Purple Toddler Coat

 We have had a lot of rain this month and so while I finished this coat a week ago, there has not been enough light to take proper photos till now. It may look benign or even nice, but it was one of the most tedious things I ever knit. Not fun at all. In addition, the honeycomb pattern can be physically challenging to the wrists.

The technical details..Initially, I picked this pattern to knit, but my yarn was a different weight, so I decided to do my own math. And go with a top-down, contiguous approach, which I later realized, was all wrong for this design because of the considerable gauge difference between stockinette st and honeycomb pattern. So when I tried to get proper sizing at the yoke, the sleeves caps grew quiet loose. At that point, I had already invested a great deal of time and energy (remember the honeycomb pattern being hard on the wrists) to rip back. So I decided to move on and get it done.

 Thankfully my toddler does not have an eye for such details yet. She is happy and content with the fact that her mom made her a new cardigan. And that is good enough for me. It is a bit large on her at the moment as it is intended to fit her next winter.

A Bit Unravelled

My current wip (work in progress)

I am knitting this cardigan top down. I had planned to finish the neckline with a few rows of ribbing and it was to have the first buttonhole as well. So i put in the rest of the buttonholes accordingly. However I had a nagging suspicion that the neckline was too small and ribbing would make it even smaller. So on reaching the bottom of the cardigan, I decided to knit the neck ribbing before the bottom edge and just as i thought, it made the neck opening too small. So I frogged the ribbing and did an I-cord bind-off instead. But that meant the first buttonhole was now too far down, thus creating the need for this unravel of the buttonhole band.

Thankfully the band is all fixed now and I am binding off the cardigan now. I have made several mistakes while knitting this cardigan ans sadly not all were so easy to fix. So I have had to put up with them. More on that when I show you the completed cardigan. For now, I am happy to be almost done with this cardigan and if I am wise, I should be sticking to tried and tested patterns for a while (highly unlikely..).

Looking For Suggestions

I know I have been neglecting this blog for some time and I am sorry about that. What with a new baby, two rounds of flu which escalated to something worse for our youngest two, the annual exams of the older kids, life has been an ongoing series of hectic. That did not leave much time for knitting or blogging. Things are still pretty busy but the final exams are over at last and we are recovering from our latest colds, so the things are looking up. Hopefully I will be able to blog more frequently. The cardigan I am working at ought to be done soon and I am planning on some spring sewing soon. So I will have some stuff to blog about. However I am looking for blogging ideas in addition to my usual knitting and sewing projects. Are there any particular topics my readers would like? I would love to have some input/suggestions.