Trio

Fear not if you think I've forgotten about the baby knitting in all the joys of immersing myself in a new quilt - it is my constant friend!  I've finished and blocked the little sailor jacket but it needs some really good buttons to finish it off and I need the time to go in search of really good buttons so for now it's still laid out on a towel in the conservatory, hopefully not fading in the sunlight - actually maybe I'd better move it sooner rather than later.

No, the knitting on the needles, or rather off the needles, is of a different fibre, a different pattern, and for a different purpose.  H and I, rapidly learning the language of baby, have come to understand that a series of little baby bibs might not be such a bad idea for moping up a gummy baby during feeds, rather than simply changing the whole outfit each time.  In fact it's such a good idea that we thought we'd like to have some for when we bring the baby home; which in shop terms means either expensive and interesting or affordable and white.  H, being a man of colour, said no, and I, being a lady of yarn, said 'ah-ha!'


And lo and behold, look what the stash produced - three balls of Sugar and Cream cotton (Summer Breeze, Strawberry and Faded Denim), all from previous trips to the US, combined with the infamous Mason-Dixon Knitting Baby Bib O' Love pattern.

I believe I may need just a few more than three bibs for the baby, particularly given that one is very baby girl and another very baby boy but I'm sure I can cope with that!


The only change that I made to the pattern was to skip out the buttonholes and put snaps in instead. It makes it sound so easy writing that doesn't it - yes I knit a bib and added a snap.  The reality involved, H, a hammer, a block of wood and a lot of trial and error before we finally managed to figure out how to set the snaps securely, and even then there was a fair amount of wastage.

On the plus side, I know these bibs will stand up to rigorous use, and everything that I have read suggest that snaps are a million miles easier to do up one handed when you have a wriggly hungry baby in one arm.

Top tips for snap setting:

1 - get a decent size of snap - these are probably a little on the small side, but they were what we had in the sewing box; and

2 - stretch the knitting a bit and wiggle the prongs into or through the knit fabric before you start hammering - it helps to line things up accurately and makes the whole process a little easier.

So what other colours would these look sweet in do you think?