In January 2020 my first knitting project of the year was a sweater for my grandnephew Bug's seventh birthday.
Back in the fall of 2019, when I was planning my knitting projects for the coming year, I searched Ravelry for a suitable pattern for Bug's birthday sweater, and found the one you see in the photo above, Seashore Stripes, which is a Drops design. There's something so pleasing about the stripe arrangement and, rarely for me, I decided to make the sweater in the sample colours, or as close as I could get to them. I visited Romni Wools in December and bought yarn for three projects, and one of them was Bug's. I went with Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash in gray, off-white, Navy, Really Red, and Turtle. The colours were all a really good match, except for the green, which is slightly brighter than the grayish green in the sample, but it went with the other colours well enough. 220 Superwash is a worsted yarn rather than the Aran weight the pattern specifies, but one can correct for that by knitting a design with needles a half size larger than the pattern calls for, in this case a 5 mm rather than a 4.5 mm.
And here's the finished product. It was quite a straightforward knit and I was done in two weeks. The one design change I made was to knit the bottom and cuff ribbing in navy rather than in gray as the in the sample. This saved me money because I was able to get this project done with just one skein of gray (and to subsequently return the other gray skeins I bought for store credit), and I also had less left navy yarn left over. I made a mistake on the sleeve stripes, but I don't care -- it looks just as nice the way I did it. I'm pleased with the result: it's both classic and smart.
At Bug's age, he doesn't care much about clothes, so I bought him a couple of items he'll be much more interested in. He likes to read but prefers non-fiction to fiction, and is interested in science, so I bought him a couple of children's National Geographic books, and also a toy kaleidoscope. I'm sure nothing depicted here will go over as big as the whoopee cushion I gave him for his fifth birthday, but Bug should be happy enough with his present.
It's lovely, and the colours go really well together. It's true that little boys aren't greatly interested in clothes, but they can be particular about what they will or won't be seen in; I can imagine that Bug will be happy to wear this. It's great to see a post from you: I was getting a little concerned that perhaps you weren't well. Hope all goes well for you in 2020.
ReplyDeleteEveryone thinks that boys don't care about clothes, but I remember my son at about 18 months snatching clothes out of my hands and throwing them across the room if he didn't want to wear them. But I'm sure Bug will like this - it is very smart!
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