Today a have a little violet sweater to share.

This is the Baby Sweater on Two Needles, aka "February Baby Sweater" by Elizabeth Zimmerman. The yarn is Peace Fleece worsted in Violet Vyehchyeerom (which means "evening", and I love that). The buttons are extremely cool and I wish I could tell you exactly what they're made from, I can't recall (some interesting kinds of wood), but I purchased them locally and the heart (the top one) is dyed with henna.

And oh, how I loved knitting this. (If you're contemplating knitting this, or the grown-up girl version, don't let anyone scare you about the lace. Even if you've never knitted a lace pattern before, it's not at all difficult. I really, really enjoyed knitting the lace, actually.)

It turned out to be very big. I didn't knit it to gauge -- the pattern calls for 5 stitches to the inch and I was at 4 stitches to the inch. I thought I would try to size the pattern up because I couldn't figure out what size it was supposed to be, even after looking through hundreds of finished projects on Ravelry. Finally after knitting it, I took the measurements of three different store-bought 6-12 month baby cardigans, and I only learned then the answer to the mysterious sizing: when knit to gauge, the February Baby Sweater will yield a 12-month size! So now I know, and you all know, and you can spread the word.

So mine is the length of a 12-month sweater, but wider because I tried to gauge it up. Fortunately it's too big rather than too small, because this baby of mine will certainly only get bigger. The one thing I wish I had done differently was to omit the decreases at the bottom of the sweater (before the inch of garter stitch at the bottom). The decreases may be nice if you are doing buttonholes all the way down, but if you're going for an A-line sweater as I was, they didn't help. On the other hand, I kind of wish I had worked decreases on the sleeves before the garter stitch edge. So those are probably the only changes I would make next time.

Because I enjoyed knitting it so much, I'm strongly considering knitting one more before her birthday. She is, afterall, my February baby.

uncommon grace