It's Been a Long Time Coming
I started this sweater last year as a baby shower gift, got all but one sleeve, the hood, and the button bands done, but never finished it. I had thought I might finish it for my brother and sister-in-law's child, but then they had a girl and I lost my motivation again. A few weeks ago I was invited to another baby shower where the couple is expecting a little boy, so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to finish it up.
This is the Knitting Pure and Simple Babies Neckdown Cardigan pattern made in the 6 month size. This is the second Knitting Pure and Simple pattern that I've used and I love them. They are great basic garmet patterns. They aren't hard, and the finished product always looks great. As much as I liked the pattern, the yarn, on the other hand, I hated. I think the yarn is the reason that it's taken me so long to finish this project. I went with Berroco Comfort because it's machine washable and dryable and I think baby garmets need to be machine washable and dryable. This yarn knits up nice, but it splits like mad and it just doesn't feel good to knit with. I have since discovered Knitpicks Comfy, which is a cotton acrylic blend instead of just straight acrylic like the Comfort, is machine washable and dryable, and is wonderful to knit with. I'll be making all future baby projects with that yarn.
The only thing I wimped out on this sweater was putting buttons on it. I had even bought adorable little buttons, but I hate sewing on buttons and some ladies down at the knitting shop and I were discussing the safetly issue of buttons on a baby sweater, so I'm going to go with, I didn't put them on because of safety, but it was really just sheer laziness. I wanted to get some cute little khaki pants and a preppy little shirt to go with the sweater, but I couldn't find anything like that in the stores around here and I didn't have time to go anywhere that I had to drive far for. I settled for some cute printed onesies and some knit pants. It's nice to have one of the old unfinished projects that have just been sitting around done and out of the way. Maybe some day I'll get back to the tilted duster as well.
