First Baby Sweater

I know it's been awhile, but I've been obsessing over sweaters and am now finally sitting down to post them. I was originally terrified of the finishing work that sweaters require, so I decided to take a basic class. But guess what? It really isn't so bad, and it's fun seeing all your pieces come together to make an adorable little sweater.

The key is learning the mattress stitch and maybe the three needle bind-off. Once you can do these techniques, you can pretty much make any basic sweater.

This pattern was assigned to us for the class, although I think there are better first sweater patterns out there, that I will post. This one is more tricky since it involves picking up stitches to knit the ribbing around the neck and buttons, and adding the button holes within the ribbing band.

This pattern is called the "Classic Baby Cardigan" for double-knitting weight yarn. It is by Theresa Gaffey Designs, #46 if you are interested in making this sweater. I'm not really supposed to post it, but the other patterns I made following this one were free and online. I used Sublime baby cotton kapok dk in yellow no. 0152 which is a really soft yarn to work with.


One of the more interesting things we learned in the class is how to make a gauge swatch. It's actually much easier than I thought it would be. Turns out, I'm a pretty tight knitter so I now I know that I have to go one size bigger in needles to make my pieces the correct size.