’Real enough for pretend, practical enough for everyday,’ was my motto when designing the sweaters and toys that make up this collection. Inspired by various animals that children love to dream about and play, each sweater suggests an animal by focusing on key features, while still being wearable for everyday.

This collection is perfect for people who have lots of kids to knit for. All the sweaters are sized from newborn to 6T, so coordinating sweaters and toys among siblings and relatives are possible!

The sweaters included range from simple, seamed, raglan sweaters with only a little extra finishing, to stripes and stranded knitting, and finally into intarsia. Of the toys, one only involves increasing, decreasing, and picking up stitches, while the other uses short rows, grafting, and i-cord to achieve its shape.

There are two complete photo tutorials for key techniques; one for doing the tubular cast-on in 2 X 2 ribbing, which is recommended for all the sweaters, and another for how to graft live stitches to a cast-on, which is used in one toy pattern. Links for other techniques are also included.

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