Thursday, June 16, 2016

Puerperium Cardigan for Boogaloo


I finally finished Lucky's Frozen sweater with less than month until the due date.  Because I was conservative with my yarn purchase I have enough left over to make a sweater for Boogaloo, too.  I can make a little newborn sweater so our boys can have some matching sweater snuggles shortly after Boogaloo is born.


My gauge from the frozen sweater on size 6 needles is close to what I need for the Puerperium Cardigan, too.  Wahoo!  I don't need to swatch again since I'm using the identical needles and yarn as with the frozen sweater.


The project is going super fast.  The different rows are easy to keep track of and without any cables or anything there is not a lot of attention that needs to be paid to the pattern.


I finished the small ball of yarn and started Ball 2 near the beginning of round 21.  For some reason I counted 142 not 140 sts after round 24.  Ugh, but I"m not going to worry about it too much.  There are 29 stitches on each sleeve and only 4 stitches for each edge so I'm not too concerned.  Huh... after Row 29 there are 164 sts just as there should be in the pattern.  I counted three times previously so I'm not sure what I did to get the wrong number!  I'm glad that it is working out, though.


Right before the 7th button hole (before I presumably start the edging part C) the underarm measures 12.75 cm. Wow I'm right on target with the way these pictures of other projects are!


Now that the body is finished I have a new decision to make.  Long straight sleeves, long tapered sleeves or short sleeves?  I still have 7.1 g of the original dye lot left so I have plenty of yarn for any of the options.  I have some plain long sleeve onesies (in both NB and 3 month sizes) so the short sleeved sweater could be super cute on Mr. Boogaloo.  Plus this would be significantly faster to complete.  I'm not sure how well I'd like the long sleeves on my baby and not knowing how he is proportioned I think I'll stick with short sleeves.


Rather than doing a magic loop, I switched to DPN's for the sleeves.  Knit one round with picked up stitches.  P, K, P, K and then bind off p-wise for consistancy with the rest of the borders.  The sweater needs blocking.  Light blocking, but it is still required to prevent any curling.  So I could mark the project as "completed" sooner on Ravelry (and check something off of my HUGE LIST before the baby arrives) I decided to sew the buttons on first and then block it with the buttons closed.


I wanted to use ladybug buttons for this sweater as Boogaloo was due in February.  I had two different packages of similar buttons, one that I purchased (left) and one that Grandmama picked up for me (right).


I selected Grandmama's buttons over my own because sewing through two holes is much easier on knitting than sewing through one.  I'm not sure what you call a button with a  hole on the back post only, but they make me so frustrated when applying them to knitting.  2-4 holes is much easier to manage.


I added the buttons to the top and bottom of the sweater first, and then the middle to help with spacing.  I think these lady bugs look rather cute marching up the unblocked sweater.


After some really light blocking the sweater was complete and ready for my baby boy to arrive.


Baby Boogaloo (aka "Rowdy") showed up in January, not February as expected but he is still my little Love Bug.


Isn't he darling wearing a coordinated sweater with his big brother, Lucky?  I feel so blessed to have these wonderful boys in my life!