I am dissatisfied with the five-hour baby sweater. Google it and there are a kazillion patterns for it, but I don't like any of the ones I've seen, so now there will be a kazillion and one. Because somebody, someday, may just share my opinions about froofroo babywear. Bobbles and lace and random holes and whatnot. Not my thing. Plus which, most of the pics I've seen online use marled or variegated or otherwise busy yarns, so you can't really see much about the sweater's construction. I hope this will be clearer.
Yarn
An acrylic-merino blend, advertised as machine-washable. I keep making sweaters out of machine-washable yarn for my friends' kids, and they refuse to risk throwing them in the washer. I keep saying oh go on, if it dies in the wash I'll make you another one, but so far I haven't had any takers. So I don't know what would actually happen. If you try it, let me know what happens, okay?
Gauge/needles
Let's see, my needles are size 8, or 5.0 mm for most of it, and size 6, or 4.0 mm for the sleeve and body ribbing. This yarn gets me, oh, 4 or 5 stitches to the inch (2-2.5 stitches/cm). Yes, this is really how I knit. Stop looking at me like that.
dpns = double-pointed needles
Shape/Style
This one is a v-neck, so the neckhole will be big enough for a baby head, but without the need for laces that get glued together by baby-drool so you can't untie them, or choking-hazard buttons. I always forget to put in the buttonholes anyway. It's a raglan, because I wanted to work from the top down, because I was worried about running out of yarn. Yes, I know, always buy enough yarn for the project. I did buy enough yarn, for an entirely different project, a sweater which a certain son then decided he didn't want after all.
I'm doing dark green and white stripes, because I like stripes (and, um, because I don't have enough of either color for a whole sweater). There will also be a single cable down the front, which is a fudge for a complication caused by the narrow stripes. If you don't want to do the cable, or some other fudge, then I suggest very wide stripes or a solid color. This sweater is 52 rows long (not including the neck and waist ribbing), which might be useful to know for planning your stripes.
The neckband, cuffs, and bottom bit are Irish Moss, which goes like this:
r1: k1 p1, repeat
r2: knit even.
r3: p1 k1, repeat
r4: knit even
The increase: knit into the front of the stitch, then into the back of the same stitch. Or else knit into the back first, and then into the front, if you're so inclined.
Alrighty then, here we go!
Cast On, using either a knitted-on or a Channel Island cast-on:
left neck-ribbing: four stitches. insert a stitch marker.
left sleeve: five, insert a marker.
back: 17, insert marker
right sleeve: 5, marker
right neck-ribbing: 4
...for a total of 35 stitches.
We start with the neck ribbing:
row n1 (wrong side): k1 p1 across
row n2: k1 p1 across
row n3: work even
Now we start the main part, so start counting rows over again.
r1: Starting with p1, work the first three stitches in the Irish Moss pattern, then increase in the 4th. Slip the marker, and increase in the first stitch after that. Knit across, increasing in the stitch before and the stitch after each marker. Work the last three stitches in Irish Moss, starting with a purl.
left front ribbing: 4 stitches
left front: 1
left sleeve: 7
back: 19
right sleeve: 7
right front: 1
right front ribbing: 4
Total: 43
r2 and all even-numbered rows until further notice: work 4 stitches even Irish Moss in green (change to white, if you're doing the same stripe pattern), work even across, knit last 4 Irish Moss stitches in green.
r3: Starting with k1, work the first four stitches in Irish Moss, increase in the 5th. Slip the marker, increase, knit across, increasing before and after each marker. Work the last 4 stitches in Irish Moss, starting with a knit stitch.
left front ribbing: 4 · left front: 2 · left sleeve: 9 · back: 21 · right sleeve: 9 · right front: 2 · right front ribbing: 4 · Total: 51
r5: Start with p1, work 4 stitches in Irish Moss. Increase in the 5th stitch, increase in the 6th, slip the marker, increase in the stitch after the marker. Yes, three increases in a row. Trust me. Knit across, increasing on both sides of each marker. Increase once more, work the last 4 stitches in Irish Moss, ending with p1.
left front ribbing: 4 · left front: 4 · left sleeve: 11 · back: 23 · right sleeve: 11 · right front: 4 · right front ribbing: 4 · Total: 61
r7: Starting with k1, 4 stitches Irish Moss. Increase, k1. Knit across, increasing on both sides of each marker. k1, increase. Starting with p1, 4 stitches Irish Moss.
