Minty Baby Cardigan

Can't believe I haven't put this on my blog yet! I made this for a work colleague, who went on maternity leave well before I left that job over 6 months ago.

This is not one of my blended efforts. It's almost as the pattern (the one I used for the stitch pattern for my blended cardigan) says, which means it is second size, which I sometimes do for new mums, as they probably get plenty of first size stuff, then their baby grows a bit and they have to start buying franticly.

I have modified the pattern a little (do I ever just do a pattern?) in that I didn't fancy doing the cable effect on the tiny needles that the ribbing is done on, so that is just k2 p2 ribbing (round the bottom, the bottom of the sleeves and the button/button hole/neck band)

Another colleague said she thought the pregnant lady would be pleased to get a hand-made gift, but I was not prepared for the mum-to-be's reaction. I was hugged and she cried, she was so pleased to receive it!

Spotty Cardigan for Cousin's Grandchild 2

With bootees

Just my work

My cousin's son had a baby last year and I knitted a cardigan for that baby, who turned out to be a boy (see Once More with Bootees last March). Now my cousin's daughter is pregnant, so I thought I'd better get knitting a cardigan for this baby too (who, I am told, is a girl). Ah, I have set a precedent. I could think of worse ones!

This time I decided to make a second size one, as parents generally get given many first size clothes for their baby, which of course baby grows out of quite quickly. I know I am not original in this thought. One of my aunts gave me some second size clothing for my first baby for the same reason.

My Mum knitted some bootees (see second photo) and I packaged the cardigan and bootees and sent them off to Canada a couple of weeks ago.

Lacy Baby Cardigans

What happened to July, August and September?

Lacy Cardigan - Cream:The yarn for this was bought some time ago from Allders which has since sadly closed!. I think they were selling it for £1/50g. The ball bands had been lost and it was bound in till receipt paper, so there was no clue as to what brand it is, but it feels like Sirdar Snuggly.  I decided to use it to make a cardigan for a band member/friend's 'Bump'. The pattern, which I had fairly recently got from ebay and not used before, is just called Cardigan.  The instructions are for three sizes (19 to 21 inch) in three different yarns (3-ply, 4-ply and DK).  I used 3-ply and followed the instructions for the smallest size, which I would estimate is a bit bigger than newborn size, which was fine for this one, as it will no doubt fit Bump at some stage.  I was in a bit of a dilemma (or should it be trilemma if there are three possibilities?) about the buttons.  The yarn is a sort of buttermilk/creamy colour and I have some buttons which are a very good match, but rather old and tatty, or somewhere I have some yellow buttons, which I think are a bit too yellow and the other possibility, which I went with in the end, was some white, slightly translucent buttons I got from ebay some time ago. Being translucent, they take on the colour underneath to some extent. The end result is shown on the left, as nearly as possible being worn by the baby it was knitted for. (Acknowledgment: this photo was taken by DD, who went to the shower held for the mother and handed it over for me).

Lacy Cardigan - Pink I was quite pleased with the result of the cream one and decided to do one for the local hospital, as I hadn't done one for them in a while.  I used some pink 3-ply Robin yarn which was given to me by a member of the Croydon Knitting Group for the purpose of making cardigans for the hospital.  I wanted to do this pattern again, however, as mentioned above, the smallest size instructions come up a bit bigger than newborn size, which is the size they want.  So I decided to try to be a bit clever and knit using 3-ply yarn and the needles recommended for the 3-ply instructions in the pattern, but to follow the 4-ply instructions and make the parts all ½ and inch shorter.  I used some more of the slightly translucent white buttons, as I don't have any pink ones, and the result is as on the right. Ideally the top button should be a row or two lower, but I think it turned out rather well for an experiment and I may well do a white or blue one the same soon. I took one photo with flash (above) and one without (below) and have included both as the flash one is the truer colour, but the non-flash one shows better detail.

Bit of Technical Stuff - For those who are interested in the mechanics of knitting: I have used a slightly different technique for the decreasing on these ones.  Usually you get k2tog on one side and k2tog tbl (or ssk or sl1, k1 passo) for the other side and I have always found that the K2tog tbl was never as neat as the k2tog. I have read various suggestions for rectifying this and not been satisfied with my results using them (not saying they don't work for other people).  What occurred to me after much thought over some long period of time is that it's not so much the k2tog tbl that looks untidy, it's that the in-between rows don't lie in line with it like on the k2tog side.  It is just the stitch on each previous row that is the problem, so I tried knitting just that stitch (on each relevant row) taking the yarn round the needle in the opposite direction from usual.  I'm not sure if that makes sense and I don't really know how to show it with a drawing (plus being rather useless at drawing anyway).  I suppose a video would do it, but I really don't want to get into that at present (maybe one day).  Anyway for me it works pretty well.  The k2tog tbl side is still not quite as neat as the k2tog side, but a great deal closer to it than I have ever achieved before and I will be using this method in future.



And now here's the other one, just like the other ones

Finally the local SCBU has one of the reverse-stocking-stitch-striped blue cardigans.  I've included both photos as it looks so different with and without flash.   I do accept of course, however, that in either case, it looks just like the preceding ones.  Nothing more to say about that!

without flash

with flash

Latest Baby Cardigan

In my last post I said I had three works in progress.  I am pleased to report I have now finished one of them - the latest baby cardigan for SCBU.

I don't normally do photos of unfinished items here, but the colour on the photo without buttons is closer to the correct colour, so I've included both this time.  I've lost track of where I acquired the pink yarn from, but it was all tangled when I got it, so I sorted it out and wound it up into a ball and decided it would about do a baby cardi.  It was just about enough to do a v-neck one, but unfortunately I chose to do a round-neck one, so ran out.  Fortunately, however, I had some white left over from other items, so did the button band (not visible in the photos) and the neck band in white.  I think it looks OK.

Buttons were the next problem.  None of the local shops had any pink or white - or any other colour - buttons of the right size, so I ended up ordering 100 from ebay - 50 white and 50 blue - for £2.60, which is cheaper per button than local shops are anyway, so I was quite pleased - and they arrived quickly too.  It's not quite clear from the photo, but I used 7 white buttons for this cardi (blue would have looked a bit odd I think!).  I still have quite a bit of blue 3 ply to knit up into baby cardis, so the blue button are already earmarked for use and no doubt the white ones will find a use before long.

This cardigan was taken to SCBU this afternoon.  The other two WIPs are progressing and I will post more about these later.