Updated patterns!

I'm in the process of updating my old patterns, particularly the bibs, to include charts. I'm rewriting some of the directions to make the patterns even easier and including alternative methods for beginning the bibs and for making the ties. Look for these patterns in the sidebar to see which ones have been added. It's a slow process, but eventually, they'll all be there!



Wednesday, November 26, 2008

A Hat for Ruby

My brother has a new granddaughter, Ruby, and although she was born this past August, I couldn't decide what to make for her. I have lots and lots of patterns for little girls, but I never have an opportunity to actually make any of them. Usually, I'm pretty prompt with gifts too, but for some reason, I kept putting this one off. Now that I'm going to see my brother for Thanksgiving , I really had to come up with something fast! I decided on this sweet little hat. It's a free pattern that you can get here. I went back and forth trying to decide on the color and then decided to go with a bright red, or a "ruby" red, if you will. I used the Cascade 220 Superwash and U.S. Size 8 needles. It looks just like a little tomato.

It was so much fun to knit and fast. I did the whole thing in about two hours. The pattern calls for k2tog, but I read that someone said the leaves twirl better if you slip one, knit one and then pass the slipped stitch over, so that's what I did. I don't know if this is actually better than the written pattern, because the original is pretty darn cute too, but it worked beautifully, so I can recommend it.

Since the hat was so quick, I decided to do a pair of socks to go with it. I had the idea to try and incorporate the leaves in the toe of the sock, so after a couple of false starts I ended up with these:

I cast on 32 stitches on a U.S. 5. They are really tight and I think they'll be pretty cosy. I'm not so sure that the leaves really work, but they do look cute together. My first version had the colors reversed, but I decided that it looked too much like an olive!

I didn't even bother with a second one. This will probably end up as a cat toy, since one of my cats really has a thing for baby socks!

I'm pretty sure that the socks will fit, but I am a little uneasy about the hat. Babies heads are always so much larger than they look!

4 comments:

Licorice said...

Oh, those are so cute!

Claudia said...

They´re lovely!

LDSVenus said...

That is a very cute outfit!! Clever to make socks to match. :)

Kathy... said...

You are just so clever!