Promotion for first year: 25% off if you purchase both Baby, You’re a Star and Cardi-O-Cardi patterns (prior purchase counts)

An adorable baby cardigan worked mostly in stockinette stitch, but the stripes and intarsia star motif make it fun. The body is worked flat from the bottom up, starting with corrugated ribbing, and separating the back and two fronts at the underarms. The sleeves are worked in the round, by picking up stitches at the shoulder and working downward. Stitches are picked up for the neck edge, button and buttonhole bands, also worked in corrugated ribbing. The optional pocket is knit as a separate piece and grafted and seamed on.

Yarn:
Sport weight, superwash. If you pick gradients or other yarns with long color changes, choose main colors that don’t overlap, otherwise the stripes can be indistinct. You can “curate” or edit the colors, but it takes thought.

Recommended: Freia Fine Handpaints Ombre Superwash Sport Minikins, 100% wool, 76 yds (70 m) / 25 g. This yarn is super soft with saturated colors, even and round. Each colorway is a continuous gradient. See photo of yarn requirements table.

Alternatives:

• Noro Silk Garden Sock - 328 yds (300 m) / 100 g, 40% wool, 25% silk, 25% polyamide, 10% kid mohair, 2 skeins for up to 12 mos., 3 skeins for 18 mos.
• Play at Life Jest Sport Sock Gradient - 325 yds (297 m) / 100 g, 80% superwash merino, 20% nylon. Two 2-ball sets (325 yds (297 m) each) are enough for up to 12 mos. size.
• Schoppel Zauberball Stärke 6 - 437 yds (400 m) / 150 g, 75% wool, 25% nylon, superwash. Two balls are enough for any size.
• Spincycle Dyed in the Wool: 200 yds (183 m) / skein, 100% wool, superwash. Two skeins are enough for the 3 mos. size, but will require color curation for the motif and trim (also enough for the 6 mos size except for the trim).

I enjoy working with gradient yarns, but solids and variegated yarns would work well, too. The motif could also be worked in a single color, gradient, or striped.

Needles

• Larger needle: US 4 / 3.5 mm circular needle, 32 inches / 80 cm or comfortably long for magic loop on sleeves (used for knitting full width of body, as well– approximately 24 inches / 60 cm flat), or needle to obtain gauge
• Smaller needle: US 2.5 / 3 mm circular needle, 32 inches / 80 cm or comfortably long for magic loop on sleeves (used for knitting full width ribbing on body, as well).
• Small crochet hook for picking up stitches, approximately US 12 / 2 mm
• Optional: You may want to use double pointed needles for the sleeves, or for the fronts, after separating from the back, or for the optional patch pocket: US 2.5 / 3 mm and US 4 / 3.5 mm, or size to obtain gauge

Notions

• 5 buttons for 3 mos size, 6 buttons for others, 11/16 inch (18 mm)
• Ribbon to back button band, if desired (½ inch (13 mm) wide, <50 cm long))
• Tapestry needle, waste yarn, locking stitch markers