Craft Corner: Knitting for babies

I’ve just finished knitting a pair of bright red socks with cables for a month old baby, the son of our local fishmongers, appropriately named Peter.

The pattern is one of the treasures in Essential Baby by Debbie Bliss, one of England’s leading knitting designers. She also markets her own wool brand.

I’ve had the book for about eight years. It’s a far cry from the fine knitting patterns for babies from the 1940s that I’ve inherited. The colours suggested are bold and bright and the the plys a lot thicker than traditional baby wool.

The book explains how to knit the basics and some of the more complicated techniques like cables and intarsia.

The patterns range from clothing – coats, vests, hats, socks, dresses, cardigans, bathrobes to toys – a very cute wooly lamb, for example, and baby necessaries such as blankets and wraps.

The book is a walk down memory lane for me as I note some of my scrawls and notes to self. I’ve knitted the ‘Baby’s first coat’ and the ‘reversible hat’ for my youngest granddaughter, finishing it on the day she was born. The colours were grape and aubergine, certainly not traditional baby colours. 

The pattern for the reversible hat, in two colours, is fairly simple and I’ve knitted it several times. There’s a pair of trousers with an attractive picot edging which I’ve also knitted twice, once for another granddaughter.

I note one of my daughters has gone through and made suggestions as to which item I could knit.

A quality knitting book with classic patterns is a good investment for a knitter. The age range for this book is 0 to 18 months, so there are many patterns that cover that age range.

Essential Baby is available now from Dymocks – alongside other books by Debbie Bliss. Click here to learn more.