owls for anya
It's shameful how little knitting I have done for Anya. I have a litany of excuses: she's got hand knit hand-me-downs from Daniel (I made everything fairly gender-neutral), my knitting friends knit her sweaters when she was born, her Oma bestows handknits upon her as any good knitting grandmother should. But of all the handknit sweaters she has received, little Anya has worn out or grown out of nearly all of them, so a couple months ago, I decided it was time to do something about that.
I had enough elann.com's Highland Chunky leftover from the A4A cardigan to make another child's sweater, and the Owls sweater pattern (I used the free one - scroll down) from Needled seemed like a good match. The free version of this pattern is adult-sized and uses bulky yarn. I followed the numbers for the smallest size using chunky gauge (4st=1") to make what I thought would be an Anya-sized sweater. As you can see, she's got some room to grow into it (she's got a knee-length dress on underneath!)
The sleeves took a couple tries. At first they were too skinny; I guess kids' arms are bigger than adults' in proportion to chest circumference. I also discovered that I don't like knitting sweaters in one piece from the bottom up because of how awkward those first couple yoke rounds are when you get near the armholes. (This isn't a problem with top-down sweaters.) I had everything on two circular needles until I was a couple inches into the yoke, and it was very cumbersome...still, the finished product was well worth the effort, don't you think?
The buttons are just plain old cheap things from Joann's. It took forever to sew them all on (17 owls, you do the math). In fact, the rest of the sweater was done and blocked and everything for a few weeks before I got around to it. But then Friday night Stu and I had lots of TV catching up to do (he was studying for a final all week), and even the final episode of Lost plus The Office weren't enough time to get it all done. My timing was perfect, though, because the next day was very chilly and Anya wore it for a photo shoot and a trip to the farmers' market (where she got tons of compliments.)
Pattern: Owls yoke sweater, free version, which I adapted for child's size
Yarn: elann.com Highland chunky in mocha cream, about 8 skeins
Mods: just the sizing, and I left out all the waist shaping, of course.
Made for: my daughter Anya
I had enough elann.com's Highland Chunky leftover from the A4A cardigan to make another child's sweater, and the Owls sweater pattern (I used the free one - scroll down) from Needled seemed like a good match. The free version of this pattern is adult-sized and uses bulky yarn. I followed the numbers for the smallest size using chunky gauge (4st=1") to make what I thought would be an Anya-sized sweater. As you can see, she's got some room to grow into it (she's got a knee-length dress on underneath!)
The sleeves took a couple tries. At first they were too skinny; I guess kids' arms are bigger than adults' in proportion to chest circumference. I also discovered that I don't like knitting sweaters in one piece from the bottom up because of how awkward those first couple yoke rounds are when you get near the armholes. (This isn't a problem with top-down sweaters.) I had everything on two circular needles until I was a couple inches into the yoke, and it was very cumbersome...still, the finished product was well worth the effort, don't you think?
The buttons are just plain old cheap things from Joann's. It took forever to sew them all on (17 owls, you do the math). In fact, the rest of the sweater was done and blocked and everything for a few weeks before I got around to it. But then Friday night Stu and I had lots of TV catching up to do (he was studying for a final all week), and even the final episode of Lost plus The Office weren't enough time to get it all done. My timing was perfect, though, because the next day was very chilly and Anya wore it for a photo shoot and a trip to the farmers' market (where she got tons of compliments.)
Pattern: Owls yoke sweater, free version, which I adapted for child's size
Yarn: elann.com Highland chunky in mocha cream, about 8 skeins
Mods: just the sizing, and I left out all the waist shaping, of course.
Made for: my daughter Anya
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