Category: knitting for our baby

I finished the baby socks yesterday — even with only small random bits of knitting time they zoomed along.

I keep managing to misplace my pattern notes, but found them again long enough to type them up:

Knit in the round on circular needles, using the magic loop method.
Gauge: 5 st per inch.

CO 24 st loosely on #6 needles.
Switch to #5 needles.
Join in the round and knit as k2, p2 rib for 18 rounds.
Arrange stitches for heel flap: first 5 of next round and last 5 of previous round on one needle.
Knit these ten stitches for 8 rows.
Knit across heel flap again, then pick up 4 stitches down the side of heel, knit 14 stitches across top of foot, pick up four stitches up the side of the heel.
Arrange stitches for foot: 12 stitches on top-of-foot needle, 20 stitches on bottom-of-foot needle.
Next four rounds: Switch to stockinette for the bottom-of-foot needle, and decrease on each end of the bottom-of-foot needle.
Each needle has 12 stitches, 24 st total.
Knit a further 15 rounds (or to desired length), ending with the top-of-foot needle.
Next six rounds: switch to stockinette for all stitches, decrease 1 at each end of each needle.
Kitchener off the last 12 sts.

I’m definitely planning to make another pair — quick satisfying knit and warm baby feet are a great combo. Also, we switched from the newborn hug hold in the moby wrap to the hug hold, and now his little feet stick out and get quite chilly, so socks have been essential. The verdict is that these still don’t stay on perfectly (he can definitely get them off with some agitated kicking) but they fit his feet well and seem to stay on better than the too-small store-bought ones. Plus, there’s something satisfying about using up stash AND avoiding paying $3.50 for such a tiny item.

Either whoever it is that determines the correct size for commercial baby socks has never seen a real baby, or H has particularly long feet, but the baby socks we have are about half the proper length and do not stay on. I have some white aran-weight yarn left over from a sweater, and decided to try to make up some better-fitting socks:

I was all proud of coming up with a heel turn without consulting books or patterns. 🙂 Now we’ll see if I can duplicate it for a second sock since I winged the first one and neglected to take notes.

The aran weight is a bit bulky, but since his feet will be cold until I either complete socks or give in and buy more, it seemed like the larger gauge was expedient. Plus, this speed of project completion is even more satisfying than baby hats! And a great use of stash yarn to boot!

H sitting in my lap and tolerating some knitting time during Monday Night Football:

And a quick tangent: that onesie is one of the ones I embellished during those last weeks of pregnancy. I love the fabric – it’s the last remnant of one of my favourite cottons from the log cabin landscape quilt I made for our bed a few years ago.

In the “tacky but adorable” category, I finished the pumpkin hat for H, just in time for prime pumpkin season. There are several versions of this pattern, but I found a free one on Ravelry that did a particularly nice job with the stem. It looks adorable on.

So seasonal and cute. 🙂 And so satisfying to still be able to finish projects, even if they are small ones knit in worsted gauge.

First evening social outing – off to meet my knitting group. H dressed for the occasion, in one of my fabric decorated onesies:

Plus booties and the matching sweater:

The yarn (a bamboo blend) feels wonderful and cuddly on him. The shoulders and sleeves are still a touch big, but it was pretty close to a good fit. The back was as adorable as the front – something about babies heads looks even cuter from the back.

If I had to knit the sweater again, I’d add an inch or two to the length – he has such a long body relative to his girth. Similarly, the booties could use another ¾” before the heel since he has the longest little feet.

He was a fussy little thing all afternoon, so here’s Kevin attempting to mollify him outside before we headed out.

Now that the adorable owls are complete, I have fresh steam on my yellow and blue baby jacket. It’s knit sideways, so you cast on at the button band, knit across the left front to the sleeve, knit the sleeve, and then keep going around the back.

I have about three more yellow and blue repeats left until the next sleeve, so I’m finally back to feeling like there’s progress – for a while it just sat and even though I worked on the occasional row, I seemed to be having trouble making much headway.

The hydrangea is from our bush out in the front yard. I was so pleased to see the weight of the bloom had toppled it down into the dirt, since then I didn’t feel bad in the least about cutting it to enjoy indoors. It’s on day five and still looking quite pretty – I didn’t realize they made such nice cut flowers. We actually have three bushes (one under the office bedroom window, one by the driveway and one by the kitchen in the side yard), and this one is blooming magnificently whereas the other two are only barely getting started. I wouldn’t mind in the least if they bloomed serially and we got to enjoy the hydrangeas for longer!

(I know it’s blocking the windows. Once the blooms are spent, I’ll trim it back down and the front of the house will look a bit neater again. That rhododendron in front of the right window, on the other hand, is a complete mess. We like it from inside the house – nice privacy and it’s fun to watch all of the little birds cavort in it – but it looks overgrown from the street. I wonder how hard it is to transplant that big a rhododendron?)

The first week or two of hydrangea blooms were so pretty, as the blooms gradually transitioned from yellow to blue.

A great match for the baby sweater colors! 🙂

I finished the owl vest last week! I think it’s about a six month size? (Baby garment sizes are still such a mystery to me. For all I know, it will fit when he’s two.) This was most just a project to use up stash yarn, but I’m so pleased with the outcome and it was a treat to knit. Just interesting enough to be entertaining, but at that gauge and with all the stockinette, the knitting was pretty speedy.

The adorable hanger is a gift from my sister – she noticed when she visited that the baby sweaters were starting to pile up, and with her typical knack for gift giving found two sets of animal hangers. Perfect. 🙂

Here’s the back:

I love the addition of the button eyes for the owls.

I’d been working fairly steadily on my blue and yellow short rows baby sweater, but my attention keeps drifting elsewhere – to quilting, sewing, and little knit vests. Then a vest pattern caught my eye with little owls cleverly constructed out of cables, and I had the perfect amount of Cotton Ease in my stash. So now I’m officially taking a break and knitting owls instead.

The work has been flying. Many of the finished versions on Ravelry have beads or buttons as eyes – I’ll have to start looking. I’ve been so pleased to have a use for this yarn, and it’s an added bonus that I’m finding the knit result to be so cute. The yarn has been sitting there irking me for over a year (I’d bought a single skein, thinking I needed it for a project and then I didn’t after all), and this is such a great pattern for it.

Here’s the beginnings of a new sweater – the last one I’m planning to make before the kiddo is born. (Two more endless months still left, but at a 7 st/in gauge, the sweater has the potential to take all of it.)

(I’m working sideways, so the button band is down, the neck is to the left, and I’m knitting across the chest towards the left sleeve.) The pattern calls for garter stitch throughout, but after trying that for a few rows, I decided that such tiny stitches deserve at least some stockinette. Now I’m thinking that I’ll do this yellow stockinette/blue garter stripe pattern for the front and sleeves, and use garter on the back? It’s quickly becoming the indecisive sweater.