I suppose I am at that age where people are starting to have babies on purpose.
Click through for a pattern with knitting instructions.
Its like all those years of meticulous knitting have led me to this point. This baby hat and cooresponding booties are for a baby shower I am attending next month. I thought it would take me two weeks to come up with a handmade gift, but I managed to bang these out while watching two movies on netflix.
I used a single skein of self striping cotton yarn. The one you see in my picture is a pink ribbon breast cancer yarn bernet had for Michaels.
I have never actually shopped for or put clothes on a baby so I was really worried the whole time that the baby that fit that hat may not fit these booties. The jury is still out on this. A bit of light googling reveals that a 1 month old baby has a 12 inch head circumference and a 3.5 inch foot. That is what I am going for with these here patterns.
This knitting pattern uses super simple patterning but perhaps intermediate to advanced construction and shaping methods.
The ribbing pattern is *K2 P2 repeat from *. Knit for 20 rows or until your piece measures around 4 inches tall.
The next step is hard for me to describe. I learned this technique from a knitted jacket pattern in a 2010 issue of vogue knitting. You will be folding the piece in half and joining the bottom of the piece with your next row. The result is a super strong double layer ribbing. Do this by knitting the first stitch, setting the bottom corner of the ribbing on your needles, and knitting that stitch and the next stitch from your top row together. You will using this method to knit two together all the way across until you have two layers of ribbing joined with one row of stitches. This is one of the reasons I used straight needles for this portion of the hat.
At this point I switched to circular needles, and continued around using a simple knit stitch for 14 rounds.
Now you decrease. The decrease pattern is
Round 1: *K6, K2Tog, repeat from *
Round 2: *K5 K2tog, repeat from *
Round 3: *K4 K2tog, repeat from *
Round 4: *K3 K2tog, repeat from *
Round 5: *K2 K2tog, repeat from *
Round 6: you should have only 4 or 5 stitches on your needles. Cut your yarn leaving a 6 or 7 inch tail. Pull out your yarn needle and pull the tail through the 4 or 5 stitches on your needle. Sew in your ends.
I used the two at a time toe up knitting method. For this you need a super long, like 30 inch long circular knitting needle. Mine are 40 inches because I thought that more would be better and I was really splurging on some Addi Turbos.
Two at a time knitting method:
hold the two ends of your circular needles parallel and cast on five stitches around both needles. Now take the other end of the yarn and repeat the process, casting on 5 stitches. The two sets should not be joined. They are nucleating two separate socks. Pull one of the needles towards you and use it to start knitting the socks in the round. When you get to the next sock, make sure to switch yarns so they do not join.
The advantages of this method are that you could theoretically try on the sock as you go but I didn't make much use of that because I don't have a baby handy. Also, if you are making up the pattern like me, you don't have to worry about the socks being asymmetrical due to a faulty memory.
Knit 11 rounds on each sock before you start making the heel.
The Heel: after your 11 rounds you stop knitting in the round and go back and forth on one whole side, about 5 stitches per sock for 5 rows. Pick up the 4 stitches on either side of your heel flap as you continue to knit in the round.
Start creating the top of the sock rib using the K2 P2 pattern from the hat for approximately 14 rows. Since you didn't start with the ribbing in preference for the toe up method, you can not make the double row in the same manner that you did for the hat. Instead, we will knit twice too long a ribbing section, bind off in a rib, then fold the top half into the bootie and join using the yarn needle and a long tail.
Sew in your ends and you are done!
Its like all those years of meticulous knitting have led me to this point. This baby hat and cooresponding booties are for a baby shower I am attending next month. I thought it would take me two weeks to come up with a handmade gift, but I managed to bang these out while watching two movies on netflix.
I used a single skein of self striping cotton yarn. The one you see in my picture is a pink ribbon breast cancer yarn bernet had for Michaels.
I have never actually shopped for or put clothes on a baby so I was really worried the whole time that the baby that fit that hat may not fit these booties. The jury is still out on this. A bit of light googling reveals that a 1 month old baby has a 12 inch head circumference and a 3.5 inch foot. That is what I am going for with these here patterns.
This knitting pattern uses super simple patterning but perhaps intermediate to advanced construction and shaping methods.
Hat Instructions
Approximate knitting time: 45 minutes
With size 7 needles, cast on 50 stitches. I used straight needles at this point but you can use circular needles so you don't have to change needles after the ribbing. I find that is easier to use straight needles for ribbing so you don't have to do the annoying backwards ribbing when you knit in the round.The ribbing pattern is *K2 P2 repeat from *. Knit for 20 rows or until your piece measures around 4 inches tall.
The next step is hard for me to describe. I learned this technique from a knitted jacket pattern in a 2010 issue of vogue knitting. You will be folding the piece in half and joining the bottom of the piece with your next row. The result is a super strong double layer ribbing. Do this by knitting the first stitch, setting the bottom corner of the ribbing on your needles, and knitting that stitch and the next stitch from your top row together. You will using this method to knit two together all the way across until you have two layers of ribbing joined with one row of stitches. This is one of the reasons I used straight needles for this portion of the hat.
At this point I switched to circular needles, and continued around using a simple knit stitch for 14 rounds.
Now you decrease. The decrease pattern is
Round 1: *K6, K2Tog, repeat from *
Round 2: *K5 K2tog, repeat from *
Round 3: *K4 K2tog, repeat from *
Round 4: *K3 K2tog, repeat from *
Round 5: *K2 K2tog, repeat from *
Round 6: you should have only 4 or 5 stitches on your needles. Cut your yarn leaving a 6 or 7 inch tail. Pull out your yarn needle and pull the tail through the 4 or 5 stitches on your needle. Sew in your ends.
Booties Pattern
Approximate knitting time: 1 hour.
I used the two at a time toe up knitting method. For this you need a super long, like 30 inch long circular knitting needle. Mine are 40 inches because I thought that more would be better and I was really splurging on some Addi Turbos.
Two at a time knitting method:
hold the two ends of your circular needles parallel and cast on five stitches around both needles. Now take the other end of the yarn and repeat the process, casting on 5 stitches. The two sets should not be joined. They are nucleating two separate socks. Pull one of the needles towards you and use it to start knitting the socks in the round. When you get to the next sock, make sure to switch yarns so they do not join.
The advantages of this method are that you could theoretically try on the sock as you go but I didn't make much use of that because I don't have a baby handy. Also, if you are making up the pattern like me, you don't have to worry about the socks being asymmetrical due to a faulty memory.
Knit 11 rounds on each sock before you start making the heel.
The Heel: after your 11 rounds you stop knitting in the round and go back and forth on one whole side, about 5 stitches per sock for 5 rows. Pick up the 4 stitches on either side of your heel flap as you continue to knit in the round.
Start creating the top of the sock rib using the K2 P2 pattern from the hat for approximately 14 rows. Since you didn't start with the ribbing in preference for the toe up method, you can not make the double row in the same manner that you did for the hat. Instead, we will knit twice too long a ribbing section, bind off in a rib, then fold the top half into the bootie and join using the yarn needle and a long tail.
Sew in your ends and you are done!