Little Miss "R's" knitting, is finished. Not having time to waste, I picked the 5-hour type sweater that I've been making for many years. I liked this one because it doesn't have buttons. For such a little one, I wanted the sweater to be all soft. Back in the mid 1980's, a lady from my church shared this pattern with me that she made for NMCRS(Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society). At the time the group was knitting a sweater for each baby born in the Navy hospital and on the bases to the sailors and Marines. Today, our Naval hospital has been replaced by a movie theater, Michael's, Sam's Club, Pet center, and lots of other retail stores.
The full sized sweater that I have here in purple, fits a 6-9 month full term baby. It uses either two strands of a sportweight/dk yarn (which I did with the purple sweater) or a single strand of worsted. I used a single strand of Bernat's Softee Baby yarn for Miss R. Rather than the written size of 10.5 needles, I used a (US) 4, (3.5 mm) addi turbo circular. With a gauge of 24 sts/33.5 rows for 4"/10cm., it gave me a 13 .5"/34cm chest. I didn't change a thing in the pattern other than the weight of the yarn and size of the needles. It's very obvious how different the sizes turn out.
This one will probably be large on Miss R, but I did that on purpose, At the time of her birth, she was 3 pounds, 15 ounces. That's nearly 4 pounds. Years ago babies didn't go home until they were 5 pounds. I'm guessing since everything seems to going well for her, she'll probably go home a bit sooner. You know how insurance companies are...they'll boot you out the door every chance they get! Even my dad went home last week before we thought he should have.
When it's time for Little Miss "R" to go home, I hope she's wrapped in lots of softness as her Mommy and Daddy start the real work of bringing her into the world. Yes, labor is only the beginning. The real fun starts post labor..the laughter, the smiles, the giggles, and then...a few years down the road...the phone calls from the boys, the prom dresses...the shoes, the nails, the hair, the limo..the. the. the....oh never mind. We'll let Mom and Dad learn that part down the road!
UPDATE 4/11/07: in reference to Shelly's question in the comments: This pattern is a variation on the 5-hour baby sweater called the Jiffy Knit Baby Sweater. This particular pattern came to me from NMCRS back in the 1980's. I don't have the copywrite, so at this point I can't post the exact pattern. However, if you google 5 hour baby sweater, some of the many takes on the pattern can be found here: http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/kp3.html , http://www.fibergypsy.com/patterns/5hrpatt.shtml , and http://www.woolworks.org/patterns/5-hour.txt . There are a lot of different varieties. The main difference in mine: cast on of 43 stitches, rather than 33 or 34, eyelets around the neck (k2tog, yo) to thread ribbon, crochet chain stitch, or i-chord through instead of buttons and button holes, and the texture pattern is repeated 4 times at the bottom of the sweater to match the yoke. I hope this helps. Until I can get permission to repost the pattern, this is the best I can do.
