Baby Sophisticate Numero Dos

Thank you for all your input and suggestions on my previous post. I have finished the Baby Sophisticate and it looks darling!

 

I ultimately went with the pine cone buttons. My mother had read the blog post, shared it with her assistant (whose baby this is for), and called me to say they both liked the pine cones the best. I returned the orange buttons, but did save the leaf print buttons. I don't normally save buttons because I feel like then they just get put into a jar and I never think about them again. Projects that may go great with the special buttons come and go, and those special buttons are forgotten and stay buried in their jar. As you can imagine, my button stash is extremely meager.  Anyway, my point is, I saved the leaf print buttons. 

After blocking, the final measurements of the tiny garment were fine. It blocked out to the 16" circumference the pattern stated it would. The woman I am knitting this for has rather small babies and this is really only intended for one winter of wear. My mother and her assistant specifically requested that I knit the smallest size so the baby could wear it as soon as he pops out. Now, if I were knitting this for a baby that was the size my brother was when he was born, I might need to knit it big enough to fit a toddler! Just kidding (kind of. He was pretty big). 

The yarn I used for this project was Malabrigo Rios and it is so incredibly soft! Even before blocking, I was trying to estimate what an adult sweater's worth of yarn would cost (and then I fainted for a moment). It is just a smidge splitty but the twist in the yarn makes it feel incredibly smooth. You know if this were regular Malabrigo Worsted it would be all fuzzed up by the time you were done with your project.

Overall, I think it turned out great considering my rough beginnings. I used one skein of the Rios with only a tiny ball and my gauge swatch left. I did knit the length shorter (6" rather than the 7" called for) as well as only doing four short row repeats instead of five. My only gripe with this pattern is the gauge. I think 4 stitches to an inch is pretty hard to get on size 8 needles. For both this project and the original Baby Sophisticate I knit, I ended up using size 10 needles. That, and with the body being worked back and forth and the sleeves done in the round, I always tend to have some tension issues.  

Hello, tension issues. I'm hoping with an arm in it it won't be noticeable. I also thought I went up to a 10.5 needle for the arm to even out the tension but by the time I got done with sleeve #2 I realized I had been using the #10 needle the whole time. So I used an expletive and just left it.

Pattern: Baby Sophisticate by Linden Down

Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Rios in Teal Feather (1 skein)

Needles: #10

Began: November 7

Completed: November 11

Ravelry Link