stripy fun for M

I have been feeling rather guilty knitting things for myself instead of my loved ones. However, I find it difficult to find patterns that I really like for boys, so that is mainly my excuse. When one day, browsing  Ravelry again (I have to tell you about my passion for Ravelry!) I came across this pattern, called Five Fruits by Amanda Kerr, available as a free Ravelry download.

I instantly fell in love with the colours used and the joy it was sending. I quickly checked amounts needed and roughly looked at the gauge required, and started looking for yarn. This must be my favourite part of the knitting process by far! As I am also a Drops addict, I went immediately to their website and found these colours in the Cotton Light series:

I had used this yarn before, but since it has changed composition, so I was still excited to wait for it. I was delighted by the colours when they arrived, but the yarn felt thinner and less soft than the previous balls I had in my hands.

When I wanted to start knitting for M, I realized I was not supposed to add ribbing, and I like it better with ribbing (although I don't like to purl) because it looks neater most of the time. In addition, I decided I wanted to have a V-neck. So, back to pattern browsing and I found this little wizard by Drops designs which had a few elements I really liked, such as raglan, bottom up and ribbed edging.

For the V-neck I decided to base myself on another Drops pattern, but the gauge was completely different.

From the above three patterns, I rewrote the whole thing to match my gauge (19st x 28r on a 4mm needle), to fit M, a big 1yo, so roughly 2yo size was what I aimed for (pattern started from 3yo, so downsizing was involved) and a V-neck shaping in a bottom up raglan fashion. I ended up casting on 102 stitches and then did 10 rows of 2/2 ribbing on a 3.5mm needle. I then switched to my 4mm needle and continued the 2/2 ribbing over 14 stitches on each side and stockinette stitch in between. I changed colours every 7 rows using the russian join technique (which I love now!). 

I can say it's going well :-). The yarn knits up beautifully and feels really soft (my initial fear of the yarn loosing its softness was not needed). The body part of the jumper is finished and after measuring and measuring again and comparing to some of the jumpers he owns already, I think it will fit!

I will let you know how this ends!

-TNOC-