A sweater with eyelets and ribbon. Beatrix is quite a girly sweater as photographed but there’s no reason you couldn’t make a quite manly Beatrix for a baby boy if you used a neutral colour and perhaps some grosgrain ribbon in blues and greys. The Beatrix this was named after scandalised her mother throughout her life by not behaving as a Victorian lady ‘should’ and would, we think, approve of such a sweater for a boy. Surely Peter Rabbit might have worn one instead of his little blue jacket with brass buttons had his mother been able to knit?

We’ve collaborated with Town End Alpacas on this little collection of baby / toddler garments and accessories. Town End Alpacas is based up in the North West of England in the heart of the Lake District (hence the names for this mini collection). They produce yarn from their herd of beautiful alpacas in proper alpaca fleece colours and we have to say it’s some of the most gorgeous alpaca we’ve ever used, soft and warm and just as nice as cashmere.

Beatrix is knitted both flat and in the round - knitting tiny sleeves in the round is more than Belinda can bear - so the sleeves are knitted flat and seamed whilst the body is knitted in the round, then the sleeves joined in and the yoke and neck finished off in the round. Easy enough to convert the sleeves to knitting either on dpns or circs if that’s your thing (just cast on 2 less sts than the pattern dictates). The eyelets spiral around the yoke and beg to have pretty (or more manly) ribbon threaded through. We’ve knitted it here in one of the Fawn shades with ribbons in dusky pink, soft bluey-grey and a golden fawn, but an Ivory sweater with gold and cream ribbon would be lovely as a christening sweater or a Pewter version would look great with more on-trend fluorescent ribbons, or as we’ve already said, with boyish blues and greys.

The sizes are generous but not over-sized, giving room for growth without a ridiculous amount of ease. If you want something closer-fitting then just pick your chest size and alter the length to suit.

You need needles (of course) - around 40cm for the circs, and a tiny bit of sewing thread that’s not too far off your ribbon colours just to put a few stitches in to secure the ribbons.

Sizing: to fit 3(6, 12, 18, 24) months. Actual chest: 49.5(53, 57, 69, 61)cm / 19¾(20¾, 21½, 23½, 24½)”.

2(3, 3, 3, 3) x 50g balls.

note! Some knitters have needed to break into an extra ball for the largest (24 months) size

Shown in: Light Mid Fawn

5(5, 5, 6.5, 6.5)m in total* velvet ribbon, approximately 0.5cm width. Ours came from VV Rouleaux:

http://www.vvrouleaux.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idpr...

• if you’re using different colours you need from 1.25m(49”) to around 1.6m(64”) per colour.