Thank you Baby Cardigan

You might recall a few months ago I was the lucky recipient of another knitter's (thankfully small but good) stash (the mother-in-law of one of the mums in my my mothers group).  I promised you (and myself) that I would make a little something out of some of the yarn I received for this knitter's granddaughter.  I hoped that this is what the knitter would have wanted.

Last week, I handed over this:

I used some of the Heirloom Merino Magic from the gifted stash.  I didn't have enough of one colour for a whole garment, so thought this was a good pattern for colour-blocking while still being pretty (I didn't want to do stripes as I figured I'd be doing enough stripes for Connor over the next few years!).  I used the cream (2 balls) for the fronts and bands, a whole ball of lilac for the back, and almost a whole ball of green for the sleeves.  I had a ball of blue as well, I initially thought I'd do one sleeve green and one blue, but after finishing one sleeve, I knew I'd have enough for the second sleeve.

Details
Pattern:  Provence Baby Cardigan by Cecily Glowik MacDonald.  This is an easy pattern, mostly stocking stitch with a moss-stitch edging and pretty lace leaf motif on the front.  I did make some modifications to the pattern (see the mods section below).

Yarn: Heirloom Merino Magic, 3.5 x 50g balls

Sticks:  4mm KnitPicks Harmony Options (3.75mm for the neckband).

Time:  9 May 2011 - 3 June 2011

Modifications:  I knit the body of the cardigan in one piece - which meant I had to do INTARSIA!!!  I swore never to do intarsia, ever!  Although really, just changing colour twice in each row, in a straight line up the side "seam", probably doesn't count as real intarsia.  But I still did it, and it worked!  Although getting the two balls of cream and one of purple tangled every so often was annoying.  But hey, no seaming!

I also knit the button band at the same time as the body of the cardigan.  This resulted in a bit of a puckered button band (may have also had to do with my not-so-great buttonhole skills!), which probably wouldn't have happened if I'd knit it separate and seamed it on.  Thankfully blocking evened it out, mostly...

And I knit the sleeves in the round, from the top down!  They were basic drop sleeve style sleeves, so it was easy to pick up stitches from the armhole and knit downwards, decreasing at the same rate as the pattern specified increases.  It was a bit messy under the arms, but I stumbled through and fixed it up when I darned in the ends (there were small holes where I'd joined to knit in the round.

I also added neck shaping on the back (so it would come down a bit lower on the back, not right up against the neck).  This was partly because I was worried I'd run out of the lilac yarn with a row or two to spare!  as it was, I only just squeaked it in!

And finally a three needle bind off for the shoulder seams.  And thus no seaming at all in this garment, woo hoo!

And best of all, the mum was very touched by the gesture.  It really is a lovely thing to knit for others.