern is Baby Ferris by Norah Gaughan and it's been in my favorites for a really long time. When I finally started on it I was surprised to see that more knitters hadn't made it yet because it's vey cute. Then I started working on it and I'm thinking that the amount of finishing may be a turn off for many. This knits up in six pieces including 2 for the back. That's a lot of finishing and then there are the bands that get knitted on. I think the finishing took almost as long as the knitting.

But when the results are this cute isn't it worth it? Look at the shaping on the back. So sweet.



I really enjoyed knitting - and even finishing - this sweater. I think that the end result is worth any fiddliness and the instructions were very clear. There were only 2 places that I ran into trouble and I think that it has to do with sizing the pattern down (it was originally published as a child sweater). The sleeves are wrong. The pattern says to cast on using the larger needles and knit for 5 inches before picking up 50 stitches and knitting the sleeve. I couldn't do it. I tried. I wound up casting on with the smaller needles (I switched to the larger ones for the rest of the sleeves) and knitting a 6 inch strip. That allowed me to pick up the requisite 50 stitches and knit on happily. The other issue was seaming the sides. It just didn't match up quite right but I made it work.