Just before the fourth of July week, I got some yarn to make baby gifts. One of the items was this cleverly packaged kit from Plymouth:

It contains a ball of Cotton Kisses yarn, three little ducky buttons, and two patterns – one for a three button cardigan (below), and one for a three button placket pullover (shown on the yarn ball). Both patterns are given for three sizes, from newborn through 1 year. The entire thing was $14. at my favorite local yarn store in Lexington, MA. This weekend past I went on a small kid-free vacation, and while away, knit it up while sitting on the beach.

I did the cardigan in the 6 month size. It’s finished except for sewing on the buttons. I made buttonholes on both sides of the button band. When I find out the sex of the target baby, I’ll sew the buttons onto the appropriate spot, covering up the unneeded set of buttonholes. I had ample yarn left over – probably enough to do matching socklets, so there should be plenty of yarn to make the largest size.

This was a very inexpensive and quick project. The directions are clear and simple. There is minimal shaping, and interest is provided by a double welt garter ridge detail at the bottom of the body and ends of the sleeves. The only vague bit was the direction to make three evenly spaced buttonholes. I substituted two stitch one-row buttonholes for the K2tog/yo ones written up. All in all a new knitter could handle the creation and assembly of this project with ease.

My only caution is a very mild one on the yarn itself. Cotton Kisses is a loosely plied multi-strand cotton blend. One of the strands is fuzzy cotton, slubby and puffy, the other three are thin binder strands of the blend fibers. All are very inelastic, as one would expect from a yarn of this composition. While the resulting texture is extremely soft and pleasingly random, hiding any imperfections in stockinette stitch formation, working with it does take a tiny bit of concentration to avoid splitting the strands. (The variegated color I was using also camouflages any stitch irregularities.) People who don’t like the inelasticity of cotton would also probably not like working with this one. Still – for a very economical quick knit baby project that’s cute and easy to do, with a yarn that with a tiny bit of patience gives an excellent result even for new knitters struggling for stitch evenness – this one is a go.

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