Khaki Baby Set

Inspiration: One of my cousins and his wife (a different cousin than last year) just had their first baby, a little boy. I wanted to knit something for him, and this bootie pattern gets good reviews. The hat is my own design.

Pattern: Saartje's Bootees (download in the right sidebar). I made up the hat pattern.

Yarn: one skein RYC Cashcotton 4 Ply (35% cotton, 25% nylon, 18% angora, 13% rayon and 9% cashmere) in 912 biscuit from WEBS. It's incredibly soft -- feels like knitting the rabbit itself!

The booties use a tiny amount of yarn (I made the larger size), and even after knitting the hat I have about 1/3 of the skein left.

Needles: US size 2 (2.75mm) Bryspun dpns. I ordered them from Paradise Fibers, which has good prices, a great selection of needle brands, and shipped very quickly.

Neither the hat nor the booties are knit in the round. I bought dpns because they're more versatile than straight needles, and I figured I'm likely to need them when I make socks. I "converted" them to single point needles by wrapping a rubber band around one end.

Notes: The strap was hard to figure out. I modified the directions to use a knitted cast on, and cast on 14 stitches rather than 12 for a bit more length. I also made a yarn over buttonhole instead of the button loop.

I knit the hat (or part of the hat) four times before coming up with something I liked. The yarn stood up well to repeated ripping!

I hadn't seamed knits before, so I hope the seams are done right. For the vertical garter stitches, I did an invisible seam; the vertical stockinette stitches on the hat are mattress seamed; and the horizontal garter stitches on the soles are just seamed with a very short running stitch. This article has good photos of the first two methods.

Conclusion: Knitting fine-gauge yarn was new, but not too hard. The wonderful feel of the Cashcotton was totally worth it. I don't have a baby to try these on, so I hope these fit -- and that his parents like them!