Knitted ‘bumble bee’ baby set

As promised I’m back with a knitted baby set.

A few months back, I embarked on what I’d regard as a major challenge, a knitted baby set!!! This was going to be a gift for my sil who was expecting a baby.

Though the effort is the same, crocheting a baby set is anytime easier for me, as I don’t have to fear dropped stitches. Well , I decided to embrace my fears and I believe I have done a fairly good job! what do you think ? (I learned to pick up dropped stitches as well ) 🙂

My initial thought was to just knit the sweater and maybe add a flower/some motif to embellish it. But I don’t settle for simple… A glutton for punishment!!! yup…. That’s what my husband calls me 🙂 Quite right he is.

I decided to learn “Swiss darning“, also known as duplicate stitch in knitting. I found THIS image on google(guess it’s used in cross stitch), and started experimenting. A couple of things to keep in mind while Swiss darning:

1.  Maintaining symmetry across the stitches.(Count them before you start)

2. Tension on the thread/yarn should also be optimum to prevent the original knitted stitch from showing up.

It was indeed time consuming, but looked beautiful at the end.

I knitted this beanie in the round using DPNs. Its a 2X2 ribbed stitch pattern. Instead of a pom-pom , I chose to add curlicues to the beanie. Aren’t they cute?

The booties also needed a mix of black , so I added a black tie-string to it.

Few weeks back, I received this very useful tool , a “yarn winder” by mail and I’m totally smitten to it.

I’ve made many cakes of yarn since then  🙂 We don’t get this in India and how I wish we did. Actually swifts are more useful than the winder as most of the yarn in India is sold in hanks. I used to loop the hank around my legs(most Indians do this) and wind the ball. Sitting in that position with the hank around your legs is very tedious and can cause cramps sometimes.