I realized I’d never posted a finished look at the cardigan I made my son last year. I try to make him a sweater/jacket of some kind each year. So here it is, now a bit worn in, with perhaps a tiny toddler-made stain here or there, and a bit of cat hair.

You can see some cardigans and sweaters I used for inspiration on my kids knitwear and crochet Pinterest board here.

Overall, it turned out well, but I originally somehow miscalculated the sleevecap size and had to do some major sleeve surgery to shorten them. When I first tried it on my son for a size check, it looked like he was wearing shoulder pads, poor kid. Basically, I pulled out the stitching from the top of the sleevecap and left the armhole stitches intact, frogged quite a few rows of the sleeve cap, tried my best to make the stripes match well enough to the body now that the caps were shorter, and reshaped them a bit.

For most garments, and especially kid ones, I like to use single crochet to seam. It’s more durable and has stretch. I knew with the striping that if I used one color of yarn, it would show through more easily on the front, but I decided to go with it because the cardigan had a handmade, fun feel anyway with the little blue lapel pocket and alternating color buttons and just see how it looked. I think if I could go back, I’d just alternate the yarn color to match the stripes as I seamed, but it’s really not bad, and the cardigans only gotten compliments when he’s worn it. Plus I think it really looks fine overall. Perfect for a happy little toddler.

Oh, and I also decided that, after the whole reshaping debacle and some other issues I had designing these sleeves, that I’d probably stick to drop sleeves for toddler and baby garments, rather than set-in.

Really happy with how the ribbing and button plackets turned out. I typically use a hook one or two sizes down from the hook used for the main body of a garment when working ribbing.

For the shawl collar, I switched to the hook I used for the main body once I got to the top of the button placket, worked the collar rows, and then switched back to the smaller hook once I reached the button placket on the other side. This helped it be a little looser around the neck.

So, not the most perfect project, with several things I’d do differently, but I’m happy with it, and my kid loves it. And that’s a win, right?