Knits for Babies, Royal or Otherwise

Apparently Kate Middleton is about to have the second royal baby soon, and baby knitting patterns are cropping up all over. We all just love to knit for babies, whether they’re actual royalty or we just want to treat them as such. So here are some patterns to get you started knitting for the babies in your life.

Red Heart has released a Royal Knit Onesie pattern, complete with pink and white stripes and picot edgings for extra cuteness. They also have a free ebook with 12 knitting patterns for babies that you should check out.

Yarnspirations has a great little collection of pint-sized projects for spring; I particularly like the Funny Bunny Pullover, which could be made plain for any time of year and is sized for 6-24 months. They have some easy baby booties, too, and the Happy Go Lucky Ducky is a little toy babies and little kids alike would love.

Lee Gant has a couple of great patterns for cashmere baby hats if you really want to pamper the new little one.

And Love Knitting has a couple of collections of baby booties and cardigans for little ones you might also want to check out (free download with registration).

What do you like to knit for babies?

Looking for knitting patterns for knitted Cardigans? Check out these Knitting patterns we found on Etsy.

Looking for pullover and sweater patterns? Check these books out.

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]

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