Its the little things.

It's high time that I started a baby jacket for the new kid on the block. My neighbor had Baby L last spring, and I've kept putting off making something for him because, well, it was summer, and, selfishly, lace was a more appetizing knit. I haven't given up on lace projects, but the kid should have a jacket before he gets old enough (a) to refuse to wear it, or (b) gets big enough that the acerage seems too much work.

So here it is: a wee start, begun last Wednesday evening from a nice washable DK wool, and not knitted at much since. This is the ribbing for the back of the sweater. I've been wasting time charting the aran cable design, when I should just be knitting the darn thing so the kid has a chance to wear it while it's still nippy outside.

Here's the rub: there is some trepidation here. I knit two of these sweaters for twin nephews in the one-year-old size, but I had only been knitting for a few months when I completed those. They were so large that the twins still wore them at five years old (a bit of the bolero look by then). I don't know if my gauge was that off then, but the pattern is really, really, huge.

The pattern's smallest size is written for a one-year-old with a 28-1/4 inch circumference. Now Baby L is only 7 months old, and I don't know from babies, but he appears to be a BIG baby. So far, so good. He can grow into it, right?

But here's the math. The pattern calls for the back at 118 stitches - at a gauge of 22sts/4 in. If my calculations are correct, this makes the back 21-1/2 inches - or a 43 inch circumference. Deducting a full 20% for the compression in an aran pattern, that puts the circumference at 34-1/2 inches. That, dear Knitterati, is still a helluva lot of ease.

Here's the question: Do I slog along, knitting a w-i-i-i-d-e sweater? Do babies need that 6-inch wiggle room? Or do I mess with redesigning the pattern for pattern with say, a 32-inch circumference? Comments, please...
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