First knitted garment DONE

I finished the sweater I've been working on for our batata, and a hat to match. I'm still contemplating using the turquoise yarn to do some kind of embroidery on one side of the sweater, but I think that will have to wait until I get back to my knitting library (currently mostly in storage). Both the hat and sweater are from Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. The sweater is the Child's Placket-Neck Pullover, and the hat is one of "Kim's Hats" modified for gauge and to better match the sweater. I left off the buttons on the collar of the sweater and turned down the collar instead. I like the look; I was dubious about pushing beads through my knitting; and I think it will be easier to get on and off a baby. The sweater is size 6-12 months, and the hat is the "baby" size. Hopefully both will fit next winter. The yarn is Zara, an extrafine merino from Filatura di Crosa. I like how soft it is, and the wide variety of colors available. I have some left over, and I think I'll try to make some matching socks, and see how far I get.

Problems -- I knit tightly, generally, and you can see some transitions that I would rather were invisible. First of all, you can see where the transitions between dpns were, both in the sweater sleeves and in the hat. Also, at the start of the placket, you can see in the brown yarn that my gauge changed when I went from knitting in the round to knitting back and forth. Is there any way to fix that? I thought the blocking would magically do it, but this is the first garment I've ever finished, and I have little experience with blocking. Either I blocked incorrectly, or I was hoping for too much. Any tips? The hat is not yet blocked, but the sweater is.

I really enjoyed the way this sweater was designed. There are very very few seams, and it made for good knitting on the train. The yarn is also wonderfully soft.