Little People Clothes

No, not those little people.. I'm talking about children..

After finishing a scarf for a friend, and getting a few books for Christmas, I feel comfortable enough to branch out into clothes. I have always wanted to knit clothes, especially raglan style tops. I hate shopping for tops and figure this would be the best way to get what I want. And I have a thing for sweaters/cardigans, especially the ones with cables. As I was making the scarf, I learned very quickly how to rip back, count rows, and figure out what I was looking at; a purl stitch or a knit stitch. Those few things had always kind of escaped me. Everything just kind of clicked while I was working on the scarf.

So I decided to "borrow" my friend's 18 month old niece as a guinea pig. I'm knitting up a little cardigan to see how I do. I figure little clothes would be easier than big clothes. I'm rather pleased with my progress too. I thought I was slow, and compared to folks who have been at this a while, I probably am slow but in the handful of hours I have been knitting on the piece, I've done an 8 x 12 inch section. Before I used to be so discouraged because I felt slow but I don't feel that way anymore. In fact I'm looking forward to my next project which will be a knitted purse and my first ever foray into felting!

Anyway, the cardigan is a combination of stockinette stitches and box stitches (k2,p2 for 2 rows.. p2,k2 for 2 rows). It's a cute little cardigan and the only thing I'm a little nervous about is the seaming. I've never seamed before. I want it to be good and strong and not unravel as the child plays.

Oh, here's a link to a picture of someone's finished version of the cardigan. I'm using a lighter color - beige I think. I was actually aiming for a similar color, like the one in the photo, but I'm not comfortable buying yarn without touching it first yet and I didn't see that color at the store. But the beige should be good - it won't be problematic matching to other colors.