In the last few weeks of my pregnancy, I really wanted to try making a sweater for our baby girl as I had already crocheted many hats and props for her newborn photoshoot. I went on Ravelry to see what free patterns I could find, and I came across the “Arbor Baby Sweater” by Sarah Cooper found HERE. The pattern looked very simple to follow and I absolutely loved the shawl collar. In fact, many of my favourite cardigans have a shawl collar, so I thought it’d be so fitting if I made this sweater for our baby! This was actually my first time crocheting a sweater in a long time (I knitted a sweater for my teddy bear when I was a little girl…click HERE to see a pic of it in my very first blog post :P). I was very interested to see how all the pieces would come together and what the garment construction would be like!
First off, I crocheted the body of the cardigan. This part consisted of all half-double crochets, resulting in a beautiful ribbed look with a lot of texture. The slits were where the sleeves would be attached!
Then I sewed the shoulder seams…
And then I crocheted sleeves in the two armhole spaces on either side!
Here is a close-up of one sleeve…as you can see, the ribbed look of the half-double crochets continues!
Next up was the shawl collar! There were actually two options for this part in the pattern: one was a knitted option and the other was a crocheted option. Because I haven’t knitted in a very long time and I have no idea where my knitting needles are, I stuck with the crocheted option 😛 Alternating front post double crochets and back post double crochets gave the shawl collar this ribbed look…
The collar can be flipped outwards, and the ribbed look is on the other side as well!
A close-up photo of the back of the sweater…
And more finished product photos! Here the collar is flipped inwards…
And here the shawl collar is flipped outwards! This collar provides beautiful framing 🙂 I love shawl collars!
We thought it’d be neat to display this sweater on our manzanita tree- do you remember it from the decor of our wedding and baby shower (click HERE to see it decorated with pom poms)?
You can imagine how excited I was to see Myla wear it for the first time! Haha, I ended up having Myla try it on when she was 3 weeks old…and it was a struggle getting her in it as she had grown so much! As you can see in the photo below, the sweater looks a little snug on her -_-‘ This has actually been the case for many of the baby hats I made for Myla as well…I tried to make a range of sizes as it’s difficult to know how big your baby will be! But babies DEFINITELY grow quickly, so I would recommend erring on the side of caution and making things bigger rather than smaller. I’m just glad I managed to get some photos of Myla wearing this sweater I made for her! I used a 5 mm crochet hook, but you could try using a bigger crochet hook if you want the sweater to be bigger. Also, once you know how this garment is constructed, you could easily adapt this pattern to make it a bigger size! The teddy bear beside her was gifted to Myla by good friends who thought it’d be the perfect gift since the teddy is wearing a pink crocheted sweater! Aren’t they sweet together? Two cuties with their pink crocheted sweaters!
I quickly wanted to share these knitted sweaters with you too! A very kind “Poh Poh” (Chinese for ‘grandma’) from our church made these all especially for Myla! Aren’t the designs impressive? I can only imagine how much time and effort she put into knitting these! I know she loves knitting gifts for the children of our church and also donating her handmade items to hospitals. I hope when I’m older I’ll still be crocheting with so much passion and love too!
Thanks for reading, and once again, the free pattern for the “Arbor Baby Sweater” can be found HERE! Let me know of any other crocheted sweaters or clothing items you’ve made and how they’ve turned out 🙂 It’s so special seeing your little ones wearing items you’ve made for them!
