Knitting for Baby

When I say 'knitting for baby', I haven't got a specific baby in mind - more the whole practice of encasing the human young in wool. What with babygros and washing machines, there is perhaps less knitting done for new babies than there used to be. As Elizabeth Zimmermann says in Knitter's Almanac

'If there is one fact on which all grandmothers agree, it is that no daughter-in-law knows how to wash wool. This may be true, but it is no reason for the grandmas to stop knitting.'

These words of wisdom are from the same chapter

'Although babies rarely, if ever, express their pleasure at being dressed in wool, it is surely manifest when you dote on a small plump person soundly and contentedly asleep, swaddled in woollen sweater, woollen leggings, and a soft wool bonnet, snugly tucked under a fine warm wool blanket.'

Now that we've got that clear, let's move on. My interest in the whole subject of knitting for babies was re-awakened recently by the gift of some lovely old knitting patterns to add to my collection. I decided it was high time I listed my patterns properly; fast forward several weeks and I now have a large spreadsheet of them all, divided up by publisher. 'Spreadsheet' - doesn't that sound grown-up?

Anyway, having done that, I realised that I could now sort the patterns by subject, rather than by publisher which is much more interesting. Trends in fashion and design jump out at you when you look through, say, cardigan patterns spanning thirty or forty years. But the main thing I realised as I sorted them all into piles was that the baby patterns are my favourites. So, I thought I'd take you on a browse through them today. There are an awful lot of patterns so make sure you're sitting comfortably ...

Here is my collection of patterns for Pram Sets; these are all about keeping the baby warm outdoors. There's normally a pair of leggings, a jacket, a hat or bonnet and maybe a pair of mittens too. This is one of my favourites; it even has a pattern for a pram blanket.

Sirdar Sunshine are some of the prettiest old patterns you can find; I'm quite tempted to frame some of mine. I'm sure Elizabeth Zimmermann would approve of this happy baby, covered in knitting from top to toe. 

Or how about this very stylish set for an older baby?

That coat is just beautiful and the hat would appear to have animal ears too; I thought that was a modern trend.

Of course it's not easy to get babies to pose for fashion photos so many publishers opt just to lay the sets out on a pretty background. Emu patterns often feature this approach.

Or, you can attempt an action shot (minus baby) as in this Ladyship pattern.

One more pram set pattern, a later Sirdar Sunshine pattern and just look at how much you get for 9d. That's nine old pence for the younger readers; Great Britain changed to the decimal system and 100 pennies in a pound in 1971. Before that, there were 20 shillings in the pound and each shilling was made up of twelve pence. I'd better stop there as I'm starting to sound like Hagrid explaining wizarding money to Harry. Back to the pattern ...

As well as the leggings, you get patterns for a dress, two matinee jackets, a bonnet, bootees, mittens and a shawl. That should keep any knitter busy for a while.

Before we leave pram sets, I thought you might like to see an old family photo of one being worn.

That's my brother Stephen smiling happily in his pushchair more than sixty years ago. See his bonnet? That is what was (and maybe still is) called a baby's helmet. Baby boys had knitted helmets and baby girls wore bonnets. Which leads me neatly on to my collection of bonnet patterns ...

Actually there are bootee patterns in there too as heads and feet seem to go together in the world of knitting for babies. For some reason, helmet patterns often feature a pointed front - possibly inspired by early flying helmets?

Here's a nice example of a pattern for a helmet for a boy and a bonnet for a girl in one Bestway pattern; the bonnet is even described as a poke bonnet.

Sirdar went through a phase of illustrating their bonnet patterns in a slightly surreal way. Balls of wool on sticks, rather strange, disembodied heads ...

I think there's one with the bonnets on balloons too.

I was tempted to try one of the many pretty bonnet patterns so, one Lister pattern and a ball of Baby Smiles later ...

It was a nice pattern to knit with its simple picot hem and twisted pattern stitch and it didn't take long. Maybe I should design a traditional baby bonnet one day? I measured this one while it was still a rectangle, just in case.

Moving on to the bootees (I've just adopted that older spelling, having called them booties for years) ... although, they look nice, I'm not a big fan of things that involve trying to tie ribbons on to wriggling babies so I'm always attracted to bootees that stay up on their own.

There are some rather modern looking shoe types in this pattern, featuring more things on sticks from Sirdar.

The little rack of bootees is nice but, I have to say, adding that weird head is a step too far for me. The green pair on the top (labelled B) are a style that crops up in several of my patterns and appear to have an inner sock; the ribbons are purely decorative. I shall have to try these one day.

I was very taken with the long bootees on this pattern too; nice and warm under baby gowns and very unlikely to fall off. A long, lacy pair in white would go well with a christening robe.

I think my favourite bootee pattern though has to be this little one from Bestway. A combination of a simple cover design with bright colours and some interesting and practical designs.

There are several of these that I'd like to knit but I plumped for the little yellow boots on the left - such a clean looking design. They have a garter stitch sole and rib uppers and cuff and feature a lovely pointed toe. Winklepickers for babies? It looks impractical as babies don't have pointed feet but I think the rib would probably stretch on the foot.

I think you learn something from every pattern you knit and these little bootees provided me with a lot of food for thought. First of all, the shape kept me reminding me of something, especially with the cuff folded up. It took me a while to realise that it was the illustrations in this Ladybird book from my childhood.

