My sis-in-law asked me to knit a sweater for my niece, and after looking over patterns together, she chose the Blossom Bolero. Then we had lots of fun going through all the options in the pattern. She was almost 5 at the time, so we went with the size 4 chest measurement and size 5 length, and sis chose 3/4 length sleeves and the bell pleat ruffle edging. She wanted that on the bottom and on the sleeve, but I realized after knitting it on the hem that it was so full that it would just be a pain in the butt for the wearer, so I went with the garter edging instead.

I didn’t really make many changes to this pattern, as is my wont, mostly because it’s really well written and had already included a lot of variations. But I did change the sleeve increases - the pattern calls for stopping them earlier than the front/back increases, but I didn’t - since this sweater is going to be worn over sleeved tops , I didn’t want the upper arm to be too narrow. Then, since I was starting the sleeves with more stitches than the pattern called for, I simply continued the sleeve decreases as written until I’d decreased to the proper number of stitches.

A couple simple buttons from Joann’s, and it was done! I love the results, and so does Lexie; I was only able to convince her to give it up after modeling by promising to knit her one of her own in the color of her choice!