Selma's sleeping suit
I was looking for two quick and easy baby gifts that was both practical for Norwegian winter and cute, and thats exactly what I got. Two happy babies and one happy knitter!
About the pattern
This paid pattern by PetiteKnit has been around for almost 9 years (published in march 2017). It has 2035 projects on ravelry and the reviews are great. It is written for the more experienced beginner knitter, making it an easy knit.
It is knit flat on US 6 or 4 mm needles with aran weight yarn. It features garter stitch, which means no purling = music to my ears. It also has a hood, buttons, and mitts and booties that can be folded back - cute!
The pattern includes raglan increases for the yoke, and the arms and legs are sewn together at the end. The pattern was relatively easy to understand, but when I tell you to read the pattern carefully, I mean carefully. When making this the first time, I had to rip back the hood and the legs a couple of times, because I did not read the pattern well enough.
The second time, I could not be bothered to rip it back and left my mistakes in the finished garment. It is supposed to look home-made, right? Besides, according to Irish beliefs, a knitter leaves a piece of their soul in every knitted garment, and by leaving a mistake their soul is able to escape. I love that way of thinking.
Although the pattern was great in terms of structure and easy techniques it had no guide or explanations. That means it is up to the knitter to google everything and watching youtube videos if they do not know the techniques. That was not a problem for me as I do that all the time, but if that is something that bothers you, this is not the pattern for you.
The yarn
The pattern suggests an aran weight yarn that has a gauge of 19 stitches and 32 rows in 10 x 10 cm. The specific yarn suggested were Snefnug from CaMaRose that has 110 meters per 50 grams, or Frisenvangs Thick Quality Baby Alpaca 150-200 meters per 100 grams.
The yarn I used was the blown yarn DROPS Air with a meterage of 150 meters per 50 gram ball of yarn. Mainly because had some in my stash, and buying the last couple of balls was easy and cheap. The yarn is not known for being the best quality, and it is not. But a baby garment that has limited usage before the baby has outgrown it, seemed like a reasonable choice. DROPS do have a big range of colours, which is a plus.
The yarn has a 28% polyamide tube that is filled with a mix of 7 % merino and 65% baby alpaca. Its a very soft yarn, but might feel a bit itchy for some that reacts on the alpaca wool. For an outer garment, its perfect.
You use approximately 450 meters of yarn which is approximately 150-200 grams of DROPS Air. The colours I used for the first project is number 10 - Fog. A beautiful light blue with lots of purple specs throughout.
For my second project I used a bunch of scraps from past projects in the colours 50- Peach pink for the hood and the arms, for the body I chose number 10- Fog, and for the mitts and legs number 41- Sweet orchid. The combination really worked out and resulted in a cute sugary sweet look.
Modifications and final fit
I did not modify the first suit and followed the instructions to the best of my abilities. It worked out wonderfully, and it is definitely the one I am the most happy about.
The second suit was modified in terms of doing several colours. Since I used leftovers from other projects I had to be mindful of what colour I put where. It resulted in having to make the pockets for the hands a bit shorter as I ran out of yarn. I even ripped back a different project just to be able to finish the second sleeve. It is not my best work and you can see that especially in the raglan where the colour change is. But with some aggressive blocking the suit ended up being almost as I imagined, and I am unsure if it could have been done any different with the skillset I had at the time.
Summary
The yarn, was exactly as expected. Not the best but not the worst, and it served its purpose well. You cannot expect anything else in that price range and thats ok.
Overall I am happy with the end result and this is a pattern I keep revisiting again and again. PetiteKnit does a good job of making clear, easy patterns where knitters are able to grow their skills.
In the end the recipients was really happy with the gift and I know that the garments has gotten a lot of wear, which is the most important thing.
