knit: toddler yoke sweater

After a long time, I took up knitting again and made this sweater. For Ana. As a Christmas present. And, I was quite pleased with the result.

To be honest, I fancy myself a crocheter, not really a knitter. But, I saw a picture of a sweater my friend R's mom had knit for R's baby girl - I call it the "teal sweater" - which was gorgeous and cute. I was inspired. I *had* to knit something like that for Ana.

After some quick search, I found this adorable pattern at yarntootin', which goes by the name of "Five Hour Baby Sweater" - supposedly referring to the time it takes to complete this sweater! There are several versions of this on the web, but, of the few I browsed through, this PDF pattern at yarntootin' was the easiest to read and comprehend, so, I stuck with it.

Of course, the sweater took me about 11 hours total, working in snatches as and when time permitted. The pattern is worked yoke-down - took me 3 hours for the yoke, 1½ hour each for the sleeves, and about 4 hours for the body.

I sort of cheated, well, more like extrapolated really, in the sense that I used a pair of Size 11 (US) needles, and Worsted weight acrylic yarn which made the knit fabric grow pretty fast. Smaller size needles with finer yarn would have taken me twice as much time to finish...

Solid colors work best for this pattern, in my opinion. I had ball of pink yarn handy, leftover from another crochet project and decided to work with it.

I did make a few mistakes which I managed to cover up fairly well - unless one takes a closer look, inspecting for flaws... besides, I think such minor flaws just add to the uniqueness and charm of a handmade gift ;)

Sweaters can be knit or crocheted in several generic ways. Some of my experience has been with just these three:

• one piece from yoke to hem, with minimal seam-sewing - perhaps just the sleeve seams
• from hem to neck, working in one piece in the round for fronts and back, and then dividing the work at armhole and working the sleeves, fronts and back as needed - again minimal seam-sewing, with probably just the shoulder seams if sleeves are worked in the round
• working in pieces, getting the back, right front, left front, and two sleeves done separately and sew them all together

Ana seems to love it. She happened to be with me when I was shopping for buttons for this sweater and I let her choose - sort of - I gave her a choice between these pink flower buttons and hot pink heart buttons... I think she picked the right one for this sweater :)