Cottage Creations’ Babies and Bears Sweater

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Possibly this is a tad over the top colorful for a teeny one, but I still like it. Mine is sized for a six month old. And when the baby outgrows it, then it will fit some teddy bear or other stuffed buddy just fine. It’s Cottage Creations’ Babies and Bears Sweater. Not downloadable (yet) but if you can’t find the pattern booklet at your local yarn shop the good folks at Cottage Creations will now snail mail it to you.

This is knit in Opal 8-fach X-large, by Zwerger Garn, a worsted weight in 75% wool/25% nylon. The yarn has been in my stash for a few years and I’m not finding it on the Opal website anymore, though this is pretty close.

Here’s a look at the back.

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My heavily patterned yarn is overwhelming the guernsey detailing on the front and back. Here’s one I knitted in a solid color that shows the detailing better. The pattern booklet includes instructions for a simple fair isle detail in the front and back panel. That’s totally sweet too.

The Babies and Bears cardigan is constructed in one piece. Off the needles, sew on the buttons, and baby will be snug as a bug in a rug (and cute as a bug’s ear).

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Babies and Bears Cardigan, super sized

I’ve made the hooded baby version of Cottage Creations’ Babies and Bear Cardigan many times. Check it out here and here. It’s sweet, quick, and babies look super cute in it. This is Cottage Creations Babies and Bears Cardigan, super-sized. Not so sweet, not so quick, and I don’t pretend I look cute in it. But it’s a well-designed, easy-to-execute pattern. The sweater is very comfortable and I’ve already worn it a lot.

Babies and Bears is knitted here in Plymouth Yarns Coffee Beenz, a 25% wool, 75% acrylic that’s part of the Encore line. The XXL size was supposed to take 1800 yards. Mine used 1520 yards (just over 7 skeins). The only significant modification I made was to add 8 more decrease stitches just after the pick up row on the neck band, to tighten up the neckline. I don’t think that would have been necessary with a yarn that was of a more firm construction than Coffee Beenz. About two inches less sleeve length would have been better for me, but I just cuff the sleeves. And, instead of leaving any sewing for the band all around the sweater, I took a lesson from the baby version and used a 42″ circular to handle the band all as one section, mitering the corners in front.

Another “Babies and Bears” sweater

Over the years, I’ve made about a half-dozen of these.This time I used the simple fair isle insert rather than the gurnsey-style knits and purls insert. Both are very sweet.This pattern, by Cottage Creations’ Carol Anderson and Kristi Williams, is a wonderful almost no-seam design. This time it’s knit in Cascade 220 Superwash. About a skein and a half, 330 yards, is all I needed for the six month size. Size 7 US needles worked for me.

My only modification is that I do a 3-needle bind-off on the hood, rather than try to graft garter stitch. I find getting the tension correct on that particular graft is very difficult and I only rarely can get it to look perfect.

Check out the gurnsey style insert here.

“Try it, you’ll like it.”