I found Knitty's Reid, and just knew that I had to knit it for my 2-year-old niece. Nevermind that I had never before knit from a chart, I took it on as a challenge because I really loved the sweater. Besides, I do love learning new techniques, and this was the next one to tackle!
As I always do, I headed to the vast knowledge base of the Knittyboard for tips, advice, and warnings. And boy, did I find warnings! It seems that there's an error in the calculation from gauge to finished size, and the sweaters knit to the pattern were coming out HUGE. Not to mention that the yarn I had chosen, Knitpicks Shine Sport, was known to grow tremendously, making the problem even worse.
Now, not only had I never knit from a chart before this pattern, I had never made a gauge swatch.
:: Gasp! ::
I realized that I was definitely going to need one here. I did swatch, and sure enough, if I had done the whole sweater, it would have come out too big. I was hesitant to mess with the stitch count, because I had no confidence whatsoever in my ability to modify patterns and charts about which I knew nothing. So I swatched on smaller needles, and only had to go down one size, from US5 to US4 to get the gauge I'd need for a 2T sweater. And I was off!
I followed some great Knittyboard advice to color code the chart, with each stitch being a different color. That helped a TON, and I'll never knit from a chart without this step. Tedious as it is, the time spent with the highlighters up front make the knitting SO much easier.
My final comment about this was that I had wanted to do the edging in a darker purple, because I really liked the look in the original pattern with the edge being darker. I wasn't able to find the right color in the right weight and fiber, though, so I opted for cream. I do like it, but I still wish I had been able to find that perfect purple!
Without further ado, Reid:
Closeup of the front:
Pattern: Reid, from Knitty
Yarn: Knitpicks Shine Sport (60% Pima Cotton, 40% Modal), in Hydrangea and Cream
Modifications: I had to go down one needle size to get the finished sweater to be the correct size.
By the way, my sweater didn't grow to a gargantuan size with washing as I had feared. Maybe it was the slightly denser knit from the smaller needles? I'm not sure, but in the end it came out to be the perfect size.
If you're contemplating knitting Reid, for the love of all things knitterly, SWATCH! And don't just measure the gauge and compare it to the pattern. Do the (really very simple) math and multiply your gauge by the number of stitches cast on for the back of the sweater to figure out how wide it'll be. You'll be glad you did!