Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Sweaters for the small

I finished knitting the sweater for my kid's preschool auction a while ago, but didn't finish the damn sweater because of this:
a completely idiotic number of ends to weave in.

I've made this baby sweater (and a matching hat) many times and yet each time I start it, I forget that I could make it a hell of a lot easier on myself to modify the pattern and knit the front and back as one piece and the sleeves and hat in the round. Of course being a bit of a procrastinator, I left it until last night to finish the sweater (which had to be turned in to the auction today) and this morning I gave it a quick steam press and ta da!
One baby sweater and hat to go to someone's small person.

Meanwhile, I have started another baby sweater that is much more fun to knit and will have minimal seaming when the knitting is completed:
It is the February sweater from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. You have to love a pattern that is only a half page long! I'm using Lion Brand Cotton Ease in Lime (it doesn't look very limey in the above photo...). This yarn was discontinued--and the Lion Brand website still says is discontinued, get it together people--but came back! It's only $3.99 for a 100g ball so it will total $8 in yarn cost for the baby sweater. I really like the yarn--it feels like pure cotton but the acrylic makes it much less likely to split while being knit. If you want to see what it (hopefully) will look like when completed, look at some finished versions on Flickr.

4 comments:

Laura said...

Not sure if this would help on this particular sweater, but I found this awesome tutorial for weaving in ends while you knit... http://sockpr0n.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-weave-in-ends-while-knitting.html

LinknKnits said...

I am a procrastinator on weaving in, too. It is the only thing about knitting I truly hate. I love the sweater, though!

Anonymous said...

Yes, but if you knit the front and back in one piece, you wouldn't have those adorable stripes, would you?

Kate said...

Hey Laura--
thanks for the link to the tutorial! I need to read it sometime when I'm alert and the small people won't interrupt me, but it looks cool.

MJ--
If I had done it in one piece it wouldn't have totally eliminated all the ends, but it would have cut out all the ones that meet on the side seam. Still not a perfect solution, but at least a start on managing the tangle and tedium of weaving-in.