My sister is expecting her second child in June and I thought it might be fun to knit matching sweaters for the siblings. I found some super bright pink Rios yarn at a going out of business sale last year and snatched up a sweater quantity for my niece Fia. Turns out it was a good match for the Abate pattern by Alicia Plummer which is also a lovely unisex pattern that can be matching without being matchy match. I bought a lovely red yarn for the future baby and sought about figuring out how to size the sweater down for 12-18 mos ish.
Once I saw the gauge and needle size recommendation I figured it wasn’t going to be easy to just cast on 2 needle sizes smaller and wing it. So I swatched dutifully for Fia’s sweater and knit hers up first. That way I could be sure where the right spots were for making the baby sweater smaller.
The last sweater I knit for Fia was a bit short on the arms when I gave it to her and since she’s nearly 6 she’s still growing a lot. I decided to make the 8 yo size so hopefully she and baby sibling can wear their sweaters at the same time next winter. I also had Fia try her sweater on twice, blindfolded. haha. I really just wanted to be sure the sleeve length was going to be long enough and the first time when I measured her sleeve length it didn’t line up with how the sleeve length is measured in the pattern.
The baby version of the sweater knit up quickly. I knit it with a DK weight yarn, cast on with the 6 yo size numbers, and knit to about .5″-1″ smaller than the 2 year old measurements. The lovely thing about babies is that they start out small and grow. so at some point, this sweater will fit the baby. Hopefully it’s a cooler month! 😀
I gave Fia her sweater at my sister’s baby shower this past weekend and she dutifully modeled it for me. 🙂 She also said “Wow!” as she pulled it out of the gift bag. So hopefully she’ll continue to enjoy the things I make for her. I may have to switch to sewing though! Her sweater’s finished measurements was only about 8″ smaller than mine! haha.
The drawstrings really make the sweaters. They both transformed overnight when I wove in all the ends and added the drawstrings. No modeled photos of the little sweater yet – for what I hope are obvious reasons. hah!
What are you making these days?
