Okay - so this isn’t exactly the baby sophisticate - but it’s certainly inspired by it! The baby sophisticate is my favorite baby sweater pattern - I just can’t seem to stop making it! Every baby looks adorable in a shawl collar grandpa style cardigan. After making 9 of these - I decided that:

1. my husband deserved a sweater (his first after 5 years married and 10 together)
2. my husband looks adorable in grandpa cardigans
3. my favorite grandpa cardigan is actually a baby sweater
4. nerdery should be in some way represented
5. both sewing and purling are for suckers

After this series of revelations I decided that the only logical thing to do would be to design a top-down, v-neck, seamless, shawl collared cardigan like the baby sophisticate that would fit my adult human sized husband.

I’ve also had a burning desire to add stormtrooper heads to a sweater ever since seeing the Fairisle Patterns from the Movie Star Wars charts and in particular the fabulous sweater irilaB’s Timian’s Stormtrooper Raglan. Adding them to this sweater just seemed like a no-brainer.

Since I’d decided to add fair isle to the sweater - it seemed like an excellent excuse to knit the whole thing in the round (yay - no purling!) and steek it.

I did a BUNCH of swatches before deciding on the tension I wanted - then some more to get the fair isle to match tension. From there I measured the dimensions of his favorite sweatshirt and started in on the math! I must admit - most of my “pattern” is written on the back of one of the ball bands, although I did plan out the charts for the colourwork thoroughly & printed them out all official styles… I ended up using 7mm for the solid color and 8 mm for the colourwork. The pockets were knit more densely using a 6mm needle.

This sweater was a complete blast to knit - and really it only took me so long b/c I had to take time out to go on a couple of trips, and to do some other knitting that had a firm deadline. With such big needles, and almost everything in the round or a knit row, I don’t think this sweater would take long at all if it was your only focus.

Here’s are a few more bits and pieces about this sweater:

• top down, raglan, in the round
• i used a crochet steek (despite my general ineptitude with crochet) b/c I was too lazy to take my sewing machine out, and I thought it would give a nice edge. You’ll see in the pictures the first time I did the crochet reenforcement it was much too loose (you can see how wavy it is in the picture) so I took it out and redid it with a smaller hook with much better results (where it looks neat and not wavy!) If you’re looking for a great tutorial on Crochet Steeks I recommend Eunny Jang’s
• because i am SUPER lazy I did after-thought pockets. they were fun! The inside is knit in the same colour as the stormtrooper heads, rather than the body of the sweater b/c my husband found that entertaining. I also knit them much tighter so he could actually put stuff in them and they wouldn’t add too much bulk. I knit them magic loop, in the round and did a 3 needle bind off at the bottom.
• like the baby sophisticate the shawl collar is picked up, and knit in garter using short rows. I pretty much just eyeballed it and kept going until it seemed that I had a nice big shawl going on. I spaced the first few short rows 6 sts apart on either side and then began decreasing the distance between them since i didn’t want it to be too wide toward the front or sides. I think it worked out super well!
• used a crochet bind off

Anyhow - I love this sweater a million. It was super fun to make, and I think it turned out a-okay! I am endlessly entertained by the combination of grandpa sweater & Star Wars. I was also glad that it fit my husband just how he likes and that he loves it so much he’s wanted to wear it every day since I gave it to him.