The Quest of the Baby Sweater

A coworker of mine gave birth to her baby girl yesterday. Last week was her baby shower, and with a baby shower must come baby knits! A week prior to the shower I decided I was going to make a little cardigan out of some sock yarn I had in my stash.

I dutifully looked online for a lovely little pattern, then realized as I was casting on that the pattern was for DK weight and I was using fingering, so that wouldn't work, and since I had enough of a long tail, I just cast on as many stitches as I needed to make it wide enough for a 0-3 month old. I decided to make it a cardigan that a baby could grow into. Short(ish) sleeves, and no ties or buttons on the front so it can just sit open. Just something to wear during early fall since that was when the baby was going to be born.

I knit like crazy, at work, at home, anywhere I could pull my needles out. On the day of the shower I finished my lunch with half a sleeve left to do, so I did something I'm not really proud of, but for the last half hour of the day I knit at my desk. I still answered all the phones, and did everything my job needed, thankfully we (for once) had a quiet last half hour. At the end of the day I just had to cast off the last sleeve and weave in 4 threads which were completed in 5 minutes, and I ran upstairs to the shower. The biggest comment I got from everyone at the shower was that they couldn't believe that something that small could fit a human. I mentioned back that considering where the baby currently was, you didn't want it any bigger!

Due to the last minuteness of the sweater, the only photo I have of it right now is of me presenting it to the Mom, though she has promised to send me better photos to put on Ravelry.

This was made with some variegated Patons Kroy for the accents, and another sock yarn that I will have to get the name from when I get home for the bulk of the cardigan in a lovely light pink. The pattern was created on the fly, and it's a drop shoulder, 1/2 sleeve cardigan with no buttons or ties. I wish I could have blocked it to get the front bands to lie flat. I just did a few stitches of garter stitch up both edges to try and keep the stocking stitch under control.

I'm glad that sock yarn is as nice as it is now. The mom will be able to toss this into the wash without any worry of it felting thanks to the nylon content.

To finish the week out, here's a bunch of pictures of my cats swarming me the second I sit down when I get home.

Please excuse the state of my living room, we're still getting caught up after camping. Also woohoo! I made it one week! Happy Friday everyone. We'll see you on Monday. I'm hoping to have the Fisherman's Rib shawl/scarf thing done by the end of the weekend, and I have a couple other projects that I'm going to be working on finishing that I can chat to you about.

I'm so excited that a schedule seems to be working, we'll see how long I can keep this up.