I know I said I was going to work on my old WIPs, but in the end they just could not compete with a shiny new project. This might be a big part of why I have so many WIPs in the first place. I ended up casting on a cardigan for my daughter who is in kindergarten. I chose the Family Cardigan 8225 from Sirdar. It’s not exactly the catchiest name, but it is exactly what I was looking for. I am knitting the crewneck in the smallest size, which looks pretty close to a child’s size 6. I figure if the sizing doesn’t exactly work out as planned, I can always give it to my 4 year old instead.
I am knitting the sweater out of Quince & Co. chickadee yarn in the sorbet and leek colorways. I cast on in the green and then switched to pink, and I will bind off in the green as well.
This is a project of firsts: I have never made a seamed garment, and I have also never made a child-sized garment. Let me tell you, the combination is addictive. I just started this project a few days ago and I am almost done knitting the back. At this rate, I’ll be agonizing over the button band before you know it. After lugging around an adult-sized top-down sweater, it is refreshing to just have these tiny pieces to knit.
I am very concerned about picking up all of those stitches for the button band. I have only ever picked up 10 stitches at a time under the arms of a garment. This is 100 at once. I am also sweating placing the buttons and sewing them on. It seems crazy that I could make an entire sweater and mess it up on the buttons, but I can’t sew to save my life. I will have to deep dive into all the YouTube videos when the time comes and hope I can make some magic happen.
For all of you cardigan knitters out there, do you sew in a backing for your button band? I keep seeing all of these cute contrasting ribbons on the inside of knitted garments, and I thought that would be cute. But then that’s more sewing, and you know how I feel about that. I am also considering embroidering a tiny bee or a heart on the sweater in the green. We’ll see how ambitious I feel after this is seamed up.
I hope your WIPs are treating you well. Do you have any new projects in the works?
A Yarn Tail 
I never bother with a backing band, as you say, more sewing. Don’t worry about the buttons/buttonholes, it will all make sense when you get to it. Yeah, children’s clothes are great! and what beautiful yarn and colours. When I was young, about 100 years ago, knitting patterns only had numbers. It feels odd to me that they have names now. Hey ho.
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I hope it goes ok! It will be an adventure at least. It should be a good story either way.
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This might help with the buttonholes . . . http://knitable.net/buttonholecalc.asp
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Thank you!
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I love the idea of the different coloured cast on – it looks so striking and unusual
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I saw it on the versaci knits basic kid pattern and thought I’d give it a try.
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I suggest not keeping the back neck sts live if you pattern suggests it. Our neck lines need stability and even though a pullover needs the stretch, a cardigan does not. As to picking up sts, there are great suggestions for how many sts to pick up along your edges. The pattern may say X number, but our gauges are all different and sometimes we need to pick up in ratio. Along a vertical edge use the 3 for 4 ratio. Along a slant edge use a 2 for 3, and along the back neck a 1 for 1. After a few rows you can see if the edges are puckering, too few picked up, or splaying. too many picked up, and adjust accordingly. I agree, kid knitting is so quick and fun!
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Thank you so much for this. I will keep this in mind when I get there. I feel a lot more confident about this than when I knit my first adult pullover. At that point I had only been knitting a couple of months – talk about flying blind! And it worked out in the end. I still wear that sweater 😊
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I love the colors you’ve chosen. I enjoy making kids sizes too. I’m working on my first adult sized cardigan and will have to do the button strip soon. Hopefully it will make sense to me!
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Good luck! If this goes well I would love to make a cardigan for myself.
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