Happy Lunar New Year

I absolutely love Lunar New Year, and today we are now entering the year of the rat. (One of my Chinese co-workers tells me that snow on the first day of the new year is a good sign for the harvest to come. I will have to tell my CSA farmer, since we did get some snow today.) In honor of her first Lunar New Year, I had planned on a special gift for my niece (born in the year of the pig).

Pattern: Minnowknits China Doll by Jil Eaton
Size: 1 year
Yarn: 1.8 skeins Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in 935 Salmon Berry Red
Supplier: The Knitting Room (now closed)
Needles: US 5 / 3.75 mm
Stash Down Yardage: 387 yards
Total Stash Down Mileage: 1.2 miles

Modifications:

• I knit this in seed stitch instead of double seed stitch, because apparently that is what my fingers wanted to do. I kept finding that I had gone back to it, so ultimately I just went with it.
• I did knit the front and back separately, but I adapted the sleeves to be knit in the round.
• I also decreased the number of buttons from 4 to 3, since the instructions for spacing did not make a lot of sense for this, the smallest size.

I am so happy with how this little sweater turned out. My favorite detail is probably the mandarin collar, which is hemmed similar to the Quidditch Sweater, but the slip stitch edge with button loops is pretty adorable too.