Well if you didn’t get excited about new babies this week the media is simply not doing their job! As anticipation built we got excited about the pattern, St George’s Baby, I’ve been working on since my vacation in late March. I hadn’t really connected it to the Royal Birth, but in the end it gave me a reason to get the pattern off my desk.
The knitting is primarily in garter stitch, in-the-round for the cute baby sox, and flat for the hat and bib. When I started thinking of a name for the pattern, I I looked for something that would be related to the Order of the Garter. I did a bit of research and the Order of the Garter is dedicated to St George, patron saint of England. You might remember the story of George the Dragon Slayer. That’s the one. I liked the connection to the Order of the Garter even if it was kind of tangential. I decided that we would use the British no period version of St George.
I was relieved the Royal baby was a boy because these were not typical baby colors. I used two skeins of fingering weight yarn given to me by Claudia’s Hand Painted Yarn. I had a total of 100g and I have a few grams left. I’ve started another sample set–using brighter colors.
The flat pieces are crazy-easy knitting once you get going, so they are perfect for travel knitting or for TV knitting. They require almost no thought, you just have to keep track of your short rows. The sox are easy, although you have to pay a little attention on the heels–partly because they are small–and to do garter in-the-round you have to purl every other row. I think it is fun to see the shapes I’ve created with short rows: Heel, circular crown, and flared hatband and bib. Because of the garter, there is no need to pick up your wraps which add a very subtle variation in the pattern so your clever work shows.
The pattern itself has charts for all the shaping elements so there is a cool visual if you like that along with written instructions. Wendy has been building charts for me for several months now and they are really beautiful. She has more patience than I do so every detail is perfect.
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