Baby stuff! (aka instant gratification knitting)

As I've hinted at in some previous posts, I've been doing a lot of baby knitting lately. Two important people in my life, my cousin and a friend from my hometown, A and his wife J, are expecting to have babies at roughly the same time, which, of course, means knitting lots and lots of baby things! Oh my... I've been overcome by the cuteness more than once.

The ultimate in cute baby knitting, in my humble opinion, is baby booties. Therefore, the very first thing I made for J & A's baby was a pair of these absolutely adorable baby booties, using the Blue Steps pattern by Regina Willer. It's a pretty awesome pattern, mostly because it doesn't require any seaming (Huzzah!). I made these in an unidentified blue 4-ply sock yarn from my grandmother's stash.



They're knit from the bottom of the foot up, and I think I might have screwed up the initial cast-on a bit because the seam somehow ended up on the outside of the booty, but I guess that's ok. I also had to do a single crochet bind-off so that the top would have enough stretch to fit around a fat little ankle. Also, I learned how to do brioche stitch ribbing!



I thought it would be nice to make a little hat to go with the booties, so, using the same yarn, I knit up a little beanie. I couldn't find a pattern I liked, so I made up my own. I cast on 104 sts, knit the brioche stitch ribbing for about an inch and a half, knit three ridges worth of garter stitch, and then started decreasing after about 3 and a half inches. I decreased 8 sts every other round until there were 40 sts left, and then decreased every round. I ended up with 4 sts at the top, and finished it off with a short icord. It's pretty damn adorable.



And now, this post is getting a little long, and I really should be getting back to writing a thesis proposal. Next time, the world's most famous baby sweater!