Well Dressed, Well Accessorized, and Well Cuddled

 

On New Year's Eve 2021, when I was making plans for the coming year (and with me, making plans means making to do lists), I was looking over my gift list and realized I needed to plan a Christmas 2022 gift for my expected grandnephew, and despite (or perhaps because of) the effects of a tumbler and a half of homemade Bailey's, that evening seemed like the perfect time to plan a sweater for the little guy. What better pandemic-style solo New Year's Eve could I have?

I browsed patterns on Ravelry, and selected the one you see depicted above, the Everyday Pullover Sweater, designed by Raya Budrevich. I've made it before (for my grandnephew Bug's second birthday), and I remembered it as a quick and easy knit that I'd been satisfied with. Then I checked my stash to see what yarn I might have that would work for this project. I found some chocolate brown worsted (the ball band for which was long gone), and most of a skein of Red Heart Soft in Leaf. I thought the two colours worked together and there would be enough of both to get the job done.   

And here's the finished product, which I knitted in a size 12 months in January 2022. Sawyer will turn ten months old in December 2022, so my hope is he'll be able to wear the sweater as soon as he gets it on Christmas Day and have some growing room so that it will fit all the rest of the winter. 

I like the combination of the dark brown with this green. 

This sweater took 30 grams of brown yarn, and 110 grams of green yarn, with a net stash decrease of -140 grams. 

  

As for the remainder of Sawyer's Christmas gift, I thought I'd make him a teddy bear using a pattern I've had on hand for many years and have used I don't know how many times. I can make a toy rabbit and a teddy with these patterns in something like two and a half hours using whatever fabric I have on hand. Back when I had an office job, I used to make these stuffed toys as shower gifts for my co-workers' babies and everyone made an undue amount of fuss about them. One of my co-workers, a woman in her early sixties, even asked me if she could commission a bear or bunny from me because she wanted one for herself, and I promised her I would make her one for her retirement party. 

I added "teddy bear" to my 2022 sewing list, but it turned out that I had no need to make a bear for Sawyer, as I had one on hand that I'd made some years ago and forgotten about -- I usually make two at a time, as I find it more time efficient. This brown stretch velvet bear, with his cream satin neck ribbon, will do perfectly well for Sawyer.

It amuses me that the sweater and the bear coordinate so well. Sawyer will spend his very first Christmas well dressed, well accessorized, and well cuddled.