More Babies.

A friend of one of my knitting group members had a little boy recently. The wee soul is only 4 pounds (but doing well). My friend asked our group if anyone would mind knitting for him as getting premature clothes is an almost impossible task. Of course many of us jumped at the chance including myself. This is where my confession comes in. I can knit socks, blankets, scarves and hats. I can't knit clothes. I have tried and I always fail. One side of a cardigan always ends up longer than the other. Or my stitching makes the item look like a rag. I decided a long time ago to accept my limitations. I will give things a go at least a few times but there comes a time when you just have to accept that it's not for you. I say that but there may be a pattern out there that will entice me to try again.

Anyway, this means when it comes to baby things I knit hats and bootees. I actually like knitting them (along with blankets). I have a booklet by Patons called "Little Babies". The patterns are simple and quick to knit. More importantly they all come in premature sizes. The garter stitch set is my favourite. It's probably the easiest pattern in existence but I love the way it looks. Plus there are directions for both double knit and 4 ply. I had some lovely soft, blue, DK, baby yarn left over from a baby shower. I used that for the first hat and bootee set. I then bought some Patons Fairytale Dreamland 4ply. I love the colours in that range and picked out red, blue and green. I used the red to knit another garter stitch set but one size bigger.

The blue yarn I used for the rib pattern. My intention was to knit the hat and bootees as I had for the garter. The truth is I hated the pattern. First of all it was wrong. Had I followed the pattern the design would have ended up as some kind of strange moss stitch. I then had to shorten the hat. If I had stuck to the pattern and knitted as many rows as it required I would have ended up with one very long and odd looking hat. Even though I shortened it I still think it could have done with a few rows less. After that I decided to not do the bootees (which was when I went back to knitting the garter stitch pattern in red). I doubt I will knit this one again. I've read of a large number of people finding mistakes in patterns. I have to say this is the first time I have come across one. My first instinct was that the pattern is wrong. My second thought was that it must be me. I'm hardly an expert and surely those who write the patterns know more than me. The morrow of this story is to stick with your instincts.