Little Green Man

My baby nephew was born in October so what's a brand new auntie to do? Knit all the things for the little dude, of course!

​​For my first Giftalong project this year, I chose the Miel cardigan, designed by Lisa Chemery of Frogginette. I fell in love with the rich texture and deep teal color on the pattern cover photo. Had I had a suitable yarn in my stash, I would've love to have knit the cardi in the exact same color.

For some reason I happen to have a lot of green yarn in my stash. And I wanted to make the cardigan in a gender-neutral color anyways so green it was.

The yarn I dug from my stash is a lovely, bouncy merino, Morris & Sons Empire 8ply, purchased on my trip to Australia in 2012. A well marinated stash entry... although vacation yarn doesn't really count as stash.

This yarn was the ideal choice for baby knits. It is really soft and smooth. It is bouncy and stretchy which will allow the garment to grow as the baby grows (within reason of course). And best of all: it's machine washable. The only problem was I didn't have enough of it.

So off to the LYS it was to find a suitable match. Sandnes Garn Merinoull was as close you could get: the same fiber composition, the exact same cable-ply construction, almost the same yardage, almost the same shade of olive green. I had to get a little inventive and stripe the sleeves to blend in the new color. And you could say it's almost as if the cardigan was designed this way!

• On Ravelry: Olive & Honey

• Pattern: Miel by Lisa Chemery

• Yarn: 2 balls (250 m / 275 yd) of Morris & Sons Empire 8ply in color #816 Olive + 35 m / 40 yd of Sandnes Garn Merinoull in color #9336

• Needles: 4.0 mm for garter-stitch bands, 4.5 mm for the body and sleeves

The striped sleeves took so little yarn I had plenty of the light olive left over to make a matching beanie to round out the outfit. This darling textured hat pattern is a free Ravelry download, mishka by Emilie Luis. The pattern comes with two variations, either in allover broken seed stitch or with a central cable motif. And both version include the cute little pom poms for ears — which in my opinion are what really make the hat.

• On Ravelry: Mishka the Bear

• Pattern: mishka by Emilie Luis

• Yarn: 95 m / 105 yd in Sandnes Garn Merinoull in color #9336

• Needles: 4.0 mm for the ribbing, 4.5 mm otherwise

Both patterns were knit in the 3-6 month size... which I'm sure he'll grow out of in a split second. Which means I get to knit more stuff.

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