Crocheting for Isaiah

I just got back yesterday from visiting my daughter's home in Oklahoma. While there I finished crocheting a sweater for my grandson, three-month-old Isaiah. I'd picked a color palette consisting of two soft greens, and one each pale and medium browns. It hints at being like camouflage, which should please his daddy, but one of the greens has a brighter lilt to it to please me and his mom. Boy colors seems a bit more restrictive to me, but that might just be old-fashioned thinking on my part.

I had hoped to have the sweater completed to take with me but ran into a whole slew of problems. I made the back just as the instructions directed. But when I reach the shoulder shaping I was supposed to have twelve stitches along the back neck and I had more like twenty stitches between the shoulders.

I did not notice until I had completed the back that there had been no instructions to decrease and taper around the armholes as there had been on left and right fronts. The back armholes were not as deep as the front ones, also. The rows had not followed the same sequence of single crochets and double crochets. I wondered if that could be part of the design, to introduce a bit of variety. Perhaps more double crochet rows and fewer single crochet rows could account for why there were fewer total rows on the back. I checked several times and I did what was directed. I was a bit discouraged and lost my momentum since I had to stop and figure out what should have been done.

I set the body aside and forged ahead to do the sleeves. Here they are. On the left is a a view from the upper arm. On the right is a view from the underarm. Note twisting seam that spiral upward to the left. I think that is not the pattern but rather my inexperience in determining which is the first stitch of a round so I drifted. The pattern was rated intermediate but maybe I was too ambitious. Oh, well. It is not extremely noticeable unless I point it out, and the seams will be underneath Isaiah's arms when the sweater is on him.

I noticed I discussed the spiraling issue in my blog post for August 1, 2013 where I show his sister's sweater and I apparently did it correctly there. Interesting that when I went back and reviewed my post, I was having the same issues back then with the seam drifting and the rectangles being leaning parallelograms and not at right angles. On Isaiah's sweater I had needed to rip out and crochet again the body up to the armholes twice because the first time it leaned to one side. Both his sister's sweater and his sweater came from the same book, Oh Baby, Crochet. The boy's sweater came from a different pattern than the girl's. There were no scallops on the front but it still had contrasting edging and was made from four colors.

I checked on line for errata for the back of the sweater and googled several sites but found no corrections so I invented my own. I typed in the instructions for the left and right fronts in the outer columns and in the middle column made my best guess at what might work for the back. Notice my creative row numbering 28.1, 29.1, etc. I made sure I had twelve stitches between shoulders at the top neckline and similar curving at the arm hole edges. I decided to forgo mixing up single crochet and double crochet rows and made sure that the back armholes came out the same depth and shape as the front armholes.

I managed to complete the crocheting on the sweater parts at home before leaving for my daughter's. I assembled it and added the front band and buttons in the evenings while I was at her house. I could not pass up using these cute, chubby owl buttons. The holes were small enough though, that I had to sew them on with thread rather than yarn.

I place five, rather than four, buttons going up the front. The front band has a nice design feature. It had a central region of double crochets so there are no worries over where to place the buttonholes. You just slip the button in between two double crochets. Here is the completed sweater along with a matching beanie.

I started and completed crocheting the matching hat while I was there. I had no problems making it other than my eyes getting blurry because I stayed up too late, determined to complete it before leaving to return home. I added an owl button accent to the turned-up brim.

Success! It fits! Here it is being modeled by Isaiah himself.

I'd also stayed up late the night before may husband and I traveled out there whipping out this pair of burp cloths. I thought the alphabet and houndstooth prints were masculine but still baby precious.

I still need to unpack from traveling and get settled back in at home. But blogging and linking up to this week's Freshly Pieced WIP is much more enticing.