craftgrrl | Preemie knitting pattern help! (Reply)

By the magic of facebook I recently reconnected with my best high school friend. She was 24 weeks pregnant at the time. It came as a bit of a shock when 5 weeks later and weighing just 1lb 1oz baby Sophie came into this world. Well a few weeks have gone by and Sophie is doing really well she is now off ventilation and off her feeding tube. She has moved out of the specialist Children's hospital and into our local hospital. She still only weighs around 2lbs.

I'm a keen knitter and have offereed my knitting services. So far I have made two hats and a ruffle bum woolen nappy cover. (Not entirely practical, but very pretty!!!) My next project is to be a cardigan. This one to be precise. But I'm really struggling to understand the pattern which is here. Basically most preemie patterns I have found say that they fit a 4 or 5lb baby... and as Sophie is still so small I need the cardigan to be about 10 inches around the chest and approx 5 inches long. I can't quite work out which part of this is the back. Usually you knit a back panel, two front panels and two sleeves, but I assume to minimise seaming, this one seems to be all in one. How can there be a back and a body and a front all in the same pattern?If I cast on the required 60 stitches, is that going to be the chest measurement? Or do I need to work some magic on the pattern to scale it down?

I know I could always make it up and she will grow into it, but I imagine it's heartbreaking to see that even preemie clothes won't fit your daughter!