Baby knit-o-rama

Baby Porter - my first niece or nephew (we're fairly sure niece) - is due any day now and so baby knitting has reached near fever pitch. I sent off the first batch of crafted stuff (plus some very bought cute toys and clothes that I couldn't resist) last week and I'm now working on the next lot - a newborn size cardigan in Rowan Cashsoft DK and some Posy bootees in Oxford Kitchen Yarns sock yarn.



I love this pattern which is one of many beautiful patterns from Jaeger Handknits JB29. They may or may not be named after Posy Fossil from Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield (one of my favourite children's books) but I couldn't resist the photo opportunity. Sadly the lighting isn't great but I'll take more pics when I've finished the i cord drawstrings. I used 24 grammes of Oxford Kitchen Yarns sock yarn in Raspberry and 2.25mm needles. Otherwise I've followed the pattern as written right up to the top of the cuff where I've added a 6 row tubular bind-off to match the piping around the foot.

Although I've been trying to knit the smallet sizes in baby patterns even the 0-3 month sizes have come out looking huge. I can understand why pattern designers don't want to give small pattern sizes - babies come in a varying range of sizes and grow very fast so you could end up with some very disgruntled knitters. Still, I really wanted to knit something that that baby could wear right away and so knit the classic cardigan from The Baby Knits Book by Debbie Bliss using DK weight yarn instead of aran and size 3.25mm needles instead of 4.5mm. The result is a cardigan which is three-quarters the size of the 3-6 months size and which looks a pretty good fit for a newborn (fingers crossed). The yarn is Rowan Cashsoft in a very pretty lilac.



The bear transfer was my one purchase (for all of £0.99) at Hobbycraft this weekend - so sweet!

I was similarly restrained at John Lewis where Mum and I went to pick out my very exciting Christmas present (which is sadly staying firmly in its box and under wraps until December 25th - it might as well be a surprise for someone!). I think that my urge to buy yarn - even when confronted with exclusive to John Lewis alpaca and soon to be discontinued Jaeger (the Rowan rep said they still had plenty in stock) - was somewhat appeased by my Mum's purchase of 8 balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino aran for a moss stitch baby blanket (also from The Baby Knits Book which I had luckily brought up with me). Mum wanted me to be around to remind her how to cast on and change colours etc. but she really needn't have as she's picked it up again like the proverbial bicycle and after just one evening she's already 2 inches in!

That's all the knitting news for now - I can't wait to get back to Oxford and hear all about how the various Bluestockings got on at the i knit Stitch'n Bitch day. From the small snippets I've heard it sounds like everyone had a great time. Katie's put a small preview up on her blog - I can't get over how great her knitted banner is!