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Delightfully soft and luxurious, these charming knits for little ones will become the heirlooms of the future. Erika Knight’s designs use pure yarns such as merino wool, silk, and cashmere, so they’re perfect for a new baby’s delicate skin. Each page is full of classic items such as bootees, bonnets, cot blankets, and cardigans in carefully chosen pastels and neutrals. And the best part is, all the designs take only a weekend or less to complete!
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The patterns couldn't be more darling. There are several bootie patterns, two blankets, and host of sweaters, from the challenging raglan to the simple garter stitch. All sweaters are for sizes up 1 yr. All call for Debbie Bliss yarns, but substituting is fairly easy since the gauges are given, mostly over stockinette.
The bad news is that the patterns are oddly and inconsistently written. The sweater I just knit is a cardigan with garter stitch edges lined with ribbon trim. The sweater is knit in the usual way -- back, 2 fronts, 2 sleeves, neckband knit on. For the second front, they don't say something economical, such as "work same as left front, reversing all shaping." They repeat and reverse all the instructions. Leaves you wondering what's different. But then for the sleeves, the directions are just plain strange. On most sweaters, the sleeve shaping follows the armhole shaping; on this one, it's different. Since I followed the armhole shapping method, which worked fine, I couldn't tell you whether the pattern would work as written. Second, the instructions simply say to increase one stitch each end every six rows until the sleeve measures 6.5 inches. They never tell you how many stiches you should have when you're done!
Net net -- if you're a confident knitter and you can fix the patterns, buy this book. Otherwise, stay away.
Unfortunately, the instructions are somewhat incomplete and poorly edited, and some techniques (e.g. decreasing by knitting through the back of the loops) need more than a description in the back of the book. Also, the number of stitches are sometimes incorrect. One pattern omitted instructions to bind off in one section, so I had live stitches on the needle and wasn't sure if I should bind off or put them on a safety pin. In another section, the instructions didn't explicitly say to bind off in rib stitch.
I made one of the sweaters for age 6-9 months. The sweater turned out to have a very short torso (9 inches, per the pattern) and long, skinny arms (12+ inches). My husband commented that it looked like our 2-month-old baby could already wear it. She could barely fit into it. (There was plenty of arm length, though.)
A much, much better book is Melanie Falick's Knitting for Baby. The instructions are extremely clear (and they work). I also recommend the knitting books by Debbie Bliss.
