A Sweater for Pippa

My little friend Pippa turned one earlier this month. She and her mom went with me in the fall to the Sheep And Wool Festival up at the University Farm, and while we were there we found this skein of pink coral wool that decided to become a sweater for her. I used the pattern for the Sunnyside Baby Cardigan, with some speculation, alteration, a bit of hope and my own force of will to make it come out. As it started growing on my needles, with the cables highlighting the raglan increases and all, it reminded me of the BPT cardigan I made for myself last year (or has it been two years now... I forget). And you can't tell from these photos, but the cables meet at the underarm and continue down the length of the sleeves and down the sides of the sweater.
I couldn't get gauge on the initial swatching, but just went ahead and made the sweater anyway, estimating up a size or two in the pattern to compensate for the tightness of my knitting. I also ran out of yarn before I knitted the sleeves on, so had to unravel several inches at the bottom of the sweater to get enough yarn for the sleeves. Ultimately I went into my stash and wound up a hank of kettle dyed Malabrigo Sock to finish the hem and cuffs - although it is a somewhat finer gauge yarn, knit on the same needles it worked out just fine.

The buttons are from my Grandmother's stash, Delia and I went through all our button tins and also a new trove that Lisa (Pippa's Mom) brought over. Ultimately we decided on these vintage pearly shank back jobbies that are made of some kind of classic 1950s opalescent plastic. I did break several trying to sew them on with the darning needle I had handy - the eye of the needle being just slightly larger than the hole in the button shank, until there were only enough to finish the sweater. Then I had Keith use his sorcerous powers to get the yarn through the hole in the button, and then I threaded it back onto the needle to finish sewing it on the sweater. It was rather tedious and harrowing, but Oh So Much Fun! Really, I would have had to walk all the way upstairs to my attic workshop and putz through boxes of notions to find a needle one size smaller that would still accommodate the yarn through it's eye.

I fear I made it a bit small, or maybe I didn't put enough buttons. The last one I made for her had TOO MANY BUTTONS. Perhaps the next one will have no buttons at all!

I am also in love with that Snoopy hat.