New Baby Gifts

A very dear friend from high school is about to have her first baby.  I am so excited and happy for her.  Wanting to send a little handmade love her way, I decided to knit a hat for the baby and sew a sling for her.

Here’s the sling I made.  I really hope that it will be used for to years to come.  My babies loved being carried, and I found it really helpful to be able to have my hands free.

Ohhhhhhhhhh, this hat.  It nearly undid me.  It is the Aviatrix hat, found via Ravelry.  I knitted it in a supersoft superwash merino wool, because the last thing a new mom needs is a hat that she has to hand wash.  The yarn and buttons were from my stash.

The interesting thing about the pattern is that it’s knitted on two needles, and the shaping is done with short rows.  I was intrigued, so I decided to give it a go.  I tried and tried and tried to get the wrap and turn right, and honestly, that wasn’t the hard part.  The hard part was picking up the wraps on the opposite side.  I could not for the life of me get it right and I tried about a thousand times.  I watched videos, I read instructions, and I practiced, practiced, and practiced.  I probably could have knitted that baby a sweater in all the time it took me to repeatedly knit and frog this hat.  Finally I had to take a break from it for a few weeks, before it completely ruined my sanity.  When I came back to it, I finally figured it out.  Also, I went back to Ravelry to see if anyone had any hints or pointers on the hat, and I discovered that the pattern had been entirely re-written, so that helped a lot.

The funny thing is that in the process of watching all those videos, I discovered that I have been knitting wrong for the past six years.  All this time, I have been knitting into the back of my stitches, instead of the front.  Well.

So the hat is not perfect by any means, but I thought a hat with ear flaps, and a strap to keep it in place would be really handy for a newborn in Minnesota. It’ll be winter there for what, another four months?

And now I know how to do short rows, knit into the front of my stitches, and make a fabulous baby hat, so at least the experience wasn’t a total waste.

Congratulations, S and C!  I’m so glad you liked the gifts.