50 Baby Bootees to Knit

When I want to make booties, I seem to go straight to this book, 50 Baby Bootees to Knit. While I haven't made anywhere near fifty pairs, I do find the patterns in this book very quick and simple, and easy to adapt.

So, in addition to the booties I made for my niece(s) offspring, and the two pairs for baby Penelope, this book has now been the source for two more pairs!

These green and brown slip-on style booties are for Helen, a friend who is due late February, early March. She's having a boy, so I figured I used up some of the green wool I ordered from Bendigo Woollen Mills last year for no apparent reason (or at least a reason that I can recall). Of course, two little slippers don't make much of a dent in a 200 gram ball of yarn, so I might have to make some adult-sized slippers for me! The undyed brown yarn is an NZ merino, from Naturally Yarns.

If you want more nerdy knitter details (and are one of the almost 76,000 registered members), you can check out the Starry Slippers and Harmonly Slip-Ons in my Ravelry projects!

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The Big Book of Kids' Knits: 50 Designs for Babies and Toddlers

I'd planned (in as much as you can call a scribbled note on a whiteboard a plan) to spend my day off in the garden today, getting rid of the last of the weeds, and planting some spring/summer veges. When it came down to it though, I couldn't really be bothered - and besides, the weather is still so unpredictable at the moment, I rather not subject newly plante seedlings to hail and strong winds. So, I'll leave the gardening for my lunch breaks or that extra hour we're supposed to have now that DST is here.

The day was not wasted, however! I got out the book of kids knitting patterns I really should not have bought (though I have learnt I've become a great aunt again since its purchase, so maybe it will come in handy), and got to work. No booties or hats, or little jumpers though. I knit a penguin!

Penguin

It's a pretty straightforward pattern (and one of a handful of toy patterns in the book  I shouldn'thave bought), and despite me knitting it on 2 mm with 4 ply baby wool instead of the suggested 3 mm needles and double knitting yarn, not all that fiddly (the wings, feed and beak are worked separately). It was my first attempt at intarsia (for the white belly), and that went well. Even the sewing up went pretty quickly.

This is an "extra" for an exchange pal (not so secret now) but I do have enough of the black wool left to make another, so there may be another one made eventually.

In other knitting, I've been plodding away at my Somewhat Cowl, just about to start on the post-waist increases (more on Ravelry). And for a sister's birthday, I've completed a scarf (three strands of different fibres/textures in a creamy shade, as in the Purl Scarf from LMKG), and a cotton washcloth. I haven't made any progress on my Endpaper Mitts since last weekend, but there is no pressing need for those!

In non-knitting "news", aside from the surprise arrival of another great-nephew, I've been reading more, sleeping less (despite starting work an hour later), and getting back to planning meals, eating properly, and acknowledging that I've been feeling crap lately and that I have only my bad eating to blame. I'm trying not to visit the wool shop constantly or otherwise spend too much money,  which explains the abundance of knitting books and novels I've collected from the library lately (gotta leave the house to break from work, and it's shopping or the library). I'm all geared up to start the gift making endeavour, and have ideas galore.

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