The baby parade continues unabated amongst my colleagues. It’s a delight and means I’ve had baby projects going for quite some time now. These sweaters came off the needles a while ago and both have since been baby-tested and approved.
This first sweater, a sweet little cardigan, is the Five Hour Baby Sweater by Courtney Filner. It is a free pattern available on Ravelry.com and, while it took me substantially longer than 5 hours to complete, it’s an excellent pattern. I absolutely love that it’s knit in one piece, arms and all, because piecing things together and seaming properly is painful to me.
I used worsted weight yarn that I’ve had in my stash for ages because I thought the colours would be glorious for a baby girl, especially one who might have gorgeous blue eyes like her mama. So cheerful, right? It’s an acrylic yarn, so it will be highly washable and easy care. Fortunately, it has a nice hand-feel to it as well, or I wouldn’t have considered it.
Rather than buttons – I may be slightly paranoid about choking hazards – I went with a single crochet chain bow at the collar. Made for a little “girly” touch too. The above photo is much more accurate for the colour, but here’s the finished cardi.
Next up is the Flax Light Pullover from the ever-popular Tin Can Knits. Also available as a free Ravelry download, I chose this one for its simplicity and because it would be so nice with the yarn I wanted to use. This set of parents had chosen to find out the sex of the baby at birth so it was going to be a surprise all around. I love that, and it meant that I wanted to be careful to avoid any kind of gender coding in the garment which is really quite hard these days. (There’s a rant just beneath the surface, but I’ll spare you.)
I started with the yarn. I had ordered Expression Fiber Arts Resilient Superwash Merino Sock (Fingering; 100% Merino) in the Octopus colourway a few months earlier on a whim because it had called to me, plus it was on sale.
Now, this mom-to-be happens to absolutely love Ursula from The Little Mermaid , the fabulous sea witch with octopus tentacles – so much so that she has a tattoo of Ursula on her upper arm. And the Octopus colourway would suit either a girl or a boy. Once I put that two plus two together, I had the perfect yarn.
The pattern was relatively easy, and its biggest selling point was that it was all in the round. So, like the cardigan above, it required zero piecing together. Woo hoo!
Very simple stockinette throughout, with garter detailing on each sleeve for contrast and interest. Another nice detail to note is that the neck is wide - an important thing for a baby pullover. Parents are very likely to have the wee babe wearing a onesie underneath so it’s not like the neck needs to be gathered tight for warmth, and you certainly don’t want to be struggling to get that little melon through!
The pattern has sizing from 0–6 months all the way up to Adult 4XL. You could really make quite the matching set of sweaters if you were really motivated!! (I am not. But YOU could.)
