The Better Baby Booties

At last here's the pattern for baby booties I made for a charity auction. These are a seaming and grafting free bootie that are very easy and quick to make. They require only fairly basic skills like decreasing, knitting in the round, and picking up stitches so knitters of almost any skill level can make them. Enjoy and happy knitting!


Materials

1 skien Blue Sky Cotton, or other worsted weight yarn

(Note: This pattern does not use an entire skien and is a good project for using up odd bits of yarn.)

Set of 5 Size 3 DPNs

Gauge

4.5 sts = 1 in

Gauge is not critical as this pattern can be easily adjusted to fit a smaller or larger foot.

Directions

Sole

• Cast on 9 sts. Knit these 9 sts in stockinette stitch for 29 rows slipping the first st of each row. Piece should measure about 4 inches (Note: If you would like a smaller or larger bootie simply change the length of the sole and adjust the number of stitches you pick up in the next step.)

Instep

• Using a new needle pick up and knit 15 stitches along the long edge of the sole. This is now needle 2

• Using another needle pick up and knit 9 stitches along short edge. This is now needle 3

• Using another needle pick up and knit 15 stitches along the other long edge. This is now needle 4. There should be 48 sts total

• Knit all sts in the round until piece measures 1" from edge where stitches were picked up.

Welt

• Knit the 9 sts of needle 1. Purl back across the same 9 sts.

• Row 1: k2tog using the first stitches on needle 1 and 4, k7, ssk using last stitch of needle 1 and first stitch of needle 2

• Row 2: purl

• Repeat rows 1 and 2 until only 32 sts remain

Cuff

• Resume knitting remaining sts in the round in 1X1 rib until ribbing measures 2 inches.

• Loosely bind off and weave in ends.

  

Tiny

The month of October was taken up with making baby things, and I have to admit baby items are pretty freakin cute. They're so little. First I made a hat and booties for my cousin and his wife who are expecting their first at the end of the month. I still need to put the package in the mail, but this should be one cozy little baby.

Yarn: Mission Falls Superwash Merino- 1 skein was just barely enough for both items. I had to shorten the cuff of the booties in order to finish them. But I think they came out cute, and they're so tiny which makes them even more adorable.

Hat Pattern: Sweet and Simple Baby Hat

Bootie Pattern: One Strand Booties

Then there are these little cuties...

I made these for a fundraising auction hosted by the law school's public interest group. They do this every year to raise money for summer grants to students doing public interest work. The knitting group decided to put together a baby set to donate for the auction, and I volunteered to make booties.

I had not been entirely pleased with my first pair of booties since they required grafting on the bottom. I set out to find a new pattern that didn't required any seaming or grafting, and could not find exactly what I wanted by searching around on Ravelry. After some contemplation I came up with these. A bootie that is completely free of seaming and grafting and requires only that you weave in two ends to finish. The skills needed for this are all pretty basic too, picking up stitches, decreasing, and knitting in the round. Overall I am quite pleased with my design and feel rather clever. Once I take some better pictures I plan to put together a nice pretty pattern to release it.

It's getting looooong...

But it's not done yet. As you can see the scarf is coming along nicely and will be done shortly thus giving me a finish date weeks before my brother's bday. (YES!!)

What's next? I've had this single of Mission Falls 136 Merino Superwash for almost a year and have been unsure what to do with it. But I at last have plan. I'm making this little lovely into a baby hat for my cousin and his wife who are due in November. I like the gender neutral green for a baby, and its machine washable, so perfect! I still need to pick out a pattern though so let me know if you have any suggestions!

FO: Ubdulating Rib Socks!

I seem to be in a sock mood of late so when I finished my last pair I soon cast on another pair, and finished them just yesterday.

This is the Undulating Rib socks in A Piece of Vermont's wool/bamboo sock yarn. Unlike my last pair of socks I love this pattern and yarn combination. The bold rib pattern works well with the muted pinks, purples, and grays in this yarn. I often had to stop knitting just so that I could admire how pretty this is. Can anyone tell I am totally in love with these socks? Because I am. These are easily my favorite pair to date. These are also my fifth pair for myself which means I am only more pairs of socks away from my goal of having enough handknit socks for everyday of the week, awesome!

But alas I must take a break from working towards my goal. For one thing I'm out of sock yarn, but also I have other knitting that needs to get done. Like making this yarn into a scarf for my brother's birthday in October.

I had best get knitting :)

Knitting News: Knitting Up a Poem

Recently, I decided to add a news filter for knitting to my google reader so that in addition to my regular reading I can see what sort of knitting stories are out there. Today I came across a story from the Guardain about the Poetry Society in the UK literally knitting a poem in honor of their 100th year.

This sounds like a pretty awesome and I can't wait to see the results, which will be unveiled in October. Apparently, they're still accepting help too so if anyone is interested you can head over the Poetry Society's website here, (they're taking crochet letters as well) and also check out the Ravelry group for people particpating here.

You can also read the poem that inspired this projet, "How to Knit a Poem" by Gwyneth Lewis, on the Poetry's Society's website here.

Summer Knittin' & a FO

The past few weeks have been incredibly busy. I have two weeks left at my summer job, I've moved, and of course I've been knitting. I even finished these socks as part of the Sock Knitter's Anonymous July Challenge

Pattern: Show Off Stranded Socks by Anne Campbell
Yarn: Aisling Yarn in Being There that I got from the CT sheep and wool festival

Overall, I liked the pattern and I'm happy with my socks. I'm still not convinced that this yarn and pattern combo are ideal but I didn't feel like ripping them out and just went with it. I think a yarn with shorter lengths of color would take better advantage of the stranded pattern and provide more visual interest. The long colorway here results in the strands blending in and not popping like they should. I did enjoy the different heel construction though. It was the first time I made socks without doing the conventional heel flap so it good learning experience for me.

In other news the new Fall Twist Collective is out, and I love soo many of the patterns in this issue. I don't even know where I would start if I was going to make one of the sweaters, they'll all beautiful.

FOs: Cape Cod Edition

I had a super relaxing 4th of July weekend with my Robbie and his family (Many thanks again to Doreen for letting us come!). It was sunny for the first time in weeks, AND Robert even humored me by letting me take a picture of him with my current sock project at the beach. The pattern is the Show-Off Stranded Sock by Ann Campbell and I'm using the Aisling yarn I got from the CT Sheep and Wool Festival.

I've been rather productive in the past week. I finished my Froot Loop Socks, and while I didn't finish them on the Cape I did pack them and take a picture from the top deck of the condo. I really liked this pattern. It's so cute and easy. I also liked the yarn a lot. Plymouth Happy Feet is such a great deal, it only cost about $10 for enough yarn to make a pair of socks. The yarn held up great, is nice and squishy, and machine washable! (but I have not yet tired to wash them so who know how they'll hold up)

I did finish one project over the holiday, my very first crochet project! I recently decided to learn crochet and with some help from my mom and her 30 year old learn to crochet book I was gone.

I made the one skein scraf from the "Happy Hooker" and used a skein of Patons Classic Mernio I had sitting around so it was even a stash-busting project, score! I don't think crochet will replace knitting for me, but I feel crochet has its uses so its good that I learned it.