Baby Hat

I took a 2-day break from my Olympic Cross Stitching to knit this little hat for my employer's newborn daughter. Doesn't my penguin make a great model?

The hat is from the 2009 Knitting Pattern-A-Day Calendar. The pattern date is April 1, 2009. I'm going to copy my Ravelry Notes here, rather than type them out again:
Things went pretty well until I got to the Herringbone stitch. It took a few minutes for me to figure out how to do it, and required a lot of concentration. I also wished that I had larger needles, as the stitch is very tight. Most of the other people who made this hat complained about it being too tight. I made the hat as instructed, and it is almost too tight for Meadow. (She was 3 days old when I gave it to her.) I would recommend doing the eyelet row an extra time before starting the herringbone stitch, and/or going up a needle size for the herringbone stitch.
At the end, I purled a row, then bound off in purl, as was suggested in one of the other projects.

Tonight will is the last night of the Olympics; I'm hoping to meet my cross stitch goal. Apparently I didn't mention it on here. My goal was to finish the blue and white part of the Lady's skirt. I've nearly finished, and have tentatively extended my goal to finishing all the blue/white parts of her dress by the end of the Olympics tonight.

Baby Shower

A friend of mine recently had a baby shower. I made a "Snowed Under Cap" (January 2008, Creative Knitting), booties (#9 from Baby Booties to Knit and Crochet by Leisure Arts #2731) and thumbless mittens (Online Pattern that I slightly altered).

I couldn't make the snowflakes come out right on the hat, so my Mom embroidered them for me - thanks Mom! I used Lion Brand's Wool-Ease; colorway: Denim Twist. The snowflakes were done with Bernat's Baby Coordinates in White.

Booties:  I used Bernat Baby Coordinates in Blue Bon Bon. The hardest part of the pattern, for me, was picking up the instep stitches; but I always have trouble picking up instep stitches. The first picture is a bit washed out; the second is closer to the true color of the yarn. {Blogger is being fussy and keeps turning the first picture on its side. I'll try to add it later, in the meantime here's the other picture.}

Thumbless mittens. I used the Bernat Baby Coordinates in Blue Bon Bon again. I'm amazed at how far this yarn has gone! I originally bought it to make a sweater and hat for my cousin, Luke. (I must have made them before I started blogging and photographing my projects because I can't find any pictures. The pattern is from FreePatterns.com and I was able to find it by typing "triangle sweater" into the search box. You do need to sign up to view the patterns.) Anyway, I made the sweater, and hat, and now baby booties and mittens, and I still have yarn leftover!

The pattern for the thumbless mittens is available here. I had a hard time finding a mitten pattern for newborns, so I settled on a pattern I mostly liked and altered it a bit. The first change I made was the needle size. I didn't have the sizes called for, so I used sizes 3 and 5. I worked knit 1 purl 1 rib for 1.5" so that the cuffs will stay secure under the baby's coat sleeves. I was planning to do an eyelet row and thread ribbon or cord through to help keep them on, but forgot, and didn't have enough time to plan it out. The only other change I made was to line them with flannel so they will keep baby's hands nice and cozy.