Basic construction

Let's start with a basic overview. The sweater starts with a folded-over neck ribbing for maximum snuggliness and stretchiness. The whole thing is knitted in the round with no seams. There are short rows in rounds 3, 7, & 11, and four increase rounds, in rounds 4, 12, 20, and 28. Then you separate the sleeves from the body, add some underarm gussets, and then decrease them out. You finish with 2x2 ribbing at the wrists and waist, and cast off as stretchily as possible.

Right now there's only one size - newborn - because I can't take time away from reading to do the grading, but if you'd like the help with that, I sure wouldn't mind!

Supplies

Yarn 

I've been using Aldi sock yarn, but you can certainly substitute Regia's 4-ply, and have a better choice of colors, not to mention being able to buy it any time, not just twice a year. One baby sweater uses nearly a whole skein of the solid color and about a third of a skein of the self-striping color.

Needles

2.5mm for the ribbings, 3.0mm for the yoke and body. I use a long circular needle, at least 80cm, and magic loop for the smaller circumferences and traveling loop when it gets large enough. Also one 2.5mm dpn may come in handy from time to time. 

Notions

a row-counting
stitch marker

See here's where it gets tricky. I'm a big fan of stitch markers, so I use 8 of them to mark off sections. One is a row-counting stitch marker, at the center back, because I don't like spending a lot of time counting. A friend says the fiddliness would drive her crazy; another friend says row-counters are for chumps, so, you know. Use it if you want, don't if you don't.

A tapestry needle, for weaving in ends and also for when you separate the sleeves and the body, to put the waiting stitches on a length of quilting ribbon or mercerized cotton or something. Oh yeah, so a length of quilting ribbon or mercerized cotton too. 

Also, a crochet hook, size 2.25-3.0mm. I use it for the provisional crochet cast-on, and if you do that you'll also want a length of scrap yarn for the cast-on. Or you can use Judy's Magic Cast-On. I use the crochet hook for my stretchy bind-off, but if you'd rather use Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind-off, you can skip the crochet hook entirely.

You see why I've struggled with writing this pattern. Everything is optional!

What should we call this thing?

And we need a name. I mean, usually you come up with a name somewhat later in the design process, but I think it would be helpful to have a tag, so people can find all the posts related to this baby sweater without getting bogged down in all the other posts about unrelated things that I will definitely be writing as soon as I've escaped grad school no really I mean it.

It's constructed sort of like a Lopapeysa, but not really - it's knit top-down, for one, and there is no fair-isle, just self-striping sock yarn for the busy part, so is it a Faux-papeysa? Heh. A Lazy Lopapeysa? Nearly all the math involves multiples of 8, which is a lucky number in China, so maybe Lucky Baby Lopapeysa? I dunno. I could use some better ideas.