As part of the ToshDown2012 on Ravelry, I won a pattern of my choice. I selected the child's version of Gathering Stripes. It's a gender neutral sweater in a huge range of sizes, has stripes and a cowl neck - it's the perfect pattern for me. I originally had my eye on it to knit for my son. He's 3 and in desperate need of a good fall and winter sweater. I also knew I would eventually knit it for my daughter. She's 10 months old, so I assumed that even the smallest size would be too big for at least a year.


I looked over the pattern again in depth and realized that if I knit the size 2 just a little tight it would fit Grace now, through the winter and hopefully into the spring. I feel like you need to knit a project twice to really get it right. You learn all of the tricks the first time through and the second time you can make the necessary adjustments to really make the project shine. So, I decided I'd much rather experiment on a smaller sweater.

I found the sweetest little flower buttons to finish it off.
Collar can be worn up or down.
Determined not to buy any yarn for the sweater, I dug through my stash to see what I could possibly use. I decided on a pinky-red kettle dyed yarn that I dyed as the main color and Knit Picks Palette in Cream as the contrast color. I'm really, really pleased with how the colors worked out.

The most accurate photo of the colors.

I am so completely in love with this sweater and I cannot wait to knit one for Jack! I did make a few very minor modifications and I also learned a lesson for next time (going back to my theory on knitting things twice...).

Modifications:

  1. I knit the garter band for three inches total with only two button holes instead of four inches with three button holes. I didn't want the collar to be too tall and in Grace's face all the time. I'll knit to the specified size for Jack's.
  2. I did two extra contrast color stripes for Grace's sweater on both the body and the sleeves. I was (unnecessarily) worried that I would run out of the main color yarn. Since it was a one time dye-job that I can barely remember the specifics of, I didn't want to chance it. As it turns out, I had plenty of yarn. Oh well, I like the extra stripes.
Lesson learned:
Use a size 2 needle for the smaller of the two needles and use a very stretchy bind off for the contrast color "lining". As it is, the bottom hem of the sweater is really tight, even though I followed the pattern and did a fairly loose bind off. I'll likely go back and reknit it. The other option is to knit the bottom hem in the main color in garter to match the collar. I can't decide which I'll do yet, but I will fix the tightness of the bottom hem.

Overall, it's a fantastic pattern and I am so, so excited to knit the next one! I just need to get through some more Christmas knitting and then I can finally cast on.

A quick picture of the first time she tried it on.



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