I found this striped Mandarin Petit sweater in the stash while searching for something else entirely. In fact, this find was so exciting, I forgot what I was originally hunting down! What I found was just the first three inches of this sweater - all I had knitted before I shoved it into the stash three years ago. I instantly remembered loving this sweater pattern, pulled it out and continued knitting.

three and a half years ago

That was this sweater over three years ago, May 2006 to be exact. We had a sample of this sweater at the store that I had fallen in love with and I was planning to make it for a friend's baby-on-the-way. But then I found out I was pregnant with wee one and very excitedly replanned it for her! I must have knit an inch past the red section above, right to the point where one of the color stripes repeats, and then my pregnant self decided it couldn't deal with all those yarn balls hanging off the sweater and all those strands being carried. Or else it was the fear of the other option, weaving in all those ends, that overcame me. Either way, I abandoned it. And as wee one grew and my stash was pushed further into the back of the closet, I forgot about it.

Until now!

body to armholes complete - that wasn't too hard after all

I freaking love it! And by some miracle, it will still fit her. I had cast on for the one year size, which is rather generously sized, like many of these Scandinavian sweaters. I held it up to a sweater wee wore last winter and it was still two inches wider! So there's no need to rip anything out. Yes! The pattern even goes up to a size four, which means I can follow the numbers for the four year length while keeping the one year width. It's like it was meant to wait three years for me to finish it. If I'd finished it before, it would have been way too wide, because she's a slender girl, and too short, since she shot up like a weed between one and two years.

When I think that I pretty much started this sweater right when wee one was conceived and now she's two and half and I can see how it is so totally her, well, I'm getting a little verklempt finishing it. Sniff, sniff.