A few months back, Selena from Wool & Pine Designs approached me about preview knitting for Wool & Pine’s new collection for children. In other words, they hit some of their bestselling designs for adults with a shrink ray. Needless to say, I jumped on that bandwagon faster than you could say knit. Now, towards the end of the experiment, I have results withal to share.
I think I showed my Broadleaf Mini on this blog once; it’s now done and blocked, and ready to be given away to some as-yet undetermined little person. The decision to live dangerously and not swatch for the brioche resulted in a sweater that’s a whole size too big (I knitted size 1-2 but it blocked to size 2-4…) so it won’t actually fit the child it was intended for. So either I give it to her this Christmas and she can wear it next year, or I find someone bigger. I used the same amount of yarn as I would have for size 1-2, though, which is kind of weird. If anyone can think of why, let me know, because my gob is smacked.
This little pullover was the perfect knit to give my brain a rest on weekends—the brioche is repetitive and soothing, and there’s no shaping except for a bit of taper on the sleeves. Honestly, the hardest part was figuring out how far in to seam the neckline.
Broadleaf was so much fun, I immediately cast on a Peperomia Mini. Since I’m not a big fan of knitting colorwork on Magic Loop, I splurged and got a 16″ shortie circular needle from Knitter’s Pride, which was amazing to knit with—the wood and the cable join are smooth but have just a bit of grip, and the short length helped me to knit much faster than usual. Selena’s pointers for small circumference colorwork (included in the pattern) are ingenious and super helpful. I can’t wait to wash this and see the colorwork even out.
Now I really want to make the adult version for me at some point, and adjust the neckline since it’s a bit wide for me. I particularly love this green and gold combination and may try something similar.
Both of these sweaters are knit in Knit Picks Stroll Tonal. It worked beautifully for the brioche; the finished fabric is light and squishy and airy, just as it should be. I wasn’t such a big fan of how it worked up in colorwork, though; it’s loosely spun with a good bit of air in it, and the fibers are a bit limp since they’re so soft, which made it hard to maintain tension. I ended up ditching my usual two-handed stranding technique, and just dropping the old color and picking up the new when it was time to change colors. While it wasn’t the smoothest movement, it got the job done and was still faster than I expected.
I still have quite a bit of yarn in kid-friendly colors left, so I’d like to try and whip up some Sea Glass Minis for a few deserving young folks in my life. We’ll see what time allows, especially with the holidays rolling around before too long.
All in all this has been most diverting—seriously, what’s not to love about knitting a sweater in four days?
