A very long time ago, nineteen years ago to be exact, I knitted a set like this for my youngest son, and a year ago for my grandchild. I like it so much that when a colleague wanted a set for her grandchild, I decided to make the same kind again. The difference is that I did not make booties for my own child or grandchild, the trousers were higher with braces, and the hat had earflaps, exactly like the picture and instructions in Novita Baby Junior magazine.
The pattern is extremely easy to knit and gives a lovely airy, soft result.
I used 3 mm needles. I make more or less all my knitted pieces with 3–3.5 mm needles. The customer chose King Cole Babyglitz yarn, 97% premium acrylic and 3% polyester. A 100 g ball is 290 m; I had 300 g altogether and less than 100 g was left. The baby is three months old now and the request was to make it a little bigger so it would last through the whole summer. At first I had planned to crochet it, but with this yarn… I chose knitting instead. Besides, there is no crochet-hook symbol on the label, so apparently it is not meant for crochet anyway.
According to the instructions, the cardigan is knitted in one piece up to the sleeves. I made all the pieces separately.
The pattern repeat is 8 stitches. I started the back with 49 stitches. If you cast on one stitch more than a multiple of the repeat (6 × 8 = 48), the beginning and end of the row match the pattern in the same way. I knitted 1×1 rib for 4 cm. On the right side I slipped the knit stitch without knitting and knitted the purl stitch; on the wrong side I knitted all stitches in 1 knit, 1 purl rib. With my yarn, needles and tension, that was 20 rows. I changed from white to pink yarn and knitted a knit row. Useful to know: the pattern itself is worked on the return row, on the wrong side.
For each front I cast on 25 stitches plus 6 stitches for the border. I knitted the rib as on the back, but worked the 6 edge stitches in knit stitch all the time, giving a garter-stitch border. For buttonholes I knitted 2 stitches, decreased 2 with a slip-over decrease, then knitted 2. My border is white and the cardigan pink. Where the colours met, I twisted the yarns together on the wrong side so the white and pink would stay joined.
Using the stitch counts I have written on the diagrams gives a size suitable for a child of about one year. Naturally, it depends on the yarn and needles.
I started the hat with 9 pattern repeats, or 73 stitches, for a head circumference of 44 cm, suitable up to about six months. I used the same ribbing technique as on the cardigan and knitted 3 cm. I allowed 16 cm for the height of the hat; with my yarn that was 20 rows of the eyelet pattern. To finish, I gathered the stitches in the round. You could add a pom-pom or something to hide the little hole, but I decided the hole fits perfectly there just as it is 🙂
Next came the booties. I found the instructions on Buffin’s blog.Very pretty, easy to make and quick to finish.
And finally, the trousers! I made the shorter version, without the bib and braces. The trousers are worked in stocking stitch.
For half of the trousers I had 60 stitches on the needles. For the crotch I decreased 4 stitches, then 1 stitch twice, so I started the seat section with 48 stitches. I knitted both legs separately up to the seat, then continued in the round. After about 16 cm of the seat section, I changed to 2 mm needles and knitted the same ribbing as on the cardigan. As I had not decreased the stitches, I used the smaller needles.
I wove in all the yarn ends, steamed the pieces and sewed them together. I grafted the cardigan pieces and the hat seam; the trousers I sewed in the usual way. I normally finish buttonholes with buttonhole stitch, but with this yarn they would have looked awful, so I simply overcast the edges.
I have a proper little obsession: if something is knitted or crocheted by hand, it must have handmade buttons too. I hate fiddling about making buttons and, whenever possible, make things without them, but… this time there was no escape.
I still needed beads for the flower centres on the booties and to fasten the collar corners to the cardigan. I did not have any beads, but then I remembered a necklace that had broken. A little dismantling produced exactly four small pink beads.
I steamed all the seams and it was finished. And most importantly, I like it. I sincerely hope the customer is pleased with it too.
