a fine kettle of stitches

With new cousins popping up all over the place I have decided I need to knit some baby things. My mother bought a little outfit for a new little girl in our family and I figured that was the perfect chance to try out Saartje’s Booties, especially after seeing Kelly’s. I went with Fleegle’s seamless version, and by the third bootie I managed to achieve something decent looking.

I have a propensity to dive into patterns without fully reading them, and this time was no different. I managed the Turkish cast-on just fine. In fact, it’s easier than Judy’s Magic Cast-on since there are no twisted stitches. But, somehow, whenever I came to an increase or decrease I chose to knit the wrong type. Not just on one bootie, but two!. Finally I set the yarn and needles aside and really read the pattern. By this time I had picked up on a couple of other things that needed tweaking as I knit — I kept getting a gap where I cast on the new stitches for the straps, so I tightened that up, and finally got a nice little crocheted button hole (I discovered that I’m an even lazier knitter than I thought; I put off the button holes for two days before I finally went and dug out a crochet hook :P). So the third little bootie came out very well, and the mate knit up in no time.

Then came the button selection (yay! I love buttons!). I was warned away from the gumdrop looking ones — experinced mothers told me never to use something that looks edible :). The pink buttons were too pink and the purple buttons were too purple, except for one set that was the perfect colour, but too small (can you say Goldilocks?). I found some that looked okay, but they really aren’t what I wanted, which was little round pearl puttons. The ones I finally went with are flat. They’re cute enough, though, so on they went.

Yesterday they got a little wash and tomorrow they go in the mail. C’est tout fini!

Of course, baby booties are like potato chips so I had to try a few other patterns.

The green one is Bev’s Stay On Knit Bootie. Super easy. I used a 3-needle bind off for the front of the ankle to eliminate one seam, You could use a turkish cast-on, purling the first row and working back and forth after that to make a truly seamless bootie, but I don’t mind that single 2-1/2″ seam.

The little variegated slipper is SockPixie’s Magic Slipper. These ones are seamless, with a sole knit flat and stitches picked up and worked in the round. Cute and easy and a nice way to use up leftover sock yarn.

The light blue one is a variation of the magical bootie-from-3-squares (Susan B. Anderson has a free pattern for those on her blog). I wanted to see if I could avoid some of the seaming on these, so I made one square, then, leaving the stiches live, picked up the stitches from another edge of the square and worked a mitred triangle. It functions, and creates some interesting directional patterns too. I think I might play with the form a little more.

As for mates for these little fellas, who knows? I kinda just like them hanging on my bulletin board.

Bam-Booties for Jenna
pattern: Sartje’s Booties, Fleegleized. (Ravelry links)
yarn: Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo, Babe
needles: 2 KnitPick’s 2.5mm circ’s

I really have to say I love this yarn. It is so soft and knits up like a dream. The stitches seem to even themselves out before you even get near to blocking. I used a much smaller than recommended-needle-size. I wanted a fairly close-knit fabric for booties, but I imagine working with a 4mm needle would give you something incedibly drapey. I found myself wanting to knit a bathrobe with it! Not likely to happen. I’m a big girl and that would take way more patience that I have. Since it is so reasonbly priced, about $6 Canadian, I expect I will knit a lot more little baby things with it and maybe even a summer top or two for me.