Pattern: Flax by TinCanKnits.
Yarn: TFA Yellow Label DK Weight yarn in Ravine (one of a kind, for now...).
Ravelry project page here.
Here is another little toddler knit, made for Rowan, carefully stitched with love, that just didn't work out as planned. This sweater ended up too small. I could get it on him, but it would likely fit him for all of one week before he outgrew it, so I gifted it to my little niece Coralie. Which doesn't upset me at all because she's adorable and totally knit-worthy.
My mistake was that I decided to knit the Flax pattern, but really wanted a DK weight sweater. Worsted/Aran weight sweaters have their place for sure, but they can run a bit warm on a busy toddler. I wanted Rowan to be able to wear it to daycare, and they keep the rooms pretty comfortable there, so a super warm aran weight pullover just didn't seem as needed in his current wardrobe. Anyways, so that's why I opted to use DK. But then I made a really stupid mistake. I basically gave the gauge switch very little thought. I just went down a needle size, up a pattern size, figured I'd knit the length of the 2T with the stitch counts of the 4T... seems simple enough, but I did zero math and just totally winged it. Maybe in the back of my mind I really wanted to have a handknit gift for Coralie and I purposefully sabotaged this knit so it would be too small for Rowan. Either that or all the Christmas cookies I was eating while working on this affected my brain.
Either way, it made for a very enjoyable knit and Coralie will look amazing in it and it will fit her for much longer than it would have fit Rowan. I also like that I gave her a blue sweater, baby girls (Coralie is 8.5 months old) always get so much pink and purple so a bit of Ravine is a welcome addition to her wardrobe I think.
Other than modifying the gauge, I also opted to do all of my hems in contrasting colours, which I think is super fun. You know that moment when you're knitting a top-down sweater and you put your sleeves on waste yarn? Well I always end up grabbing a bit of waste yarn in a colourway that I think looks nice with my working yarn. I just can't help it. For this sweater I put the sleeve stitches on a bit of Seabreeze and liked it so much that I decided to incorporate it into the project. I cast off the bottom of the sweater in Seabreeze and then just couldn't stop!
So, there you have it, the professional knitter and knitwear designer who can't seem to knit her poor son a sweater that fits to save her life! Please don't judge me for this. Next week I'll be sharing two more toddler knits I recently completed for Rowan with much more wearable results!