Book Review: One Stitch Baby Knits

Knitters tend to love fancy stitch patterns and embellishments on projects, but making something that looks cute doesn’t have to involve a lot of fancy stitchwork. In fact, there’s a lot you can do just with Garter Stitch.

That’s the premise of One-Stitch Baby Knits by Val Pierce, a book of 22 patterns for garments, bibs, blankets and more that only uses Garter Stitch and simple shaping. That doesn’t mean all the projects are for beginners, but they show newer knitters that they can build from basic skills to make some really fun projects.

Some of the projects I really liked include the Bunny Earflap Hat (which sounds like what it is, a hat that has both earflaps and bunny ears); the Sleepy Babies Blanket, with blocks of different texture and three sleepy baby faces along the top; the Navy Striped Bib, which uses slipped stitches to add interest to Garter Stitch Stripes; the Striped Yoke Cardigan, a bottom-up raglan with stripes on the yoke; and the Little Rosebud Wrap Set, which includes a wrap sweater, bonnet and booties.

The projects aren’t on Ravelry that I can find but you can see some of them on the preview of the book on Amazon.

Six of the projects are rated for beginners, 11 are intermediate and 5 experienced, mostly because of shaping and additional elements/embellishments that add to the skills required.

The projects are cute and a great place to start if you need some new options for baby knits, especially if you like Garter Stitch and adding appliqued embellishments like animal faces, sailboats and fish to projects.

What I didn’t love was some of the beginning knitting instructions, such as when the text is teaching the knit cast on and says “again, as if you were making a knit stitch” when the knit stitch hasn’t been introduced yet. It talks about gauge and shows a picture of a swatch but doesn’t really explain how to knit or measure a swatch. It suggests when changing colors in the middle of a row that you knit the first stitch with both colors, which could definitely mess up your pattern. The description of how to seam Garter Stitch is unhelpful and there’s no photo.

But if you have a grasp of the basics and can skip straight on to the patterns, I think you’ll find something fun to knit for the next little one in your circle.

About the book: 144 pages, paperback, 22 projects. Published in 2019 by IMM Lifestyle Books, suggested retail $17.99.

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

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