I’ve been trying to get this pattern online for 3 months, so I thought I’d post it in the blog for now and add it to the knitting section of the website later 🙂
Update:
Charles Patrick Overton (or Charlie, as we like to call him) decided to finally show up 9 days late at 3.04am on January 13th.
The extra cooking time seems to have served him well as he was born weighing in at 4.025 kg, or 8 pounds 14 oz (ouch).
I have to go to the maternity day clinic tomorrow so I thought I’d post the rest of the baby stuff that I made, just in case they make me stay. I have borderline hypertension, nothing serious, they just want to know if it fluctuates wildly in a single day or if it’s more of a week by week thing. It’s been perfect for the last 6-8 weeks, but was borderline on Friday and when I first saw the doctor 18 weeks ago so they want to know if it could have been high on days that I wasn’t at the clinic.
I’ll be taking some knitting of course (I hope they let me knit while attached to all those gadgets), and I’ll be making some ballband washcloths.
I’ll show the projects roughly in the order that I finished them. Because I don’t want to spend 10 hours writing a post like I did with the toys, I’ll link each project to my ravelry page so that you can see my notes on any changes that I made, which yarns I used etc.
Presto Chango, a free online pattern. The original has very pretty lace panels on the front but I left the lace off because I didn’t think it would work well with such a colourful yarn.
Knut Hats, a free pattern on Knitting-and.com.
Vintage Hues Knut Hat
Handspun Knut Hat
February Baby Cardigan from Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac. I left out the lace to make it a more all-purpose jacket for very cold days
Baby Surprise Jacket from The Opinionated Knitter, also by Elizabeth Zimmermann (you may start to notice a trend here)
Owl Baby Vest, a free Ravelry download.
I made a lot of size modifications to this vest so that it would fit baby-in-progress during the cold weather.
Surplice Jacket. Another pattern by Elizabeth Zimmermann 🙂
Handspun Natural Wonder from Family Circle: Easy Baby Knits: 50 Whimsical Projects for Babies & Toddlers
A closeup of the handspun yarn:
The next two hats are from my The Any Yarn, Any Size Knit Hat Book
Skully Jester Hat
Handspun Stocking Cap
and that’s it for all the baby knitting so far!
If I’m not admitted tomorrow (I doubt that I will be), I’ll show you the receiving blankets and bibs that I have sewn and tell you all about the rest of the projects that I want to get done before the baby’s born. I am nothing if not ambitious in my crafting 😉
I’m not a sock knitter. I have knit socks. Bed socks, day socks, all sorts of socks but I don’t like making them.
Except these:
These are the shaped baby knee socks from Homespun Handknit’s “Bouncing Baby Set”. I love making these socks so baby-in-progress ended up with two pair 🙂
The blue pair are made from a Japanese (possibly Chinese, I don’t know because I lost the labels) yarn that I bought at the op shop many years ago, while the purple pair are Opal sock yarn. I’ve made an awful lot of things from that one skein of Opal sock yarn. Baby socks, a woven scarf and a pair of fingerless mitts plus there’s still enough left over for a baby hat or something small.
These, however, are not socks!
Converse baby booties! I figured if I couldn’t make pretty girly things then I would have to go for cool 🙂 Did I mention baby-in-progress is a boy?
Yeah I know, purple stripy knee socks aren’t very cool but I had to find some use for the only skein of actual sock yarn in my stash 😛
These booties are made from Cascade 220. Yes, the handwash only stuff. I have copped a fair bit of flack from people when they find out that I have knit all my baby’s gear from handwash only yarns but in all honesty, I don’t understand what’s so difficult about hand washing them. You throw them in a bucket of room temperature water with a bit of woolwash for half an hour, spin out the water in the washing machine and lay them out to dry somewhere. Baby stuff is so small and light you can hang them up without worrying about them getting all misshapen. Anyway, that’s what I did with my first baby and what I plan to do with this one.
I would change one thing on this pattern if I made them again. I find that the tongues are too short and if I made them again I’d make the tongues the same length as the outside of the bootie.
Anyway, a short post today because I started writing this at 5-something am (boo to insomnia and large baby-bumps that keep you awake) and I’m tired so I’m going back to bed.
BTW, I washed that sorry looking blanket from yesterday’s post and I think it will have to be patched with many crocheted squares and rectangles instead of hearts because there are just too many holes in it (and not the good granny square kind of hole). I’ll save the hearts for the blanket that I didn’t show, which only has one hole in it so far 😛
Tomorrow: Toys!
If you’re not in any of the Aussie groups on Ravlery you may be wondering where the hell I’ve been.
To cut a long story short, I’ve been very busy working on my latest project.
Introducing Blob Overton II (at 12 weeks):
Blob is now 14 weeks and 1 day and making me thoroughly ill but very happy 🙂
Watch this space for a whole slew of baby knitting over the next 26 weeks, plus a few things I’m knitting for Blob the first (now known as Miss Brittany and soon to be 15 years old)!