Little Girl Green

You all know how much I love green, so it's probably not surprising that I had to knit my daughter a green sweater.

Pattern: Helena by Alison Green Will, summer 2008 Knitty, 6 month size
Yarn: Crystal Palace Merino 5 Solid (100% superwash merino), colorway Lichen, approximately 3.5 skeins
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) and US 2 (2.75 mm) Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: October 10/October 31
Mods: omitted one repeat of the lace patterning and substituted buttonholes for ties

I wasn't terribly excited by this pattern the first time I saw it, because I didn't care much for the ties. Then, though, I saw Jess' version, in which she omitted the ties in favor of buttons, and I knew I had to knit it for Rainbow.

I'd used this yarn for an earlier sweater I'd knit for the baby and really enjoyed it, and when I found it marked down for clearance at Natural Stitches, I couldn't resist. It's squishy and soft and has excellent stitch definition, and I just love the color.

As for the mods I made, doing one less repeat of the lace was both because the sweater was measuring where it should be without it and because I was worried about running short on yarn. Because I'd gotten the yarn on clearance, I knew it was very unlikely I'd find more. It turned out to be a good move, because I had enough to knit both sleeves (I finished the body first) but probably not enough for another lace repeat. I also worked three buttonholes into the button band, although only two of them are meant to be buttoned. The top is meant to stay open and be purely decorative.

My favorite part about this sweater? The picot hems. I grafted the hem at the bottom using the live stitches off the needle, but I bound off the sleeve hems and tacked them down afterwards. The latter method seemed to work a bit better in getting the edge to lie flat, but a good blocking helped immensely.