Finally, another pattern! I had almost forgotten I could do this.
OK, not really. In reality I’ve felt terribly guilty for not writing anything up in forever.
This pattern was born partly out of a niggling desire to make a certain bubbly baby outfit on Ravelry paired with an utter unwillingness to pay $10 for a single pattern.
Anyway. I know how much people hate scrolling to get to recipes, so I won’t bore you much more. My usual caveat applies here--I’m not a great knitter, so there’s always the chance I borked something up. If you notice any glaring problems, message me on Ravelry, not here.
3.25 mm 16″ circular needle
3.75 mm 16″ or 24″ circular needle
DPNs for one of those sizes; it doesn’t really matter which (for the ribbing on the cuffs)
100% wool yarn, worsted weight (I used Fisherman’s Wool from Lion Brand); if you don’t plan to use this as a soaker, material isn’t important, just weight, and this wool is a pretty light worsted
The usual array of stitch markers, yarn needle, etc I use yarn to hold big piles of stitches, which you’re going to need to do at the legs.
Gauge: 5 sts/in on the bigger needles, stockinette in the round, but as Elizabeth Zimmermann says all babies are differently sized and this is aimed at a wide age range.
Size: up to 6 months at least, but keep in mind it’s going to be adorably oversized on a newborn The waist is 16″ and so is the rise (when measured as given in pattern). The idea behind such a large bit of ribbing at the start is for you to be able to fold it down.
Directions: (finally, right?!)
Cast on 80 stitches with smaller needles and work 10 rounds in knit 2/purl 2 ribbing.
Eyelet round: Knit two, yarn over, purl two together around.
Rib 10 more rounds the same as before.
Now. You can change this part up stupid easy. You can leave out the eyelet round. You can only knit 10 rounds total, or five. You can do a different pattern in your ribbing, like knit 3, purl 1.
Change here to the larger needles. Knit one round even.
Increase round: knit one, knit front & back around. (Or knit 2, make 1. Whatever. You’re just turning every two stitches into three.) You should have 120 stitches at the end.
Continue on in dogged stockinette (I watched so much Netflix while knitting this) until your soaker measures 8″ from the eyelet round if you did the full 20 round ribbing. If you did shorter ribbing, measure from the bottom of it.
Next, divide for the legs as such: 5 stitches on some sort of holder. 55 stitches on a long length of yarn, 5 stitches on another holder, the last 55 arrayed on DPNs (I sorted them on four needles with 15 on two and 10 on two).
The 5 stitch bundles are your crotch stitches. Either Kitchener these together or simply work a 3-needle bind-off. Your baby won’t care. You can do it now or wait until the end, as I did.
Each cuff is done the same, like so, using the smaller DPNs if you’ve chosen to:
Decrease round: knit three stitches, reduce the next two however you please (knit 2 together, ssk, etc). The goal is to end up with 44 stitches.
For the next 10 rounds, you will rib whatever suits you. I used knit 3, purl 1 because for me it turns out about ten times cuter than the more usual k2, p2 ribbing. At the end, bind-off using something super stretchy--either Elizabeth Zimmermann’s sewn bind-off (what you see here) or Jen’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off or some other thing I’m not aware of. You can also, obviously, shorten the ribbing here to just five or 8 rounds.
Finish off, weave in your ends, and make a drawstring of some sort. There are tons of ways to do this--i-cord, braiding, crocheting two strands together, etc. You do you; just make it longer than you think it needs to be. I actually knitted my first-ever i-cord for this project, 3 stitches on the smaller needles, and as you can see it didn’t go well. Weave the cord through the eyelets, and you are DONE!
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