FO #4

So, people are busy cranking out babies again. Which means I'm busy cranking out baby gifts. The following FO is completely confounding. I still have to talk about Veil, and I'm working on all this other stuff, but this particular project is tied to Totie's passing, and I just finished it, so it gets to be FO #4:



Pattern: Sublime's Little Daisy Swing Cardi

Yarn: Sirdar Snuggly DK Shade 0377 This is a nylon acrylic yarn, but sometimes that is best for baby clothes that they will grow out of in a few months, and it was all I was willing to buy when I had the chance. The patterns were designed for cashmere merino silk, which hello, is not for babies in my book.

Needle: US 5 24" circular

Notes: When we put poor Totie to sleep, we took her body out to a pet cemetery in New Jersey. While we waited for her ashes, we drove around the area. Spanky had noticed on the Google map that there were two LYSs equidistant from the cemetery, so to waste some time, we tried the easier of the two to find--The Yarn Depot. It was just what I needed. I was so upset that just wandering around among the yarn was very soothing. Yet I can't visit a local yarn store without buying something. It's not right. So I thought about the babies coming, and picked out one of the Sublime pattern books that they stocked (The third little Sublime pattern book #612), along with some Sirdar Snuggly DK, which they'd helpfully put next to the better Sublime cashmere merino silk as a more affordable option.

And no, the yarn is not that great. It's not terrible--I think the nylon makes it a bit softer than it would be otherwise--but it's definitely an acrylic compromise. This was also the best color too. The others were watery pinks and yellows. Eh. Not so inspiring.

So that's the yarn. The pattern I picked out, the short sleeved Little Daisy cardi (as opposed to the long-sleeved Little Daisy sweater) I'm also less than pleased with. I really thought this would be knit in one piece up to the yoke. NOPE. It is knit in pieces--two fronts, the back, two sleeves, and the front bands which you then SEW TO THE FRONTS, and then finally, the yoke is picked up and knitted, decreasing toward the top edge. If I knew how to knit a yoke, I would have adjusted the pattern, but I didn't know how. I've never knit a yoked sweater before. Anyway, eh. Also, not helping is that I knit one side smaller than the other. It looks ok--asymmetry is in, right? But I am not impressed. I wish it had been simpler to make. It's a freaking baby sweater, after all. I wonder how the other patterns in this book are going to knit up. The designs are super cute and I want to make all of them, but if they're all going to be this annoying, I may give up.

I bought four balls of the Snuggly, and used almost two for the cardi, so I think I'm going to use the remainder, along with a leftover ball of something from the stash to make this, from Easy Baby Knits instead of trying another of these patterns:



I'm going to make the sweater with short sleeves, since these are spring babies, and I'm not sure about the yarn amounts. I think I have enough, but the shorter sleeves will help. These were the colors I auditioned for the bottom band:



I think the cream color, no?