Sunday 10 February 2013

Gabriel

January 2013

The first and most important thing to say about this is the sizing is absolutely, and clearly wrong. Having been alerted to the fact that it ran a little big through various comments on ravelry, I compared the schematic to that of another toddler sweater in my queue, Lucinda Guy's Big Digger Sweater and it turned out that the 12 month old size for Gabriel (which was the smallest) more or less matched the 24 - 36 month old size for Big Digger.

I think all sizes have the same problem, but in spite of that, no errata have been published as far as I can tell. All I can say is check, check and check again to avoid disappointment.



I made the 12 month old size in the hope that it will fit my son next winter, when he will be 2. He is 15 months old now, and slightly above average size-wise. Before I got round to sewing the sleeves on, I took this picture (when he happened to be wearing a pair of very nicely coordinating trousers) to demonstrate just how big a fit it is at the moment.


With that caveat, this is a cute pattern, and a great colour-work practice piece for a relative amateur like me, given that it features intarsia and stranded motifs. It was also a great way of using up the yarn I had left over from this. My version is quite heavily modified:

1. I left off the pockets on the basis that I didn't consider them either use or ornament;

2. My version fastens with buttons, not a zip. I'm too lazy to sew a zip into my FOs. Once was enough.

3. My colour scheme was slightly different - most notably I used a dark red yarn where the pattern called for a pale blue. I like bold colours in baby clothes, not pastels.

4. I made this in one piece up to the arm-hole. I worked out where the armhole needed to be by making one of the sleeves first, measuring the width at the top, halving it and then based on my row gauge, guestimating whereabouts the bottom part of the sleeve would meet the body.


According to the ball-band Hayfield bonus dk will withstand ironing at a low heat despite being acrylic. These pictures were taken after ironing but not blocking, since that seemed likely to be the more effective way to tidy it up a bit.

I really need to make something for me soon. If you see me blogging about baby stuff again this month, please kick me in the head.

Pattern: Gabriel by Debbie Bliss
Yarn: Hayfield bonus dk
Colourway: White 096, Light Grey 0838 and Black/Flint 0778 plus mystery dark red acrylic.
Size: 12 months, allegedly
On ravelry: here