Thursday, January 13, 2011

Itsy Bitsy Holiday Sweaters - Part 1



Berroco has had three seasons of minutia sweater patterns, and these are some of the first they designed (from 2007 I believe). This winter, I knit a bunch of tiny sweater ornaments, and I decided to split it up into multiple posts so you could appreciate how fun each mini sweater is!

I used size 1 (2.5 mm) knitting needles and KnitPicks Palette Yarn that I hand dyed (with the exception of the black).

The first sweater I made was pattern #7. The colorwork in this sweater was a lot of fun. I used some of the yarn from one of my first time dyeing with 100% wool. You knit up one side of the body and then back down the other.


The Complete Body of #7

The directions involve knitting everything flat, and then there is a lot of seaming. I chose to knit the arms in the round, since there was nothing in the pattern that required it be knit flat. This saved me from seaming on the itsy bitsy arms.


After you connect the arms to the body (left), you pick up stitches around the neck and make the neckband (right).


The second sweater I knit was pattern #6. I used a brown that I created while dyeing for my knit hedgehog. This sweater was knit as one complete piece (except for the turtleneck) and then seamed up the sizes and underarms.



When I was adding stitches to make the arms, I cast on the additional stitches at the end of the row so then I could turn and work the stitches on the next row. This meant that there was no need to disconnect the yarn or have large floats to begin the arms.


The cable runs up one side of the sweater, and down the other side. You can pick which way you like the best!

I am knitting these sweaters on smaller needles and with thinner yarn than directed, so when directions state to knit for ## inches, I have to adapt it so it will look proportional. The cable pattern was worked 2 times, and the stitches for the arms were added after row 4 and row 5 in the third repeat. The neck shaping started just before row 6 on the fourth cable repeat. On the back side of the sweater, the arms were bound off during row 5 and during row 6. After the fourth cable round was completed, I bound off on the wrong side of the fabric.


This turtleneck was knit in seed stitch, and then folded over. I would wear this sweater if it were my size!

I love making projects that involve working with hand dyed yarn, you should check out this new article that I wrote! I hope that you enjoyed my first installment of itsy bitsy holiday sweaters. Someday I'll have to get back to making the full thing!