Friday, May 13, 2011

Not-so-girly stripes

Okay, it's time for me to face down the purple baby sweater.  When we last visited it, I had realized I did not have enough yarn to make it with just one skein, and I'd purchased a second skein of similar fiber composition in a complementary colour.

I have now reknit the first sleeve for what may be the fourth time but feels like the sixth, and this is how it came out:


(do you love the little yellow stripes in between the purple purl bumps?  I had to reduce the bump factor to make it work, but I think I love it anyway.)

As an aside, since I've solved this problem and no longer need to ask whether I should considering ripping it back again, reknitting over and over with the same yarn can lead to some seriously mangled stitches.  They may come out in the blocking and they may not, so what I did to fix the lumps visible even in this miniaturized picture was use the point of my needle to tug a little on both sides of each stitch for some distance to one side of the offending bit of mangledness.  This smoothed out the lumps and spread a little extra yarn over more of the row so it doesn't show or even feel bad (which is good news for a tiny baby.)

But here is the problem I do have:

Are these stripes just too Boy?  There's a chance this baby might be a girl, and after two boys already, my friend (who dresses her boys up on the most flimsy of excuses, and shops for them as a recreational sport) will almost certainly want to go totally girly if so.

Maybe I should rip back and vary the stripes a little more so they don't look like a rugby shirt?  Or maybe it's enough to knit little flowers and sew them on after the fact, to pretty it up.

What do you think?

(and yes, I will take utter silence as 'Don't be crazy Mary, you could have knit six baby sweaters in the time you've already spent on this one sleeve.'  It's what I'm telling myself after all.)

One thing I am sure about: my decision to knit the sleeves a little longer than the pattern calls for, since they are also a little wider than they should be, so the baby can wear the cardi longer.  I'm especially pleased with how the cuff looks from underneath,


since it's sure to be folded up for a while.

4 comments:

Brendaknits said...

I'd go for the flowers once the gender is known. It will be so original that way.

Kate/Massachusetts said...

I think it looks great just the way it is! If the baby turns out to be a girl, it's a good excuse to knit lacy girlie-girl things! I hope I can post this to your blog - lately it doesn't let me comment...not sure why!

heklica said...

I wasn't sure these two colours were going to work but they do! As for the girly issue, I think I agree with Brendaknits. Besides, it doesn't look too Boy to me at all.

justmeandtwo said...

I agree that it looks just fine for either. Ruffled edges can be afterthoughts as well if necessary but the colors and details look great for boy or girl.