America's next top model

So, here we have my rather adorable new (well, relatively--she's 3.5 months old) niece M, modeling my latest knitting creation.  Granted, at this point she needs some help with the sitting upright, but, still.  I think she's clearly in the running for future glory.

This is a slightly modified version of the Pinwheel Sweater pattern available at Elan's.  The child version of the sweater is supposed to be for someone from 6-9 months up to 3-4 years; it's a big coat on a small child, an then a regular sweater on a bigger one.  I made this smaller than the original, largely due to the yarn I used.  It's TyDy sock, so a much thinner, lighter yarn, on size 2 needles.  The entire sweater was made from one skein, plus a tiny bit--seriously, like one inch of one sleeve--of a second skein.  It's big enough on M that I'm hoping it'll take her through this spring and then next fall/spring, too.  The sleeves were made extra long to cope with that--right now they're significantly cuffed, but later that can be adjusted.

The construction of this is almost exactly like that of the circle sweater I made when I first started this blog, many moons ago.  You start in the center, knit out a circle, more or less, and place waste yarn (well, the pattern calls for doing a provisional cast on, but I did an afterthought heel waste yarn placement).  The only differences are that this has a stockinette section at the center, while the other was all garter stitch (well, actually, that original pattern called for a slip stitch pattern, but I did just garter), and that this uses the increases to make the circle grow as a decorative element, while the other hid them.

The result is a sweater that wraps around with a cut-away front, basically, and a big huge collar that can be almost a hood, at this point.  (Though M's clearly more interested in eating her hand than in modeling.)

Or, turned down, a big shawl collar.  I put one button on it, to be closed with the loops of the edging (a quite clever i-cord bind-off, which took a long time [basically, a car trip from Chicago to Madison, plus some extra time] but was worth it in the end).  I think that as M gets bigger, the button will have to move--but that's very easily done.

Also, this qualified for the Ravelympics!  I cast on on Tuesday, finished the knitting on Friday, and added the button on Saturday.  Amazing!

Comments

[sedef]

very nice