I have a big announcement – I just finished knitting my 1st baby cardigan! And no, it isn't for me

I've tried to make several baby sweaters for friends who are expecting, but they have never been finished successfully. In fact, I think a baby sweater is what I tried to make when I first learned to knit in college. Now, I am all about knitting above your level so you learn new techniques, but I definitely wasn't ready to make a baby sweater then!

This sweater was a complete impulse – Matt and I were browsing in Barnes and Noble one night when I started looking through More Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. (Let me just give a plug here that if you don't have this book, you should purchase it now!) Anyway, I saw her pattern for the Easy Baby Cardigan, and I immediately knew that I wanted to make it for my friend Holly. Now, this was on a Sunday, and we were having a baby shower for her on Friday, but the book said this could be done in 4-6 hours. 

So, I jumped up from the table at Barnes and Noble, told Matt to wait, and ran to Michael's to get yarn. I ended up with Lion's Brand Yarn – Nature's Choice Organic Cotton in strawberry color. It was the only all cotton yarn I could find in a light pink, and surprisingly it was on sale! I went back to Barnes and Noble and proceeded to cast on while Matt was reading. 

What a delight! I absolutely loved knitting this sweater. It was a fast, easy knit, that was so satisfying. I cast on Sunday evening and put on the finishing touches Thursday evening. The hardest part about this sweater was finding buttons – there are few places in Boone that have buttons, and I really wanted to use some cute ladybugs I found, but I didn't think they were constructed in a way that would be safe for a baby. So I resulted to digging in my button jar to find some matching hot pink ones, which ended up working quite well.

Here is the beautiful mommy to be!

You can check out the details on my ravelry page.