Grey Baby Booties

Pattern/Technique: Baby Boots by Appalachian Baby Design, size 6 months

Modifications: None

Materials: Mountain Meadow Worsted Laramie: 1 skein Medium Grey, 1 skein Dark Grey

US7 circular needle (diameter didn’t matter as the pattern is knit flat and seamed)

Pencil

New skills: Loop stitch

Lessons/Notes: I was pretty impressed by the softness of the Mountain Meadow yarn, especially for a 100% wool. I’d consider this a contender for a future sweater project.

The loop stitch was a bit tricky, but I found that getting even loops was easier if I kept a few stitches on the pencil at a time (I think I ended up carrying up to 11-12). Then after purling the next row, I pulled at the loops once more to stretch them out and really lock them in place.

On the instep section where you pick up and knit, I tried picking up and knitting into the edge stitches (leaves a visible line on the front of the work) and picking up 1/2 stitch from the edge (leaves a purl row / negative space on the front of the work). I found that the edge stitches were easier to pick up and the line blended in nicely with the rest of the ribbing.

I had to think a bit about how to knit in to the bar of the garter section to make the sole, but I figured out that it was a pretty standard pick up and knit, where you go under the bar with your active (right) needle, wrap the yarn and pull it through. It also helped that all of the bars I was knitting into were the contrast color.

I ended up using the tails from the color swaps to seam the sole and back of the boots, which was super handy. As per the pattern, I didn’t seam the dark grey loop section at the top of the boot. When seaming up the back of the boot I used a mattress stitch, which gave me a neat stripe of 2 knit stitches that is a pretty cute contrast to the 1x1 ribbing.

What I'd do differently: My soles were a lil wonky when I seamed them and I would have been happy if they were a liiiiitle neater. I suppose if I were really finicky I’d also do a SSK for one of the decreases on the sole to make them symmetrical, but I’m trying to get over those perfectionist tendencies (It’s literally on the bottom of a foot - nobody’s going to see it)

Care: Hand wash, dry flat

Merge Hat

Pattern/Technique: Merge Hat by Emily Greene from Making: Intricate, size 17” long brim version

Modifications: none

Materials: 2 skeins Blue Sky Fibers Woolstok in Loon Lake

US2 & US3 16” circular knitting needles, US3 DPNs

New skills: Tubular cast on & transitioning to 2x2 ribbing

Lessons/Notes: The pattern recommended 3-5” negative ease, but the person I knit this for tends to stretch ribbed hats out while wearing them, so I chose a size that would give 7” negative ease. The final product fits them* well and the stretch really gives the merged ribs a chance to shine.

*and my 23” head ;)

I have a really hard time counting stitches in a tubular cast on, so next time I'll place a marker every 10 stitches to make my life easier. I also had a hard time figuring out if the cast on stitches were twisted, so I joined in the round after knitting my first row.

I accidentally repeated the 2x2 ribbing section one extra time (until row 25 instead of row 24 as specified), so I knit one less repeat of the next 4x4 ribbing section such that I'd have the same total number of rows before starting my decreases.

What I'd do differently: Tubular cast on requires a ton of close attention, and in the

Care: Hand wash, dry flat