Knitting For Baby

I did a lot of yarncrafting while I was expecting my youngest baby.  You could say that the 2010/2011 winter was a blur of yarn…as a matter of fact, I don’t really remember much else of the midpoint of that pregnancy other than being very cold and having aching fingers from the amount of yarn that I tamed.

I did a touch of crochet, but mostly I was focused on knitting for this little one.  I knit many wool soakers, sweaters, and longies for the little girl who was growing away in my belly.  Silly me, I decided to do several of the soaker in a true newborn size, and my dear daughter was born at 8lbs 6 oz.  Beyond that, we spent a week in the NICU (where she put on weight and grew longer) so by the time we got home she had already outgrown some of the cloth diapering woolies.  Luckily I had made many, many things for me sweet girl to wear.

 We brought her home in a pair of wool longies knit from the Wooly Wonderpants pattern in a three ply yarn made by PureWool in the Diante colorway.  The side snap shirt, incidentally, was low-water immersion dyed.

This top was knit using Sandy’s Palette Merino Sox and a vintage baby vest pattern by Sirdar.  I also knit another from the same pattern using a beautiful reddish pink shade of vintage S.R. Kertzer baby camel hair yarn.

Another favorite was the Emma Tunic by Jennifer Alexander using some leftover Hobby Lobby I Love This Cotton! Complete with a button picked out by the baby’s big sister.

I made plenty of other items for when she was older, but there really is something special about the newborn knits, isn’t there?  They are just so tiny and sweet, and a reminder of the anticipation of a new family member.

TGIF

Well, I spoke too soon. We had yet another weekend of another stomach virus, starting with the baby and hitting everyone except for the eleven year old. I finally broke down and used bleach and disinfectants to clean everything. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate using chemicals to clean, but after months of doctor visits and general misery, I just had to do something to try and prevent my family from going through all of this again.


Right before the last one struck, I finished up a small knitting project. Now, I'm not a skilled knitter. I just recently taught myself and my FO list is rather small and simple. But I had just a little bit of yarn leftover from a soaker I made for my 15 month old and it was so pretty that I couldn't just let it sit. So I just decided to cast on and start knitting and see what it would become!






I just knit in stockinette, throwing in a couple of rows of garter stitch in the trim color here and there, and decided that it would make a nice little pouch bag clutch type thingy to keep stuff in. I had the perfect button for it in my sewing box, and I found a fat quarter of cute spotted fabric that matched it pretty well to sew inside for a liner.




I had to hand sew the liner in since I don't have a machine (I broke the last one I had and just decided to give up on learning to sew for the time being).

So, it was a fun little project, but I've got to say that I don't think knitting is ever really going to do it for me the way crochet does. It's nice and all, but it's not nearly as fun IMHO. I'll keep on knitting so that I'll be able to make some of the great combo pieces I've seen, but it will never ever replace crocheting as my fiber art of choice!

BTW, the gorgeous yarn I used is DoodleBirds Beach Vacation colorway on Marvelous Merino.