An Irish Baby Sweater

My sister needed a baby present for a friend who has a new little girl with a very Irish name. (I can't even pronounce it! ) Anyway, I offered to make this little set for her. Since I was going to Webs, I was able to look at all their organic cotton. This yarn is by Sublime and is a dk weight. After knitting bibs with dishcloth cotton, this was a welcome change. The yarn is so soft and has a nice drape. It says it's machine washable but you shouldn't put it in the dryer. I did both with my swatch and found that it didn't shrink hardly at all. The pattern is by Naturally, FC38. The directions called for shoulders to be seamed, but I found they were too bulky so I ripped them out and just grafted them together.

In the back, I decided to knit in a little shamrock. The picture of the back came out lots greener that it actually is. The picture of the front is the true color of the yarn.

Of course, because I had yarn left over I decided to make a summer hat too. I found this great pattern on Ravelry called Ruffled Baby Hat. It was very easy except for the first two rows. There are four times the number of stitches you need (in this case that was 416!) and you have to knit two together for both rounds. The cotton made it a really tough job and the stitches twirled around on the needles so much that I discovered after my "first" attempt that I had twisted them. It would have been nice to have discovered that after the first round, but I didn't realize it until the fourth round!! The second attempt was successful, but if it hadn't been, I might have just chucked the whole thing. I also decided to add a band of ribbing. It looks like a hat band and so I crocheted a shamrock to accent it. I can't follow a crochet pattern to save my life, so I just doodled around and came up with this one. I think it looks pretty cute and it's in keeping with this whole "Irish" theme

Then, since I still had yarn left over, I decided to make some baby socks to go with it. This is just a generic sock pattern, but I added the moss stitch to coordinate with the baby sweater. They are so cute. My sister wants me to make a pair for her too. That won't happen as I'm one of the few who doesn't enjoy making adult socks! Besides, I'm finally out of yarn!