I’m happy that Zooey is fully out of her knitwear reluctance that she was in a year or so ago. I really am. However, she now seems to want to create her own queue of things I must knit for her. She saw Lewisburg Pullover in a copy of Knit Picks I had laying around and decided it had to be hers. I was trying my best to be on a yarn diet before Rhinebeck, and I was doing pretty well, but then she vehemently insisted that she needed this sweater and I should go to Miss Cynthia’s (my LYS owner) and get some navy yarn for her so I could make it. Well, that delightful little monkey piqued my interest because I hadn’t done Fair Isle in awhile, I knew I had all of the contrast colors in leftovers on hand, and really, how hard is a little algebra to make an adult sweater sized for a 5 year old? I like a challenge.

This isn’t giving away copyrighted pattern details, so I don’t mind telling you that it seemed best to start with 86 stitches for her size. I wanted to end up with a chest size between 24-26″, and roughly follow the pattern. One night when I couldn’t sleep I started calculating. Her size is approximately 75 percent of the smallest pattern size, so that was a good start. I had all of those numbers calculated, but then realized after I started with a count in the low 70’s that the opening to the sweater might not go over her head. I considered knitting flat and adding a button to the back. Then I just ripped and started with a stitch count that seemed like it would actually go over her head. I tested and with this count it can actually go onto my head, so it should be totally fine for Z.

After that, I mostly followed the way the increases are written in the pattern, just making sure my numbers came out to multiples that worked for each chart. I eliminated the final chart, as that seemed like it would have made the yoke too deep for Z. I did add a few plain stockinette rows to come out to about a 5 inch yoke for her. The rest will be pretty simple. I was like an addict for the Fair Isle section, staying up two hours later than usual on a weeknight to just do a bit more!

Check out my Ravelry page on the project for the exact yarns I’m using. It was pretty delightful to have all of the contrast colors in my stash. At first I had only three picked out, the silvery white, and two pinks. Then when I got to the second chart I realized I needed another pink. No problem. Plenty of leftover pinks and purples from other kiddo sweaters since Z went through a not-wearing-it-unless-it’s-pink-or-purple phase. Past the yoke, this think is a total breeze. I am actually really happy she insisted on this, because it wasn’t a pattern I would have been drawn to, but it’s really fun so far.