Recently I completed two knitting projects. The first is a baby booties and hat gift set for one of my coworkers. Her baby will be due next month! I based the booties on a Debbie Bliss design called Beaded Moccasins featured in her Step-by-Step Knitting Workbook but substituted the beads and color knitting with simple seed stitch diamond motifs.
Ahh the booties look so cute! I blocked them by stuffing with leftover batting “rolls”. The blocked shape is so nice! It’s definitely not the case when they are just off the needles. Blocking made the whole difference! And, a little hat (my own improvisation) makes the set even cuter! Here is how I made the hat with Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino:
Cast on 84 stitches with 2.75mm needles. Work on gather stitch for 10 rounds. Change to 3.25mm needles and work in stocking stitch for 3 inches. Divide stitches in 7 parts, and decrease every other round until 4 stitches left. Knit a 4 inch tail.
I think the set fits a 0-3 months old.
Next is an almost UFO – a blouse for myself that I started maybe 7 years ago. The yarn is Jaeger Trinity (Jaeger disappeared for almost 10 years I guess, but they used to produce nice yarns and elegant patterns by the the Rowan design team). Trinity has a nice fiber content: cotton, silk and viscose; but the yarn is paper-like, has no elasticity and breaks easily. Not a great pleasure to knit with but hopefully it’s good for summer wear.
The pattern is from a Japanese knitting magazine called World Knitting in the Spring/Summer 2006 issue (all decade old stuffs =P). I particularly like the front panels and the crochet border. But somehow the yarn I chose does not have very good stitch definition.
Nevertheless getting rid of a UFO makes me feel so good.