Need Ideas (and patterns!) for baby gifts

General Knitting
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Hi all!

A dear friend of mine just found out she’s pregnant and this actually affords me enough time to finish gifts BEFORE the baby is born (maybe!)

On hand and ready to use for these gifts, I happen to have 7 50-g balls of Sirdar Snuggly Tiny Tots DK in “candy” http://www.yarnmarket.com/images/TinyTots948.jpg, 4 balls of Wendy Peter Pan (baby blue and baby green) and 4 balls of Sirdar Snuggly Chatterbox (orange-ey and yellow). The Snuggly and Chatterbox are textured, the Peter Pan is smooth, all of it is DK, and I guess total, I have something like 2300 yds of appropriate DK weight. My plan was to make a huge baby blanket out of all these, but that baby is a toddler now, so I’ll be making him a regular afghan in boy colors, so I’ve got all that yarn now!

That being said, I need gift ideas for her. Being that she is due in June, I don’t know what warmth level to make things. I know infants always need their head warm, so I figured definitely a hat and some booties too. Then I was thinking a blanket, of course, but I have a zillion patterns and nothing that I love yet, and should I do a more open-work pattern for the June baby? Then, what is the thingie called that they wrap the baby in to take home, is it a bunting? The layette sets I’ve seen all call for sweaters and I just don’t think that would be appropriate, but maybe a bunting wouldn’t be a bad idea? No patterns for that either, if that’s even what it’s called. Then, I was thinking some cotton bibs and maybe a washcloth or two. I just can’t decide!!! If anyone has some set suggestions or any free patterns (i’ve perused through Lion’s site and knitting pattern central already) I would so appreciate it!!!

Thank you all so much!

P.S. Mommies out there, from your experiences, what is a desired size for a newborn blanket? Lots of the patterns I’ve seen are like 28 x 31, maybe a bit bigger, but that seems so small to me! Tx!

P.S.P.S. I don’t know if they’re going to find out the sex of the baby and I’d like to get started way in advance anyway. I think these colors are pretty unisex though.

P.S.P.S. I was thinking of Edith Eig’s feather and fan blankie here http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/lb_bedding/article/0,2025,DIY_13993_2276473,00.html but that would only leave me 3 balls to do the hat and booties… what do you think? i could use 6 balls of the tiny tots, then do the color changes with the chatterbox and peter pan, changing not only colors but also textures, and i think that would be okay since it’s all DK weight…

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I haven’t knitted baby stuff yet, but I can say that I preferred the larger, square blankets of about 36x36. Your yarn is beautiful!

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http://www.knittingpatterncentral.com/directory/baby.php

All kinds of baby goodies!

Babies grow so, so fast! You could do a small something in cotton and then make something warmer in a larger size for the winter. They’d get a lot more use from it. And blankets are used all year round.

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About the amt of leftover yarn you’ll have after the blanket, I made a hat, socks and mitts with 2 skeins (400+ yds) of sock yarn…even had alot of waste yarn!

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Hi again!

I get ants in my pants at the thought of starting a new project so I figured I’d try out the Edith’s feather and fan blanket. I love it so far! That’s the one that calls for the 12 balls, 2 of each color, but since I have 5 colors, I figured I would double up on the repeats of the Candy yarn.

Now for the help part, though. It’s done with 2 strands of DK held together on US 11 needles. First off, for the k2tog, I found that if I did it through the front loop, the back was ugly with the big loopies hanging off from the second stitch of the k2tog, so I have opted to k2togtbl, but I’m hoping that doesn’t mess up the feather/fan pattern. I know it will twist the stitch, but I’m hoping it will be a lovely embelishment instead? :wink:

Also, purling through the YO on these big needles was liking purling through the grand canyon and my holes seem rather large… I’m hoping this is okay!!! It’s hard to tell from the pictures or watching the show how big the holes are…

I think I will probably stick with this blankie pattern as I love it already and it’s fast, so now I’m just needing the hat, bootie, bunting thing, I guess.

Thanks again everyone!!! :slight_smile:

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The smaller “receiving blanket” size is nice for swaddling babies. After that, I would recommend making the blanket the same size as a crib mattress. Dunno what the sizes are offhand, but it would be easy to find out because all cribs and mattresses are supposed to be standard sizing.

Thoughts on colour…for parents who did not find out the sex of Baby, they usually went with some shade of green and then threw in the blue or pink accents after Baby was born. Perhaps you could knit most of your gifts in green and then throw in some last minute colours after Baby is born. For example, crochet a coloured border around the blanket.