A Tenderheart for Arlo

It’s a funny thing knitting for babies. They are so tiny when they’re born, but grow so fast, it all seems a bit unbelievable. When I was pregnant with Jones I pulled out the baby clothes from Hunter and thought to myself ‘No, that’s impossible. She can’t have fit in those clothes!’. I mean, I definitely had photographic evidence that she did indeed fit those clothes, but it bent my brain to reconcile the 2 year old in front of me with those tiny onesies and wee joggers.

When knitting for kids it is always advisable to knit a little bigger rather than a little small (more wear for your hard work right?!). However, for newborns, it seems you can’t knit small enough, and they fit for about 5 whole minutes. For more of our (somewhat expert?) recommendations of knitting for babies, check out this post!

The smallest size included in the Tenderheart pattern is 0-6 months, and that is quite a range. It fits a 6 month old better than a newborn (but babies vary quite a bit too!). Emily knit up a 0-6 month Tenderheart in no time… but it was enormous on wee Arlo! He will fit into that sweater very soon, but she wanted it to fit just right for our epic September Sweater photoshoot. So she cast on another and it was even smaller and faster than the first! Her newborn size modifications are listed below.

Project Details:

Pattern: Tenderheart (with the mods listed below)
Yarn: Brooklyn Tweed Arbor in ‘cobbler’
Size: Teeny Tiny – smaller than 0-6 months

Newborn Size Modifications:
Sleeves: cast on 24 sts, work 1.25” ribbing. Worked 2 sets of increases (28 sts), knit until sleeve was 5.5”. 6 underarm sts.
Body: cast on 88, worked 1.25” ribbing, knit until body was 6”
Join body and yoke: with 6 underarm sts at sleeves and body I had 120 sts for the yoke.
Yoke: Worked chart rounds 7-28 so there were 60 sts at the neckline and did 0.75” of ribbing at the neckline.