A Colorwork Cardigan for Charlotte

I have been making an effort to knit sweaters for the kids since about 2011.  Charlotte got the first one, when she was a toddler.  A friend had sort of dared/goaded me to get back into knitting, claiming I was never really going to do it--just talk about it.  My pride was hurt a little, and in a rebellious move, I abandoned all the scarves I've half hartedly started (and never finished) and went straight for sweaters.  They were what I'd always wanted to knit anyway.  I never looked back.  

 

Charlotte's most recent sweater has been my most challenging project to date.  I wanted to do colorwork, and knit in the round.  She wanted a cardigan with flowers or diamonds that was pink and purple.  This Dale of Norway baby sweater was the one pattern we found that really satisfied us both. Knit in the round with a steek and a pattern that was arguably diamond or floral, we were set.  Using larger needles and thicker yarn, I sized it up from 3/4 to a 5/6 and switched the colors, keeping dark and light the same as the original but going with purple, magenta and pink instead of red, orange and pink.  I cast on in August.  The colorwork section went so fast, I thought I'd be done by September at the latest.  I was oh so wrong.  

Getting to this point took months.  Knitting purple stockinette and only purple stockinette is really boring.

 

This was somewhere around Halloween, when costume making took over.  Followed by Christmas.  In February I was certainly going to finish (I don't even remember what happened to January)...then I broke my arm.

By the end of March all the knitting was done!

Steeking and adding the button band were much harder than I'd anticipated--by far the hardest part of the project, mostly because I chickened out about sewing the stabilizing stitches by machine.  Repairs were in order.  I will spare you the details.  By the time I had finished steeking (cutting) and adding the button band, the sleeves were too short (despite careful measuring).  Luckily sweaters that are knit top down are pretty easy to adjust.  I took out the colored edging, put the stitches back on the needle and kept going.

Here is one lengthened cuff and one original.

The 'finished' picture below just goes to show how much color can be distorted by different cameras in different lights.  The true color is much closer to the one above.  Hopefully I'll get a better shot later on.