This sweater was basically designed by a three-year-old, and it looks like it, lol. Originally she wanted a long cardigan with a Fair Isle yoke with “sparkles” (sequins), like one her mother has. So I started on a beaded yoke, and incorporated Kaffe Fasset style poppies, becuase she looooves poppies and I loooove KF poppies! But as I worked my way through the endless stockinette body (at 8 sts per inch in dark blue, it really was endless), I found out she would enjoy mushrooms,too. And then she also wanted sheep!

It’s sort of a princess shape, fitting more closely at the top, with a high waistband just under the yoke and then increasing stitches by a third across the rear 2/3 of the row. You can see the slightly gathered effect in the rear view photo. I left the front flat to facilitate sewing on the patch pockets.

The sleeves are made with extra long ribbed cuffs to allow for growth.

I wish I had put more thought into designing the colorwork at the bottom, but I worked out a row of big red flowers as a transition to the mushrooms around the hem and went at it without swatching. Now I’m thinking of about ten different ways I’d rather have done it, but at least I am much more prepared for the next time I try to design this sort of thing. The mushrooms were originally intended for the pockets, but I decided to put the sheep there instead.

The pocket design also evolved while I was knitting it. I am quite proud of them. She adores pockets, so I wanted them to be ample, but small enough at the top so things wouldn’t spill out. I started with a ribbed top, then used short rows to encourage the bag shape (the red section), then increased for width. On the very last row, I folded over five stitches at each end and knitted them together with the next five stitches, to create more fullness but fewer stitches at the bottom. I left the last row of stitches live, then grafted them to the stockinette body of the cardigan. This was a new skill for me! My original plan was some vague vision of a three-needle bind off, but I was leafing through a book of finishing techniques and came across instructions for grafting live sts to a bound off edge, and it adapted beautifully to my needs. That was probably the biggest thrill of the whole project, lol. The pockets look a bit odd set against the button bands as they are, but small people tend to have a hard time finding pockets they can’t see. Center front pockets are the easiest for small hands to locate.

oh, and another experimental element: I tried to do poppies in relief around the high waistband. It didn’t work as well as I would have liked, but it was part of my January swatch-a-long plan so I’m glad I tried it. I’ll need to experiment a bit more to make that technique really work.

So what my design lacks in cohesiveness (everything, lol), it makes up in function. I’m really glad it’s done, but I’m really glad I did it.

Kaffee Fasset-style poppies drawn freehand

Lower flower image adapted from Porcelain Flowers

mushrooms from Mushroom Pulse Warmers

Sheep from Angry Sheep Cardigan

Pockets inspired by bressay dress but changed a whole lot along the way