Retro Rainbow & Berry Baby Cardigans


After finishing my Stash Busting Rainbow Granny Square Afghan, I still had bits of all my rainbow colors leftover, so I decided to try making a rainbow sweater to go with it. The pattern is the Essential Baby Sweater, and is free (with ads) on Moogly. I love how the colors came out, and the very late 70’s vibe of it. Sadly I did the buttonholes before going to the store to find buttons. The ONLY buttons that matched at all in size and color, had just 4 in stock, while I have 5 buttonholes. So right now, it just has 4 buttons. UPDATE: The incredibly awesome @AIMR found me another card of matching buttons at another Joann’s! Thank you!!!


Though I’m very happy with how the rainbow sweater came out, it just seems wayyy too big for a newborn. So since I still had so much random yarn out, I tried again with a smaller hook. The first was made with a 6mm, and this berry version was done with a 5mm. Much better size overall. Though it still seems a little big. Oh well. The tiny owner will either fit into it, or grow into it. And now there’s less yarn in my stash!

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Cute! Might be fun to use a bright color button for #5.

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So cute. And I second the mismatched button idea.

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Sorry guys, can’t do it. :joy: Between the retro feel of the sweater and my OCD little heart, I just can’t use a different button there. I would have had to pick 5 totally different buttons if I was going that route. I would end up never putting it on the baby because it would drive me crazy. :yum:

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You know I love a rainbow! Very cute 2nd sweater too. I like the idea of mismatched buttons but for safety reasons they could all be replaced with something else, like ribbon! A bit fussy to tie them all maybe but it would look cute. I avoided buttons on all baby items, my kids tried to eat everything & I feared choking. Goofy children.

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I get that. But I’ve also been sewing for decades, and I sew my buttons on seriously strong. And since it’s for my own impending little one, I’m sure to check the buttons are secure before putting it on her. (I’d be more worried if it was for someone else’s baby.) The reason I was okay with buttons in the first place, is I was going for newborn size, when she’ll be too tiny, and have too little motor control to pull at her clothes and drag things to her mouth. LOL I’m sure when she gets a little bigger, I’ll be making button-less pullovers instead.

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Oh, congratulations! How lovely. I trust you with your own buttons!

Did you see this one? I’m working out how to resize that for adults in my mind, lol.

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Yes! It’s so freakin’ cute.

Funny thing is that while Jim & I knew we were pregnant, and were trying to get through the first 14 weeks before telling anyone, (and have been trying and losing 5 pregnancies over 6 years now), his coworkers all started announcing they were expecting too, just before us. Like every Friday for over a month someone was like ‘us too!’ So 4 employees are expecting 5 babies between them all during March to the first week of April. (He works at a small company of about 30 people, so it’s a sizable percentage of the population there.) With some of the newer genetic testing for Downs & other Trisomy conditions, we all learned genders pretty early on too. There will be 4 boys, and our girl. Now I’m trying to find a simple, cute gender-neutral-but-boy-friendly pattern to make sweaters for the other 4 kiddos.

I can of course make more of this sweater pattern easily enough. But am also searching for other options.

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I’m considering this hoodie, and stash busting some Lion Brand Heartland yarn.

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So, so cute! And congratulations!

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CONGRATULATIONS!!! These are flat-out adorable and I think I would have the exact same response to the buttons: either all the same or all different. I hope you find just the right ones somewhere!

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How cute! I love the retro feel of the first one. A newborn will outgrow the sweater before they get curious and strong enough to pull off those buttons…hope you find the last match…

These are both adorable! As a lover of rainbows, I’d totally rock the first one myself. :slight_smile:

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Seriously, I want to make one of that design in my size. But I’m not sure I want to start our new relationship by embarrassing my daughter by matching her outfit. LOL

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That rainbow sweater is just the cutest! Congrats lady!

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Sending you a HUGE congratulations!!! And an even bigger hug :hugs:
Great work as always

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Congrats! :heart:
Such adorable little sweaters! I have a quantity of color-sorted buttons in stash. If you tell me the exact size, I can either try to match the ones you have, or send you 5 in that size that do match…

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That’s incredibly sweet of you. :heartpulse: But another LC friend has already saved the day. @AIMR found me some while fabric shopping today!

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She’s a wizard, Harry.

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Beautiful sweaters, and even better news!! CONGRATULATIONS!!! :partying_face::partying_face:

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