FO: YABH and Sweet Pea Shoes

Sweet Pea Shoes and birth hat for Laura's baby
Originally uploaded by knitswithasilentk

A family friend is having a little girl in early December, and so I decided to make my signature "birth hat" (I guess I'm calling it Yet Another Baby Hat, or YABH, at the moment) in red with a little snowflake embroidered on it. Then Crazy Aunt Purl blogged about the cutest little Mary Jane booties, and I started searching Ravelry.

I found Baby Sweet Pea and I was done for. Paid, downloaded, and cast on. With about a week to finish, I thought I could make it.

I did. But I was weaving in the morning of the shower, whilst TLD was playing with his grandparents and great-aunt and uncle. I was going to finish the night before except TLD woke up and wouldn't go back to sleep in his crib. Actually, after an hour and a half, I put him down crying and went to finish the cast-off! That turned out to be fortuitous because The Sweetie watched TLD on the monitor and noticed he was grabbing his mouth. We double teamed him, gave him Tylenol, and he nursed and went to sleep beautifully. But I was shot and had to weave in the next morning.

Hat:
Pattern: My own, birth hat or Who hat or what have you. 1x1 ribbing with an I-cord knot at the top.
Needles: size 5, Addi turbo 12", Lantern Moon dpns.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, a tiny amount of KnitPicks Swish DK for the embroidery.

Booties:
Pattern: Baby Sweet Pea, by Bekah Knits
Needles: Size 1, Knit Picks 16" circular for the shoes, and Lantern Moon dpns.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, KnitPicks Swish DK for the socks and embroidery.

Notes: I used a tubular cast-on for the hat. It is definitely a much neater edging than the picot cast-on I used to use, so I'm sold on tubular. Next time I'm going to try KnitTech's tubular cast-on. The snowflake felt wonky but looks great from a distance.

For the shoes, my previous attempt at a Bekah Knits pattern turned out really big, so I took some insurance out and went down a needle size. The second shoe's embroidery was a little wonky too but I was in a hurry. I also was playing it fast and loose (as it were) using DK yarn for the socks, when it called for fingering, but my experience with the KP Swish DK was that it squished down quite a bit. The result is the ankles are nice and stretchy but I think small enough to hug a newborn's ankles, and the shoes are just around 4 to 4.5 inches, which is roomy but I think it'll work for an under 1-month-old. They'll look cute and they'll probably stay on, and after all it doesn't matter to me. They were a hit at the shower and that's all that matters to me. Well, I'd love to get a modeled photograph when the baby is born.

Here's a close-up of the shoes:



The grandmother-to-be exclaimed, "I want a pair for myself!" It's possible, given that the cashmerino comes in Aran weight....I'd have to improvise it myself, although I'd probably start with the Adult size Moc-a-soc to begin with. Hmmmm....But it will have to wait until I'm done with two Christmas stockings.