Blue Nurtured Sweater for Elliot

Elliot wanted me to knit him a sweater after I made myself the Nurtured sweater early last winter. It's been a while since I knit anything for him and mostly I thought it was super sweet that he wanted me to knit him a sweater, so I brought him to SPUN and he picked out some yarn -- Shepherd's Wool, made here in Michigan (woot!) -- and I got around to casting it on mid-February or so. Like an idiot, I decided that rather than pick a kid-sized basic crew sweater knitting pattern,* it would be easiest to just try and adjust the Nurtured pattern (by Andrea Mowry), so I measured one of his sweaters, did some math, and came up with a plan for adjusting the pattern that I thought would fit him.

*in fairness, sweater patterns for size 12 kids are a bit harder to find. I did do a few unsuccessful Ravelry searches. Any suggestions for designers who are working in this size range?

Next time, I need someone to remind me (again) that it's best to leave the knitting pattern design to the experts. I ran into enough issues with scaling it down that I had to hide from it for a few months, which normally is fine unless your kid is growing like a weed and the clock is ticking if you want him to fit into it for more than a hot second. I finished it in early August, just in time for Not-At-All-Sweater-Weather here in Michigan.

Luckily, we were just about to leave on a family road trip to the west coast, and it was cool enough that he wore it a handful of times. It turned out beautifully, and he loves it. I love that blue color especially, and the marled yarn gives it a cool texture.

I was hoping it would be a bit oversized so he could grow into it and get a lot of wear out of it, but alas, it fits near-perfectly (which you can see in the arms in these pics), so I doubt he'll wear it much past this fall, depending on how quickly he grows. Oh well! Luckily, he has two younger siblings who will hopefully wear it when he's finished with it!

That's a pretzel rod. If you're wondering.

I do want to acknowledge that knitting a sweater is hard, and grading a sweater pattern down to a kids' size when you're not a knitting pattern designer is even harder. So I am super proud of the fact that I managed to finish it, and that it turned out nicely despite the hurdles. Next time I will definitely search harder for a pattern in his size, but this was a good learning experience.