When my niece's two children Cauliflower and Bug were very small, I developed a gift-planning formula for their presents. For their birthdays, I gave them each a piece of handmade clothing and some little trinkets which were usually from the dollar store or thrift shop. For Christmas, they would each get a book and something to play with. It's a formula that has worked well, helping me plan gifts that were a balanced mix of fun, useful and educational things, and it has also helped me keep their gifts equitable. (Kids are very quick to notice and to mind when their siblings get more or better presents than they do.)
I'll be using this formula for my nephew's two children as well, with the difference that they'll be getting their clothing present at Christmas and the book and toy present for their birthdays. Cauliflower and Bug have summer birthdays, and giving them their clothing, which was usually winter clothing, for their birthdays meant they would have it all ready to wear when cool weather arrived in the fall, but Sawyer and his yet-to-arrive little sister have their birthdays in February and May, so it makes more sense to give them their knitted clothing at Christmas, in order to maximize the clothing's wearing time. It would be no fun for a kid to get a warm sweater in May that she has to wait five months to wear.
This is all to say that Sawyer is therefore getting a sweater for Christmas, and this is a post about the one I made for him.
Back in 2013, I made my grandnephew Bug the sweater you see above, in a size six months, using the Diplodocus pattern, designed by Kate Oates. I just put together some odds and ends of white, kelly green, and navy worsted from my stash to make the sweater for nothing, but the colour scheme could hardly have worked better. I also bought Bug a little stuffed toy at Toys R' Us that was supposed to stand in for a dinosaur, though it was actually a Disney brand anthromorphized alligator character that was standing on its hind legs. My family was kind enough to agree that it looked very like a dinosaur.
The dinosaur sweater and dinosaur-passing toy were such a cute and well-received gift that I decided to reuse the pattern and theme for Bug's cousin Sawyer this year. I checked my stash hoping I could put together some odds and ends to make the sweater for nothing again. I wasn't quite as fortunate this time. While I had 70 grams of an unlabelled rust wool, and 50 grams of
Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash in Turtle that I thought worked well together and would be usable for the contrast colours, for the main colour I had to buy a skein of
Lion Brand Wool Ease in Linen for (with the use of a Michael's coupon) $6.32. But that's still pretty inexpensive.
Here's the completed sweater in the Sawyer version, in a size 2. This colour scheme is attractive too, and will suit Sawyer, who has blond hair and hazel eyes.
This time around Toys R' Us had no dinosaur or even dinosaur-adjacent toy that was suitable for a toddler, so I ordered this one online. It will certainly do, and I think Sawyer, being older and more aware, will enjoy his dinosaur-themed gift even more than his cousin Bug did.
This project used 40 grams of the rust and 40 of the olive stash yarns, and all of the new linen yarn, so that's a stash decrease of 80 grams for this project.
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