Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I'm more Irish than anything else, and I figure if my ancestors couldn't come from Hawai'i, at least they came from an island!

In honor of St. Patrick's day this year, I made a sweater for Kutey!


I documented the process, because I had no pattern. I created it as I went along, taking a leap of faith here and there.

You see, it started out as a hat.....

Curious? Let me explain. I was working on a project that I was contemplating adding a shamrock to. I couldn't find one I liked, so I printed off some graph paper and went to work creating one of my own. Of course, before I put it on the intended project, I figured I should make sure it looked like I wanted it to look, so a trial project was concocted. I have been, as you know, making hats for charity out of my stash yarn. A hat seemed like the perfect trial project, small, quick, but would give me an idea of what the pattern looked like made up. So I started knitting.....

Unfortunately it became clear early on that it was going to be MUCH to big to be a hat. Even for someone with an ENORMOUS noggin. But I needed to see if the shamrock would work, so I kept knitting. And by the time I could tell what the shamrock looked like, I was already so far into the project that I hated to frog it. Especially since it was looking so nice....

So what to do? Well, it *looked* to be about the right size for a sweater for Kutey. I say looked because I never really measured. I did finally get out a sweater that fits her and compared the two, and it was approximately the same size, so I figured, what the heck, I'll make a sweater. So I went to work making sleeves. Now, I'll admit, I consulted at least a dozen patterns on the internet, but none of them was quite what I was trying to do, so I pulled information from them when I felt I could apply it, but I cannot point to a single pattern that is the same. I also made a few leaps of faith, like connecting the sleeves and the body. Knitty has an adult sweater that is knit in a similar way, in the round from the bottom up, so thankfully I knew it could be done. And I made the leap of faith:


I ran in to a bit of a problem when I ran out of yarn. Did I mention it was only going to be a hat? I had PLENTY of yarn for a hat. A sweater is another story all together. So I tried to substitute some similar yarn from my stash.

Yeah, I didn't think so either. Definitely a completely different color. Bummer. I ended up buying more yarn of the same brand and type as the original scrap, and it matched better, though it is not perfect. Much less noticeable, however.
I think the finished product turned out quite well, for a hat :)
.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to one and all!