This is a simple, entertaining and playful baby sweater in seven sizes ranging from newborn to three years old. It is worked from the bottom-up, starting with the lower body and moving on to the sleeves first – saving the fun of the yoke for last.

For this pattern, I have designed a variety of animals - big and small, that will make any child happy - there’s a penguin, ladybug, turtle, monkey, panda, owl, whale, duck and hedgehog. You customise this design to your own taste and the sweaters all look very different. The smallest sizes have one round of animals on the yoke and the bigger sizes have two different rounds.

A few rounds of the design use three different colours, which can be a bit challenging, but the end result is quite stunning and well worth slowing down for. You can always choose to add the third colour afterwards by embroidering it over the top using Swiss darning. The eyes are added afterwards using French knots.

The 100% alpaca yarn from Filcolana is a smooth knit that looks and feels amazingly soft and cuddly when blocked – and it will for sure keep your favourite small people warm and cosy. On top of that, I love the soft and warm colourways Indiecita offers.

You can knit this pattern so many times and it will look different each time depending on what animal(s) you choose.

Many animals use VERY LITTLE yarn and you can use this opportunity to use up almost any yarn and colour you have in your stash that will get you the right tension. (Although bying it is totally worth it - Indiecita is lovely to knit with!)

Colours Quantities
Main Colour of sweater (MC):
50 (60, 70, 90, 100, 130, 165) g
160 (190, 225, 290, 320, 420, 530) m /
175 (210, 250, 320, 350, 460, 580) yd

Contrast Colour (CC):
Used for the ribbing on cuffs, bottom of sweater and neckline:
25 (25, 25, 30, 30, 30, 30) g
80 (80, 80, 100, 100, 100)m / 90 (90, 90, 110, 110, 110) yd

Animal Colours (AC):
ca 5-15 g of each colour
15-50 m/16-55 yd

ERRATA
In the first version of Animalistic the numbers for the decreases at the top of the yoke were wrong for size 6 months. It is now corrected in the new PDF.
These are the correct decreases:

6 months
Next round: Knit all.
Next round (dec): K4, k2tog to end. (30 st dec) 150 sts
Next round: Knit all.
Next round (dec): K8, k2tog to end. (15 st dec) 135 sts
Next round (dec): K7, k2tog to end. (15 st dec) 120 sts
Next round (dec): K6, k2tog to end. (15 st dec) 105 sts
Next round (dec): K5, k2tog to end. (15 st dec) 90 sts
Next round (dec): K4, k2tog to end. (15 st dec) 60 sts