Here’s a really cute one I knit in under 2 weeks, over the Christmas break last year (2017). I can’t believe I didn’t blog this at the time! It came out very well – a really cute pattern 😍

So cute!

Back view

The lovely Ben was due to meet his 6 month nephew, Noah, for the first time in January. He asked me (just before Christmas) to knit a “little something”!

No time to shop or research!! I have been dying to try the Debbie Bliss Cable and Teddy Bear jacket for some time but lacking a suitable victim recipient, worthy of the effort. And I happened to have the yarn in stash 🙄  win:win! 😀

It was a huge effort to get it done on time – only achieved because the lovely Ben did most of the cooking and chores while I sat on the sofa in knit-slavery…There were points I would rather have been washing-up than doing hours of moss stitch!

Beautiful Jacket and the Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino is lovely to work with but as many have said on Ravelry, the pattern leaves much to be desired and is unnecessarily difficult for less experienced knitters…

Pattern notes:

1. Loose Pages: My copy of the pattern book fell apart – all the pages are now separated (ok, it’s an old book but I have other older books which don’t disintegrate)
2. No chart: I would have liked a chart for the whole back and fronts, not written instructions.
3. No Schematic: I would have liked to see a drawing of the intended size and measurements of the garment. Pretty standard in most patterns.
4. Front instructions : The back is knit first, then the fronts use either the left or right (first section or second section) of the same back instructions. OK that’s fine except the pattern is written to say for one side use between * and * or ** and ** for the otherside – pretty normal huh? However the asterixis were only on the first 2 rows!!  It’s lazy and confusing to do that – and very confusing for a less experienced knitter 🙁
5. Fronts – Stitch count: There is a stitch count on the right front after
   shaping but not on the left front?! That would be OK except you start with a different number of stitches…
6. Tracking the cables: The cables in the “boxes” go out of sync with the cables that run all the way up the body. There is no reference to this or help in the pattern. I had to write out the rows and annotate myself to see what to do on each row. Fine for me as an experienced knitter but for less experienced knitters, it’s a mind bender.
7. Cable increases: There are no increases at the base of the cables to negate the “pulling in “effect of the cables. This means the cubes of “bear heads” are wider than the cubes of cable pattern and needed some spirited blocking to even them out
8. Arms: Pattern calls for increasing every 4 rows up to 59 st. After reading Ravelry notes, I increased every 6 rows to 59st, leaving me with about 3cm straight to make the 22cm sleeve. This seemed right to me. Every 4 rows would have made a balloon of a sleeve. (And I’m not sure if I would have had enough yarn!)
9. Collar: I like to leave shoulder and neck stitches live on a holder and join shoulders with a three needle bind off. This left me with 38st for the back of neck – pattern says to cast off back then pick up 29st??? I knit across the 38 and didn’t decrease and it seemed fine. Not sure what was going on there with the stitch counts…
10. Moss Stitch Bear Heads: Many comments have said the moss stitch on the bears made them look untidy. I disagree –  I like the texture and I think it makes them look furry! 🐻

I left embroidering the bear faces until the end-the most enjoyable part of the knit 🙂

The little bears really came to life 😀 🐻

The cables worked too – even it they did pull in a little…

The collar seemed fine despite the extra stitches…

is this too wide?

But the big question was – did Noah like it?

I think so! Such a handsome little chap!!

The lovely Noah models….