Sometimes there are projects that are born with minds of their own. These are usually the ones with very special names attached to them. This one was given a nice name in the end.
Originally, this project came to me via my sister-in-law and niece who bought it to make for the new baby in the family. It came as a kit with little mini-cakes of wound up color all nestled together in the bag and a precious picture of the finished garment on the front. At the time, I thought it was a little small-ish in size. For a young baby. Precut yardage always makes me nervous because there usually there isn’t much room for modifications. It’s an efficient method of utilizing each yard of fiber; but things can get interesting quickly. Especially when the kit comes without a pattern and the baby starts to grow like dandelions in my front yard in May.
This pattern is commonly called the Tulip Sweater and uses Dream in Color hand dyed superwash merino wool. It’s truly wonderful yarn to knit. As you can see, the color gradation is a visual feast. I decided to purchase another tulip sweater kit in a pastel version. That kit looked like it had a lot more yardage, although I didn’t realize until I was well into knitting this one; that the pattern which came with the pastel kit was for a toddler. Knowing that this baby had already grown out of one hand knit heirloom sweater confirmed that my decision to go with the largest size written in the pattern.
You can guess what happened. Knitting happily away, I soon realized this little charmer was going to be a vest without trim. Off to the LYS. I purchased some superwash Cascade 220 and tried to follow the color striping down the sleeves but it looked really awful, so I decided to change course dramatically.
Using what was left of the original yarn, and then bringing in the new yarn as a completely different element, I decided to add a ruffle with the new yarn and make stripes with the old yarn. I think it worked.
I chained stitched (crocheted) ties about 5 inches long and continued around the neckline to stabilize and finished it up with a second tie on the other side. The original pattern called for I-cord ties and trim.
I really like knitting neck down sweaters without side seams. Really don’t like seaming because I’m not very good at it and poor finishing is the calling card of a mediocre knitter.