Baby Love, #1

Being that, for most of my adult life, I was primarily a "knitter from hand spun" and was, as previously noted, a Fiber Snob, I had not knitted baby things. Corriedale wool, while it's wonderful, isn't quite soft enough for baby things. I must say, however, that in recent years I have found good merino to be of excellent baby quality but items made from such are still not machine washable. And there's this: even though I have made full-fledged sweaters long before I made hats or knitted anything on Double-Pointed needles, I think I found baby sweaters and booties a bit daunting. There, I said it. I'm not sure why but I did. So I just bought baby things.

And then last spring one of  my dear friends, Catie, announced that she was expecting a baby. Very exciting news. Did I mention that my friend is also a knitter? ~gulp~ I decided I just had to do it - knit a baby sweater. It took me a long time to find a pattern. L-o-n-g time. But then I settled on this - Pink Lemonade Hoodie. In thinking about colors, I decided on a sage-y green because she hadn't yet learned whether she was having a boy or a girl and my friend loves greens.

The yarn recommendation on the pattern is for Lion Brand Baby Wool. (It appears that the color I chose is no longer available, at least at the link I gave.) And, as you can see, Catie learned the little one growing inside was a boy, so I got the same Lion Brand yarn in blue for the trim.

The pattern calls for garter edging for the sleeves and bottom but I decided to do a stockinette roll. Love that look!

The sleeves were the first component on the pattern so I dutifully knitted up two of the cutest little sleeves I'd ever made!!! They were so adorable. The body is knitted on circulars to hold the number of stitches but are worked back and forth, not in the round (it's a cardigan). I was about half way up the body when I realized the pattern calls for those cute little round sleeves to be attached to a FLAT garment. I had never heard of such a thing. So I sought help from a local yarn shop owner/knitter and she helped set it up. As it turned out, she had just finished a lovely adult sweater with the same instructions, or else she wouldn't have known what in the world it meant, either. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, you do exactly that - you stretch out those sleeves to as straight a line as you can and put them on the needle at the right place on the body and knit. It's really hard for the first couple of rows and it did hurt these old finger joints of mine, but I got 'er done. However, let me just say, I don't plan on ever doing a sweater like that again!

With all that said, it is a very cute little hoodie. I didn't make it for a new born but more for a 12 month old.  However, the little guy was huge, 10 pounds of beautiful baby boy. And he's still a bruiser - an all smiles, happy, adorable bruiser. So the sweater is just about too small already - and he's only 8 months old. Heirloom, I say, heirloom.

I found these great little buttons to match the blue trim. Aren't they just the cutest? And one other thing of note, as you decrease above the sleeves to form the yoke, you get these great little puckers in a regular pattern which add so much charm. So with that, I'll just leave you with the rest of the pictures.

Here he is modeling for us with his adoring
sisters.

Did I mention adoring?