Here is the Shoemaker laying out his cut out shoe shapes in the evening; see what I mean?

The other thing I really liked was the way the shaping worked with the rib. This is about half way up the instep.

I kept laying it flat like that and admiring it. You could knit a good, double-sided coaster or mat like this. Or ... reversible squares for a baby blanket.

These are worked in the round from the outside in. The pink square shows the right side and the yellow shows the back. it took several attempts to work out the shaping but I rather like these. I pulled out all the chalky pastels I could find in my collection of Stylecraft Sopecial DK and set about planning a small baby blanket.

I'm about half way through knitting thirty squares, two in each colour, and I'm enjoying making them. I can knit them faster than they take to block though so there's a bit of a backlog by the blocking mat. The rib stitch means that they need blocking to tame the edges. I'm hoping that I can sew them together using the bumps from the cast on edge so fingers crossed for that. I really like how the lines of the rib catch the light differently, depending on the angle.

Once I've finished this blanket, I might go back and design a ribbed bootee based on this pattern but with a wider toe.

What shall we look at next? "Matinee Jackets!" I hear you cry - right then. Now I have strong views about matinee jackets and things that button all the way down the front are cardigans in my book, whatever the pattern publisher chose to call them. Having said that, I think matinee jackets are a very useful piece of clothing for babies. That wide, unfastened bottom fits nicely over a nappy (especially if you use proper nappies which are bulkier than the disposable ones) and there's nothing to stop you knitting them in bright colours.

Many of these are classic designs which don't date at all. Here are a few of my personal favourites ...

I'd swap the ribbons for buttons on these.

Lace, embroidery or a combination of both. I do like the collar on that blue one.

A double breasted jacket to match Sir's helmet.

I do love the older, black and white patterns too. This one from Bairnswear features a wonderful cradle as well as some stylish jackets. 

And the prize for the happiest baby goes to this little one on yet another Sirdar Sunshine pattern.

The shawl on the right is a carrying shawl with a hood to go over the baby's head. Now that's another good idea.

Again, I was tempted to try one of the designs and I chose one from this small, black and white pattern from Patons.

I'm knitting the one at the bottom right. I've only done the right front so far but it's looking nice.

This is a matinee jacket knitted for my son by my Great Aunty Eva in the 1980s and worn by both of my children.

I couldn't find a photo of either of them wearing it but here's Eva as a young woman in the 1920s.

Like all the women in the family, Aunty Eva knitted as a matter of course; she was also the person who taught me to crochet.

As we've already established, button up things that don't qualify as matinee jackets are cardigans and I've got quite a few of those too.

I don't think I've show you any Weldon's patterns yet. Weldons and Bestway were both big publishers, specialising in small, brightly coloured patterns. This sort of thing, with  a model next to a row of different coloured garments comes up again and again.

I also like the two-colour patterns in this one ...

Or how about  this Sirdar Sunshine pattern for three 'continental coatees' - very daring. No heads on sticks this time, just a duck with knitting needles.

Or batwing sleeves for babies? I'm not sure this would work, given how short babies' arms are anyway.

The stitch pattern on this one reminded me of a simple little caridgan that I knitted for my babies, complete with rabbit buttons.

Both of them wore it when they first came home from hospital and, in my son's case, the sleeves had to be rolled up several times.

I can't remember where I got the pattern for their pink cardigan but this one got a lot of wear too.

Here's Jack having quality time with a yellow dinosaur, as you do ...

... and Rose fast asleep.

They're wearing the same pink socks to match too. I knitted Rose's little dungarees as well but I'm not sure I've kept them. Didn't she have a lot of hair? 

In case you're thinking that she only got to wear her brother's cast-offs, I did knit this set specially for her. Look at those little short legs.

The background to the photo is the children's pram blanket, knitted for them by their Great-Granny. Rose did get the knitted picture blanket too, one of my first designs, all worked out on graph paper.

If you're still reading this, well done. Just one more lot now and I shall stop. I've only got a few patterns for pram covers and shawls but they are some of my favourites. These two patterns are interesting in that it looks like the blue pattern in the first and the yellow one in the second are the same design.

It also looks like a similar stitch pattern to the one I'm using to knit little baby squares.

These two Sirdar shawl patterns are very similar too, if not identical. Both have a traditional leaf pattern blanket and two lacy shawls.

This is the older one, No. 54.

The newer one is No. 254; the photography is brighter but the designs and stitch patterns are very similar.

I'm a big fan of those leaf blankets and designed my own version a while ago - Secret Garden.

I knitted a shawl for my children too, nothing special, just a practical, warm shawl.

Here's a newborn Jack in it, being held by his Great-Granny ...

... and here he is, four years later, when baby Rose came home from hospital in the shawl.

He looks serious but he was actually very pleased with his new sister.

At the other end of the shawl scale in terms of practicability are the Shetland lace shawls, fine enough to be drawn through a wedding ring. I knitted one of these for a friend's baby many years ago and have always wanted to knit another. When my Covid brain is up to it, I must order the yarn and get on with that.

And that's the end of my long trawl through my old knitting patterns for babies. I hope you've enjoyed it as I've got lots of other lovely old patterns to share with you another time. Jumpers and cardigans for adults and children, doll's clothes, toys, gloves ...