baby sweaters

[Jet17]

hello everyone I enjoy crocheting baby cardigans but in larger size like for 3 or 4 year old I follow youtube but my sleeves always looks too wide  Maybe I'm doing something wrong If you do stitch reduction your gonna have less stitch aroung is that correct?

[Granny Square]

Kids grow quickly, it may look too wide to you but really, it's wise to make something a tad too big a kid can grow into versus a useless too-small thing.  And people don't grow evenly all the way around if that makes sense.

Are you hitting the gauge of the pattern?  Always check your gauge on a wearable.  If you are hitting the stitch gauge, it's not too big according to the designers' concept.  If you are not hitting the designers' gauge, you have a lot more to worry about than the sleeves.  If the youtube didn't give you stitch gauge, start over and find another pattern. (I'm not a fan of youtube for anything but a short video on a specific technique, like how to do a new-to-me xyz stitch.)

Does your video have a schematic, that shows an outline of the sweater with measurements?  This would also be a good sanity check.  Or, take a trip to a store and measure the finished size of a similar garment around the arms, and other measurements while you are at it.  I'm finding generic size charts by age, but it is giving a bunch of measurements and mentions sleeve length, but not circumference.

I will try to see if I can find a pattern with a schematic. 

[Granny Square]

For a sanity check on sleeve measurements, here  is the Yarnspirations page for kids sweater patterns in general, there are several pages.

https://www.yarnspirations.com/collections/patterns?filter.p.m.global.made_for=Kids&filter.p.m.global.project_type=Sweaters+%26+Cardigans&filter.p.m.global.skill_type=Crochet

This pattern I picked randomly is not a cardigan but a pullover, but it has sleeves and is in 5 sizes (for a 4 to 12 year old boy); it has drop sleeves that are designed to be a bit baggy so this would be maybe at the 'edge' of too-big: https://www.yarnspirations.com/collections/patterns/products/red-heart-rugby-pullover  The link is to to the page where you can download the pattern, I don't think I am supposed to put the pdf of something I haven't' designed into this forum. It has a diagram so you can see the measurements for several sizes.

For the above sweater, the narrow cuff edge is between 7.5-8" around, and widens to the a point between shoulder and elbow (it is a drop sleeve) to 12-15.5" around.  EDIT - notice that the part I underlined is for all sizes, virtually the same cuff measurement for a 4 year old as a 12 year old. 

There are a lot of other patterns you might want to look at on this site to check sizing, I just grabbed one on the first row of the pattern listing in the first link to look at.

Edited September 10, 2023 by Granny Square

[NCcountrygal]

20 hours ago, Jet17 said:

hello everyone I enjoy crocheting baby cardigans but in larger size like for 3 or 4 year old I follow youtube but my sleeves always looks too wide  Maybe I'm doing something wrong If you do stitch reduction your gonna have less stitch aroung is that correct?

Just don't make it too close to wrist size as the child will have clothing underneath.

[NCcountrygal]

On 9/10/2023 at 2:51 PM, Jet17 said:

hello everyone I enjoy crocheting baby cardigans but in larger size like for 3 or 4 year old I follow youtube but my sleeves always looks too wide  Maybe I'm doing something wrong If you do stitch reduction your gonna have less stitch aroung is that correct?

Here's a tip I forgot to mention that I have used when making narrower wrists without having to decrease sts.  Go down 1-2 hook sizes for the last half to one inch or where you want it to be narrower.  One more option is change to sc (unless your sleeve is already sc) in those last 2-3 rows.  This creates narrowing, too.

[Jet17]

Thank you for the tip i will try doing it that way 

[Granny Square]

NCcountrygal made me think of something re: the fit at the wrist - if the pattern doesn't have cuffs, you can crochet them on at the end.  All the patterns I've encountered with cuffs have you start with the cuffs first, sew or slip stitch them into a tube and then you proceed to work the sleeve, but you can also make the sleeve and then add cuffs at the end, which this video shows.  It's not only functional but also a nice finished look.  (you could add this at the collar too)

The nice thing about this type of cuff is that it is stretchy; if you just decreased stitches at the edge, or switched to a smaller hook for example, it wouldn't be.

Edited September 14, 2023 by Granny Square

[Jet17]

On 9/14/2023 at 12:48 PM, Granny Square said:

NCcountrygal made me think of something re: the fit at the wrist - if the pattern doesn't have cuffs, you can crochet them on at the end.  All the patterns I've encountered with cuffs have you start with the cuffs first, sew or slip stitch them into a tube and then you proceed to work the sleeve, but you can also make the sleeve and then add cuffs at the end, which this video shows.  It's not only functional but also a nice finished look.  (you could add this at the collar too)

The nice thing about this type of cuff is that it is stretchy; if you just decreased stitches at the edge, or switched to a smaller hook for example, it wouldn't be.

Thank you so much for the tips I just find making sleeves are little challenging