Wednesday, March 26, 2008

New Baby Knitting Fun

For those of you who aren't yet Ravelers, here are some photos of the latest baby knitting. (And this set is for my new baby, now that I'm done with the knitting for the three other babies! lol) (Ravelers can click on that second link and see the Ravelry project page.)

Behold, the longies:



Yarn: Chiles & Wild Rice, hand dyed by Kim of From the Creation. Local lady, sorry no online presence. If you're dying to have some though, I could pick up the last two skeins at my LYS and send them to you. ;o) It's a nice worsted-spun, worsted-weight Columbia wool, which means it's nice to touch and will wear well. And the colors were really fun. I also have some blue/green/soft-yellow called Tidepools that will turn into something else for the baby. I just don't know what yet. Oh, but you wanted to know yarn info: 3oz skeins, 137 yards each.

Needles: US7 Knit Picks 16" classic circulars and US8 Brittany Birch dpn's for the legs.

Pattern: Generic longies pattern.

Get your gauge. Cast on the number necessary to make your desired waist size (I made this one 16"), and knit for about 10 rows in k2p2 rib, with an eyelet row halfway through for the drawstring. (Oops! Gotta make one of those. Thanks for reminding me.) Knit down in stockinette until you have your desired rise length, increasing the diameter by 2" as you go. When it's time to divide for the legs, put the number of stitches you increased for the hip measurement (those 2 inches' worth) on holders at front and back center, and knit the stitches on each side of them in the round until you have 1" shy of your inseam length. Knit 1" in your cuff stitch (I used garter), and cast off. Graft the crotch stitches together.

This size doesn't have short rows, because little newborns don't have much difference in their diapers between front and back. For larger sizes, I'll add three short rows to the back after knitting 1.5"-2" down from the waistband.

Finished measurements:

Waist: 16"
Hips: 18"
Rise: 12"
Inseam: 6"

Here's the other half of the longies set, as of yet in embryo:



This is a top-down baby sweater, pattern courtesy of my LYS. It's an anonymous pattern, similar to the 5-Hour Baby Sweater, but with a few modifications. Never having knit the 5HBS, I couldn't tell you what they are. And I've made my own changes, since I didn't like how it was working up with the variegated yarn. The plain stockinette yoke really shows off the play of color well, don't'cha think?

And now, off to clean up from dinner and get the baby to bed!