Baby gifts

This cute little guy is for my good friend who just had a little girl. I sewed her initials onto the feet, just as I did with a little green version for her boy when he was born. Thankfully I had knitted him up a while ago, and he has been waiting for the perfect little one to come along.


The other thing which I am going to try and make is something I saw on Pinterest - a hooded car seat blanket. It looks great as it stays in the capsule and the belt is done up under the blanket which is a lot safer. I have picked up some merino for the inside layer and some flannelette for the outside layer. Looks simple enough, just have to do it!

Baby Booties - blue

Just got finished with the other style of baby booties from the Spotlight pattern. Definitely not as easy as the ballet style ones, but still kinda cute. One thing I would say is that keep your cast off at the top loose, otherwise it may be a bit tight around baby's ankle. At least it was good practice at joining yarn, though joining it to 3 stitches (the middle bit at the top the strap goes through) was not easy.

Baby booties

I got my latest Spotlight mailer and fell in love with these baby booties. I liked the idea that one of the styles had ribbon around the ankle so you could do them up as tight as necessary.

I started with the ballet style ones in pink:

They were quite easy to do, and not too fiddly.

I have one blue one made in the button style and will post a pic of that one when done. The button ones are trickier as you have to rejoin the wool at a couple of places at the end and I haven't gotten that perfected yet. I also found the part of the pattern where you have to cast on extra stitches for the ankle pieces a bit difficult to decipher, though what I ended up doing worked.

Beanie

I was given a pattern for a baby beanie which I wanted to knit for baby #2 to wear at the hospital. The trouble was that I didn't know what size to start with out of the 6 options, so I thought I'd start small and go from there. The blue means nothing, just that I had a lot of blue wool. Second go (the cream one) is a much better size. Both are very cute though.

The blue hat is the smallest size on the pattern. The green hat next to it is the one my daughter wore home from the hospital.

This is the second try. It is the same size as the green hat above.

Knitted Teddy Bear

Another pattern from the Australian Womens Weekly. I was half way through the cardigan when I decided that my skills were now at a level where I could attempt this cute little teddy bear. When I had first looked at the instructions I was a bit overwhelmed by all the abbreviations, but when you know a few of the stitches the abbreviations actually start to make sense. The cardigan was put on the back burner while I made this little guy up.

He is made using Cleckheaton baby cocoon 4 ply, 70% merino wool 30% nylon (so he is super soft), colour 0003.

Knitted Cardigan

This pattern was from the Australian Womens Weekly magazine. I hadn't knitted anything since I was little apart from a couple of scarves a few years back, so the thought of trying a cardigan was a bit daunting. My patient mother showed me the few stitches that I had forgotten, but I also used this website a lot which has great videos on casting on and off, as well as all the basic stitches.

I admit that I had to do the first three rows about 4 times before I got into the swing of it, but after a while it comes more naturally and you can power through the rows. The hardest part for me was 1) the buttonholes, and 2) the neckline and getting it to fit around the front and back pieces. In the end I don't think it turned out too bad.