One of my lifelong friends recently had her second daughter and I pretty much went on a baby-knitting-spree! I will admit, this is partly because this is the first girl baby to come along in a while and I really, really wanted to knit some baby girl stuff. It’s also really special to knit for this baby girl because her sister, born a few years ago when I first started knitting, just happens to be the first person in this world that I ever knit anything for. Back then, I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up one of those Lion Brand “pound of love” skeins in yellow and knit the baby pattern that came on the back of the ball band (it was simply stockinette and seed stitch stripes with a seed stitch border and a little hood). I also decided that I wanted to knit a little baby hat, and, in what I can only see now as foreshadowing of my design ambitions (though I didn’t see it that way at the time), I decided to make up the pattern myself. I ended up with a simple ribbed hat, but, get this – I had to seam up the decreases at the crown because I didn’t quite comprehend that I could make those little triangular shapes at the top of the hat all at the same time! I ended up with this flat piece of knitting with a bunch of points (like one of those paper crowns you get from restaurants as a kid) that I sewed up. Oh my goodness. It was a hat in the end though! It even had a pom pon!
In any case, I have much more experience now, and I’ve knit a few things for this new baby. I’ve been wanting to knit the Saartje’s booties pattern by Saartje de Bruijn for a long time now, so I was very excited to have the opportunity to knit these for a baby girl. I had some pink yarn left over from a baby sweater (that I will post about soon), so I decided to make a set.
Saartje’s pattern is easy to follow, but I decided to knit the booties in the round. Quite a few people have written up seamless versions of this pattern on Ravelry, so if you’re interested in doing the same try a search over there. I didn’t use anyone else’s pattern and just knitted them up the way it made sense to me – I used Judy’s magic cast on to eliminate the seam at the bottom of the foot, then worked the same foot shaping outlined in the pattern.
The yarn is Sweet Fiber Yarn Super Sweet Sock in Bloom. I’m in love with these little baby shoes! The light pink buttons are the same as those on the matching sweater, and I just think the whole effect is too cute!
