So have I mentioned that I’m an auntie? I haven’t? pulls out phone, starts loading up pictures…
My nibling count is up to six, and we’ll give them some code names. So far we’ve got Farmer, the eldest of the New York cousins, and his little brother Puck and little sister Sunshine. The Pennsylvania cousins are Dill, Captain, and new baby brother Lion. They’re my favorite people to knit for so they’ll make plenty of future appearances. This post, however, is just for Miss Sunshine, the next to youngest of the cousin crew.
Sunshine turned a year old in February so I knit her up a top for her birthday, which she allowed us to pop on over her birthday dress.
And just the other day she wore her new birthday shirt again, demonstrating both her flair for style and her outstanding modeling abilities.
So I’m extremely pleased, because her birthday top looks great and she looks great in it.
The pattern I picked is Courtship, by Megan Nodecker, and I’m really very happy with it. It’s a very well-written pattern and it has a great size range: from infant through adult 4x (20″-64″). (This also offers the possibility of a Mommy and Me theme, which I offered to my sister. She laughed and asked me if I’d get around to knitting it all before Sunshine went to college. She has a fair point.)
The pattern is both fully written and has a chart for the lace. It was an easy and quick knit that I was able to complete in two nights for the 20″ size. The top is knit in two pieces for the lace panels on the top and then joined in the round to knit the rest of the garment, finished with seaming the shoulders and then picking up the sleeves for some garter rib to finish. The lace chart is worked on both knit and purl sides and can get a little tricky so I did have to give it my full attention on the purl rows, but it didn’t take long to finish those.
Unfortunately, the only place this pattern is available right now is on Ravelry (link below) but the designer does have a website so it may become available elsewhere and if so I will add that availability in.
I had some Jojoland Carnation that I picked up from WEBS on clearance in my stash which was both a great and frustrating choice. I hit gauge for a project calling for a fingering yarn despite it being described as a worsted weight. (It certainly didn’t feel like a worsted weight to me!) Carnation is a cotton/acrylic blend that will wash and wear well, and the colorway (Mixed Kale) was a fun mix of pink, magenta, teal, and white stripes that felt very beachy and summery to me. Since my goal was a multi-season garment that Sunshine can wear until she’s outgrown it, the colors worked really well. That being said, I found the Carnation extremely frustrating to work with. I had two balls: one was terrific; one was just full of knots, and the joined strands were completely disregarding the stripe pattern. Normally I would just cut them out and rejoin the yarn, but since I’d already knit the entire first ball I had a really well-established stripe pattern, and the changes would have been obvious. I ended up with multiple small balls in order to preserve the stripe pattern, and consequently way, way too many ends to weave in. I’ve never knit with Carnation before so I have no idea if this is a normal thing with this yarn but I found the entire process frankly obnoxious, so I would hesitate to buy it again. The garment came out great and looks terrific but the extra work involved to get it was just unnecessarily stressful.
The pattern, however, is a definite keeper and it’s on my list to make one of my own – with a different yarn! It’s a shape that I really like for myself and I’d like to take a second crack at that lace pattern and see if it goes easier with a less variegated yarn.
Courtship Project Data
| Pattern Name & Designer | Courtship Tee (Ravelry Link) by Megan Nodecker |
| Type | Sleeveless pullover |
| Size | Infant (20" chest) |
| Yarn | Jojoland Carnation in Mixed Kale, 2 balls (260 yards) |
| Needles | US 4 (3.5mm) |
| Date | February 2021 |
