Beyond Puerperium

I managed to finish up my gift for the baby shower.  (You remember, the shower for the gal I don't know and probably will never meet!)  I ended up knitting this little number.

It's called:  Beyond Puerperium .  There's a free version also that's just called Puerperium.  The free pattern is knitted with DK weight but, of course, I had to use fingering!  I probably could have figured it out on my own, but I honestly didn't feel like doing all the math and so I ended up just buying the pattern.  I think it was a good decision as there are directions for different weights of yarn and lots of sizes. It's a cute sweater so I know I'll use it again (only with heavier yarn!).

I used Knitpicks Felici in Rainbow and US size 4 needles.  They were a little larger than I would normally use with this yarn, but they worked.  I tend to knit a lot tighter than suggested needle sizes and almost always have to move up a needle size.

Even with the "larger" needles, it still seemed to take forever to knit it.  I wasn't paying as close attention as I should have been though and I was blindly following the pattern.  When I laid it out, I realized that it was about 3 inches longer than it needed to be!!  For some reason, the designer likes really long sweaters.  I ripped it back and I'm much happier with the result.  I do wish that I had placed the buttons a little closer together, even though I dislike sewing on buttons!

This yarn is so soft, but I hate that there are all these flecks of darker colors sprinkled throughout the yarn.  If you look closely at the green on the top of the sleeve you can see what I mean.  They also show up in the yellow, and the orange . . .

From a distance, it doesn't look too bad, but up close it really bugs me.  They're so random that it almost looks like I spilled something.  Why then would I choose to use this yarn?  Well, it's because I had already knit a hat and booties out of the same yarn for another baby gift that I never got around to delivering!

Long time readers of this blog will remember that I knit these booties once before when I found out we were going to be grandparents again.  The pattern and details are here.  The hat is just a simple little beanie with a double I-cord knot on top.

To finish it all off, I included a copy of Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  A classic if ever there was one. My grandkids loved it and hopefully, this baby will too!