Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Won't someone please think of the children?!?

Good news! I've thought of the children. Well, perhaps not "children" in general, but one specific child, that I've now managed to start 3 different projects for. And he's not even born yet. But he should be along any day, so it's a good thing this tricky item is complete:

Pattern: Baby Baseball Tee with Mittens (sans mittens)

Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Dyed cotton, 1 skein each in maize and mallard

Mods: None intentional, although in retrospect, I think knitting the body and sleeves in the round up to the raglan shaping would've been smart, reducing some of the many ends that needed weaving in.
I also miscalculated my yarn needs, so I had to rip back and shorten the body about an inch in order to have enough green yarn.
Oh, I did use the yellow yarn for the neckline at the bindoff instead of the green, I guess that's technically a mod, I just thought it looked cute.

Project link


This was not an especially difficult project, fairly straightforward in fact, I just made it more complicated by theorizing that if I didn't do the mittens, I wouldn't need 2 skeins of the green yarn. This was based on nothing but my own imagination--yardage calculations didn't even enter the picture.

The seaming was irritating, but not challenging. One word of caution--don't accidentally run the yarn you're seaming with through the buttonholes. Which is of course what I did. The buttonholes are intended for ~1/2" buttons, but mine are now much smaller. Oops. Which is why there are no buttons on the shirt yet, as I'll be buying new, smaller ones.

Sewing is not my strong suit, so when it came to attaching the pocket, I was clueless. There are no instructions other than "sew the pocket to the front, make sure the stitches don't show on the other side." So I just made it up as I went, running the yarn under one leg of a stitch on the pocket and then under a purl bump on the shirt. Seems to have worked--the stitches aren't showing through, and the pocket is secure.

(It's not as if a newborn is really going to be carrying loose change in there anyway. Unless my friend Catherine has some very odd parenting ideas.)

And the Skinny Dyed Cotton was soft and lovely, it would be quite a pleasant change if you're used to working with a rough cotton like Peaches and Creme.
I hope to get some photos of the baby in the sweater to share, he's due September 13. I have a Sheldon (in University of Maryland colors!) and a pair of Baby Moc-a-Socs in the works for him as well.

The basic booties for the Moc-a-Socs are complete, I'm now working on knitting the fake sock cuffs into them, but I've hit a snafu--I lost one. Bootie, that is. I've looked everywhere, it's just disappeared. If it doesn't turn up, I'll have to start the pair over entirely, because I knit them with some leftover Bugga, and there's none left. So fingers crossed that I find that little sucker somewhere!

1 comment :

Knittymuggins said...

Super cute! It's funny - a lot of my son's baby clothes have pockets (back pockets, side pockets, breast pockets) and my husband is always laughing over that. What would a baby need pockets for? :) I think you sewed yours on perfectly!

knittymuggins