Lavender Leaves: A sweet sweater for Baby Grace Anne

I bought enough of this lovely lavender yarn (Cascade 220 Superwash) to make a sweater for myself a few years back but I am not much of a sweater knitter. I actually started to make a sweater called Pismo but frogged it. The shaping made me fret and the notion of sewing all the pieces together in the end made me sweat... and knitting is supposed to be FUN... so I am using this pretty yarn for other smaller projects.

I have been eyeing this pretty baby girl sweater pattern called "Autumn Leaves" for awhile now.  The pattern can be found HERE on a blog called What to Knit When You're Expecting.  I was about to cast it on the other day but found another version which was a modified version of the original.  The modified version can be found HERE on a blog called Natural State Knitting.  I liked the modified version just a tad better for a few reasons.

• I liked that the modified version called for only two buttons at the neck of the sweater instead of a long row of buttons all the way down the the waist area of the sweater.  Sweaters knit from the top down tend to want to swing open at the bottom and if you put buttons all the way down, sometimes it just tugs and looks unattractive.  I think three buttons would also be very nice; I kind of wish my sweater had a third button. 
• With the original version, I saw a number of comments (on Ravelry) about folks feeling the need to alter the sleeves (perhaps there were not enough stitches?) and from what I could tell, the lady at Natural State Knitting had altered the sleeves a bit which took the guess work out for me.
• Also, the modified version eliminates some of the seed or purl stitches around the tips of the leaves and I think the modified version has a nice, clean, crisp look as a result.

I am very glad I tried the modified version.  I think it's a very sweet looking sweater.  I actually made this sweater because I found a cute hat pattern with a leaf/flower petal motif and I wanted to make a sweater to match the hat!  Now... I just need to make the hat... (see pattern HERE).