playing around with placket necks

child's placket neck sweater from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts in two very different yarns

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Wee one's bright, bright placket neck sweater dress is taking shape. The neckline ended up a little high, so I'll go back, rip a few rows, and reknit that contrast edging, lowering it about an inch. And I've still got to seam the arms and close up the placket (which I've put in the back). But I can see how it's gonna look and I like it. I actually like it. Funny how I was unsure about one variegated yarn, but adding a second one made it all okay. In fact, I love the way the lighter color pooled in the bodice area. And the sleeves practically look like argyle! It's crazy. But then again, so's my little girl.

I just can't leave well enough alone. Here's wee one's bright and crazy placket neck sweater, now tweaked into a two-colored, gathered sweater dress. Shortly before I got to the point where you remove stitches for the sleeve openings, I decided to throw in some ribbing and decreases to form a sort of high waist and give the bottom of the sweater a kind of skirt-y look. Then, after I finished the ribbing and increased back to the original number, I changed colorways of the Lorna's Shepherd Sport, switching from that dark "bittersweet" color to a lighter, coordinating colorway, "neon". I'd envisioned doing the top/bodice section of the sweater in this yummy sherbert-y shade and so decided that the sleeves, which will come right into the yoke at that point, needed to be neon as well. Oh, and I'll probably leave out the placket when I get to that section.

Tweak, tweak.

I've knitted wee one's wild-and-crazy and quiet-and-classy placket neck sweaters up to the armhole openings.

And I find myself ready to knit four little sleeves. Hmmmm, isn't this what I used to do when I was knitting for the boys? Here I have just one baby to knit for and I'm doing it again. Two of these, four of those. I just like working in pairs, I guess.

Now this is more my speed. I put the crazy pooling sweater aside and started a new version of the child's placket neck sweater (from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts) in a nice, calm, solid shade. This sophisticated shade of KFI cashmereno was so intriguing, I couldn't resist it. It's like a mauve-y gray and isn't scary at all. Heh, heh. But I haven't put the über-bright one away entirely. It's still alive and in progress. I'm going to work on them in parallel. And we'll just see which one looks better on wee one!

Tell me, do we love this or hate it?

I'm teaching a class now where we're making the child's placket neck sweater from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. I was going to make the sweater for wee one in some plain minty green yarn. I swatched. I brought the yarn into class. And then I spotted this awesome Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in reds and purples and orange. I couldn't resist it. And here we are: four inches in and I'm just not sure.

Sigh. I never like variegated yarns knit up. Wee one looks great in these colors though. What to do?