It's a boy!

My cousin gave birth to a beautiful baby boy last week. He's getting this little cardigan from me. In size 6-9 months.



I bought the white yarn first. I originally wanted to make a wrap cardigan. But after starting that pattern three times and finding it both odd and ending up loosing count of my increases all times, I gave that up. (It was this one and it's just as well I screwed it up. I would not have been able to crochet around the edges in the end anyway.)

So I picked this pattern instead, and went out and bought the green yarn. I love how the colours I picked look together, it reminds me of grazing sheep (se previous post), woodland anemone and lego (for some reason). The colours were nice and gender neutral, and that was important for this project.

I only made two minor modifications to the pattern. I decided to wrap one stitch before turning, instead of pulling the yarn tight. And I made the buttonholes bigger by doing a double yo in stead of a single and knit+purl these yo's on the next row. I think these are my best buttonholes so far!

And the yarn of course is not what the patterns call for. It is Silke-Tweed instead of Alpaca. I'm regularly debating with myself (yes this might sound weird) about wether alpaca is really suitable for babies or not. On one hand it is sooooo soft and cuddly. And come in so many beautiful colours. On the other hand it felts in an instant if you're not careful when washing, and who wants to give a newborn mom the task of handwashing (if one is not 100% sure she'll enjoy it because she is a Knitter). Also, alpaca sheds a bit and is hairier than wool. These hairs get stuck in the babies wet hands and dribble. I always try to wipe these things off, but baby drool is so sticky it's hard to get the alpaca hairs out of their hands and mouth.
Superwash alpaca with fewer stray hairs, now that would be something!



I bought the buttons after the gender of the baby had been revealed (by birth). Had it been a girl I would have gone for pink buttons. But I'm glad I could go for these green ones. I think they are very pretty. IRL they are a perfect colour mathch to the green yarn, but the light makes them seem bluer in the photo. Oh, and I did sew them on before giving the the cardigan away. I even sewed an extra botton on to the card, along with washing instructions.

Oh and one last thing... Just a few rows into this pattern I knew it was going to be a struggle for me to finish. Even though I loved to knit whith this yarn and I loved the fabric I ended up with and the colours, I just could not get over how terribly boring this was to knit. I've had to kick myself in the butt several times to get this done in time, if at all. When I was knitting the back I had to check once that my measuring tape was not growing along with my knitting. It's just rows and rows and rows of garter stitch. It's not a very portable project, I ended up with tangeled yarn even when only knitting at home. Portability can sometimes cure the boredom.