Helena for Catherine.

Big Ted models Catherine's Helena Cardigan

Here’s my completed Helena, from Knitty.

It’s beautifully modelled by Big Ted, who refused to take off his Ewok outfit for the picture.

I’m sure that baby Catherine won’t mind that you can see where I made the switch on the sleeves from working back and forth on one circular needle to working in the round on dpns.

I must confess that I’m still not a big fan of working in the round. Perhaps its because I come from a dressmaking background, but I do feel as though shoulder seams particularly give a structural integrity to a garment. This is especially important in larger knitted items as they can be heavy, and all the weight of a big jumper is carried by the shoulders. Then again, my preference is for raglan sleeves which don’t have proper shoulder seams whether you knit them in the round or not.

Now I just need to decide what to knit next. I have a jumper a scarf and a lacy tank top all half-finished, and yet I’d much rather be designing a pattern for a pink and black stripy pirate jumper… possibly with this gorgeous “deathflake” motif across the front.

Working on a baby cardigan

Helena - without sleeves

Aside from hats, this is the first baby garment that I’ve knitted.
The pattern is Helena, from Knitty.

I had originally planned to knit Elizabeth Zimmerman’s “February” baby cardigan, but I didn’t have access to the pattern when I wanted to start knitting (i.e. IMMEDIATELY!), so I went with this one instead. The construction’s basically the same, but the lace pattern and hem are different.

I’ve only changed one thing about this pattern, and that was swapping the front ties for three little buttons. I do wish I’d cast off on a larger needle, but that’s just a peculiarity of my knitting style not a complaint about the pattern. The same applies to the fact that it took me a whole hour to pick up and knit the stitches for the band. Ouch.

I have to confess that my motives for choosing the February pattern were entirely selfish. I’ve never knitted a top-down raglan cardigan before, and I wanted to try out the technique on something small. I’d really like to knit myself a February Lady cardigan, but I didn’t want to launch into yet another big knitting project only to abandon it because I didn’t like the way it was turning out.

All I need to do now is knit the sleeves, and finish them off with a neat little picot hem. Then it can be sent off to Catherine, who hopefully won’t have grown out of it before she gets to put it on!