What's new, section one: KNITTING

In trying to decide what to post to show what I've been up to lately, I decided to post in 3 parts: knitting, spinning, needlepoint.  So the topic of the day is knitting.  Many friends and acquaintances have begun reproducing, so I'm going to be busy making baby gifts.  I did prototypes of a few pieces that will knit up quickly. The entire group was done from 2 balls of baby yarn.

The sweater is the 5-hour baby sweater, apparently world-famous on the web. (Little did I know!)  Although I consider myself a pretty fast knitter, it's more like a weekend sweater.  I knit it on size 5 needles with baby yarn, and it has come out 0-3 months size, I think.  I may need to take it to a store and compare with standard sizes.  The original pattern uses worsted weight and obviously knits up bigger.

The booties are a design that supposedly are nearly impossible for babies to get off, because they use the quaker rib stitch.  They were knit on size 4 needles, and I'm guessing they are toddler size.  They are made with an eyelet stitch at the ankle to thread ribbon through to tie them on without hurting the baby.

The baby blanket with the hole for the carseat strap (supposed to keep the baby from kicking off the blanket, good luck with that!) is a great pattern.  Pick your yarn and needles, so the fabric created can be as loose or as dense as you want, knit up a swatch and insert the gauge numbers into the pattern, and go to town.  It was my car knitting on the trip back to Missouri for Thanksgiving.