Little striped hoodies for cute little babies

I have never had any success taking photos of hoodies, especially when there are no cute little baby faces peeping out from inside. (UPDATED July 2015 – But I am lucky enough to have been sent a photo of Imogen’s very sweet little face peeping out of the hoodie on a cold winter days walk.)

These two hoodies are destined for two second time mums whose babies are due this month. Neither of them know if they are having a boy or a girl (or if they do know, they are not telling). I hope one of them is having a boy so that they can have the blue one, and the grey one will suit either a girl or a boy. I guess if they both have girls, I will need to quickly make another one in a colour that isn’t blue.

The only reason I am adverse to giving blue for a girl is that my granddaughter didn’t have any hair (and still hasn’t got much at 18 months) and kept being mistaken for a boy. My daughter didn’t dress her in blue because she got tired of having to keep explaining that her baby was a girl, despite having no hair. One day she was wearing a pink dress and pink leggings and a dear old man came up to her in the shopping mall and said “hello little fella, you’re a cute little guy”. My daughter didn’t correct him, she just smiled and asked how his day was going.

It seemed to take me forever to knit these little hoodies. Maybe that is because I actually made three. A blue and white one is on it’s way to North England for my little 6 week old grandson. Having to knit 12 little ears and then sew each of them together before stitching them onto the hood seemed to take so long. And the hoods seemed to take ages as well. But it was worth it. I just wouldn’t recommend making three of these in quick succession.

I am a little worried about the grey yarn for a little baby as it has angora mixed with the merino and silk. I just hope it isn’t too furry for a baby. Unfortunately when I dug into my stash to find the wool for these little hoodies, my double knit stash was a bit low and this grey was the only suitable unisex colour I could find. My stash has since “blossomed” with a FIlatura Di Crosa half price sale at our local yarn store last week.

Pattern book – King Cole Baby Book 5
Pattern – Little Big Stripey Hoodie
Yarn – Shepherds Baby Merino DK and Cleckheaton Angora, Merino and Silk
Link to Ravelry here and here