Diversion completed

So, what does one do when one's husband plaintively mentions that he does not have any handmade knitted gifts for his assistant's baby shower in a week? Diverts some koigu and whips up some baby booties, that's what!

Koigu baby booties

Date:
October 18th - 20th, 2007
Yarn:
Koigu Painter's Palette Premium Merino in colorway p820
Needles:
Addi Turbo 40" circulars in US#5

Pattern:
Christine's Baby Booties

The story:

I think I may have spent more time researching these booties than actually knitting them!

I have long been obsessed with these roll-top bootees but when I went to look at the book they are from, 50 Baby Bootees to Knit, I really wasn't too crazy about the book. I mean, the book was fine but it wasn't one I would have bought otherwise, especially as even the roll-top bootees did not look nearly as cute in the book. So I hemmed and hawed and decided to do some research online to see if I couldn't find a free pattern instead.

So I found the pattern for Christine's Baby Booties through the magic of Ravelry, and cast on. The thing is, the pattern does not give gauge, it just says use fingering weight yarn and US #0s or #1s, or #2s if you knit very tightly. I knit very tightly so used #2s, but as I knit the 10 stitch sole I thought, this looks waaaaaaay too small.

More research online to find out how big a baby's foot is.

I decided to cast on again using #5s as, judging from the pinwheel baby blanket that would give me a more reasonable width of the sole, but by the time I finished knitting the sole and picked up stitches to knit the sides, the thing was now looking way too big, and I gave up in despair and went to bed.

So, the next day, Friday, I thought, I'd better buy the book because I really need to knit these over the weekend. But then, that evening, looking again at my sole, I realized it wasn't that big after all because I was looking at the entire sole and not just piece that goes on top of the foot (I was pretty exhausted the night before) and I thought, hey, I think it's going to come out ok! So I didn't use the book after all. But on second look at the book, there are some cute patterns in it so anyway, voila!

Booties in the park:

Booties complete:

And yes, the size came out ok. I compared them to the socks and booties at the store (where I bought some supplemental gifts for the shower) and they may be slightly big for a newborn but they definitely fall in the "baby" category.

Comments

[jackie]

what a lucky baby! the booties are really lovely.