4 + 6 + 13 + 25 + 13 + 6 + 4 = 71
See where we're going with this? Maintain the Irish Moss. Increase in the first stitch after the left-neck...moss; on each side of every marker; and in the last stitch before the right-neck moss. Mossing? Mossage? What's the Irish Moss version of ribbing?
r9: 4 + 8 + 15 + 27 + 15 + 8 + 4 = 81
r 11: 4 +10 + 17 + 29 + 17 + 10 + 4 = 91
r 13: 4 + 12 + 19 + 31 + 19 + 12 + 4 = 101
r 15: 4 + 14 + 21 + 33 + 21 + 14 + 4 = 111
r 17: 4 + 16 + 23 + 35 + 23 + 16 + hi there! Here's where we close the neck. and start knitting in the round.
Slip the last four neckband stitches onto a dpn. Hold it in front of the left-hand needle. Now poke your right-hand needle into the first stitch on the dpn, then into the first stitch on the left-hand needle, knit those two stitches together, and slide them off their respective needles. Do that again. Now change colors (ack! fiddly, and optional, depending on your stripe choices) and do it two more times. Should be 117 stitches on the needles now.
Now we're knitting in the round, and not doing that first and last increase anymore, just increasing at the markers. But of course now we're on row 18, and as you recall, all even-numbered rows are knitted even.
r19, here comes the fudge: If you've been doing stripes like I have, two rows green and two rows white, you'll notice that each row begins and ends front and center, necessitating an awkward color change in a very visible area. That's what the cable is for. Remember those four stitches you made knitting the two neck-ribbings together? When you come back around to them, slip the first two stitches onto a dpn, hold it in front of the work, and knit the next two stitches off the left-hand needle. Then knit the two stitches from the dpn. Always do this in the row after the row in which you changed the color. Dont forget to increase before and after each marker, since this is an odd-numbered row.
so now, left sleeve: 25 · back: 37 · right sleeve: 25 · front: 36 · Total: 123
And we continue as we began: even-numbered rows, knit even, changing colors in the middle of the cable; odd-numbered rows, knit even, increasing at the markers, and cabling front at the color-change.
r 21: 27 + 39 + 27 + 38 = 131
r 23: 29 + 41 + 29 + 40 = 139
r 25: 31 + 43 + 31 + 42 = 147
r 27: 33 + 45 + 33 + 44 = 155
It should be about 13 cm long, or 5 inches, now. Here comes another fiddly-bit: dividing the sweater into a body and two sleeves.
r28: Knit the front stitches onto a holder. Then knit the left-sleeve stitches onto a different holder. Then knit the back stitches onto the same holder as you um, knat (?) the front stitches onto, if you have the right kind of holder (fyi, my favorite kind of holder for this purpose is a length of white quilting ribbon, doubled). If you have the kind of holder that looks like a giant safety-pin, then it's probably better to put the front and back stitches on separate holders.
Finally, knit the right-sleeve stitches onto the dpns. There should be 33. Using a backward-loop cast-on, make 7 more stitches, for a total of 40. Knit the sleeve in the round, decreasing two stitches every ... so often. Sleeve decreases are tricky, especially in a baby sweater where there's so little room for mistakes. e2r is too fast, e3r is too slow. For this one I decided to decrease e2r until there are 30 stitches left, then e3r down to 24. From here, knit even, oh, say 3 or 4 rows - whatever you need to keep your stripes consistent. Four rows Irish Moss with size 7 dpns, bind off loosely with a size 8 needle.
Do the other sleeve the same way.
Okay! The rest of the body! Remember back when we divided the sweater? Row 28 began front and center, and we knitted row 28 on the left sleeve, then the back, then the right sleeve. But we never finished that row, so we're going to now, so go back to the right sleeve. See those seven stitches you made with the backward-loop cast-on? Great. Knit into the bottom of those stitches to pick up seven stitches for the body. Knit across the front (changing color if appropriate). Knit into the bottom of the seven stitches you made for the left sleeve, to pick up seven more stitches. Knit across the back. Continue in the round for two rows, then start decreasing two stitches on each side, under the arm, e2r. I used the sl1, k2, psso method of decreasing, and I don't like the way it turned out, actually.
After that, keep decreasing because the body really is wide and it's not really that many rows. Maybe 25 more? Maintain the cable in front. Then 3-4 rows of Irish Moss (yes, it should be four, but I ran out of yarn.) Cast off, tuck in ends. There will be some holes at the armpits, where the stitches are too big, so tighten those up. Wash, block, dry, voilà! One hella cute baby sweater.
Credit where it's due
I Googled "5-hour baby sweater" and looked at a lot of patterns. I've also knitted the baby sweater in Maggie Righetti's Knitting in Plain English, though that was many years ago. I've made sweaters up, with whatever yarn I had to hand. I've read several Starmore books cover to cover. I kept Knitting Ganseys beside my bed for years. This pattern undoubtedly owes a lot to all those influences, and more.