Little William's Body

November 2013

This reminds me of a sweater worn by a character called Abney in The Adventures of Abney and Teal, and it made me want to have a go at making something even closer. One day!

This is a top-down sweater, which is knitted back and forth initially, in order to create a nice large neck opening which is then fastened with buttons. Very useful, but as the stranded colour work begins before it is joined in the round, you are forced to keep cutting your yarn and re-joining it again where you need it to be. So lots of loose ends to sew in.

My version of this is heavily modified. The original pattern is for a knitted body, and fastened under the crotch. I didn’t think that would be very practical, and so I modified it to be a sweater instead, so it can be worn over the top of a cotton vest if it’s really cold.

I also carried the fair-isle pattern on for longer than intended, placing the charts so that it ended up mirroring itself (that was the intention, but I got a bit distracted and missed bits).

Love the colour combination. It makes me think of blue skies and white clouds.

One note of caution: if you’re swatching for this, don’t rely on plain stocking stitch to be the same gauge as the stranded colour work parts. I wish I’d worked a few of the charts, and thought about changing needle size etc. This has come out a good size for a 6 month old, but it was originally intended for someone a bit bigger!

Pattern: Little William's Body / DROPS b21-32
Yarn: Regia Color 4-ply / Patons Fairytale Dreamtime 4-ply
Colour: 1932 Denim Blue / 53 Cream
Amount: 1.5 skeins of blue and less than one skein of white
On ravelry: here