Thursday, September 18, 2008

Finished The Pink Baby Booties


I finished the pink booties this morning. I hope the mother likes them.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Finished The First Bootie



I finished the first pink baby bootie. I hope it doesn't look too terrible.

Working On Pink Baby Booties

A husband and wife trucking team I know is expecting a little girl in December. She asked me if I would make a pair of booties for the baby as she thought it would be cool for the baby to wear booties made by a fellow trucker.

She had offered to pay me for them but I keep putting her off as to the price. I told her not to worry about it, they shouldn't cost more than $10,000 or so. Of course I have no intention of charging her for them, they'll be my gift to the baby.

I really hate following patterns and much prefer to make up my own stuff. I naturally approached the booties the same way. I tried a few different techniques, including toe up, but they were looking more like socks than what I had in mind.

I finally hit on the idea to make them sole up. That was sorking out exactly as I had in mind and went great until I got the point where I needed to shape the toe.

I knew short rows would do the trick, just as with a heel, but I just couldn't quite get it the way I wanted. As much as I hate using patterns I started searching the net for them anyway, trying to get some ideas as to how best to make the toe.

I hit on a bottom up seamless bootie pattern by YarnThrower that was amazingly similar to what I had already done, and used it to do the toe. It was exactly what I had in mind and worked perfectly into what I had already worked out. So I can't take 100% credit for the design of the booties as I did rely on her pattern for the toe shaping.

Looking at the photo of the bootie in her pattern it is very, very similar to my own, with only some minor differences. I guess we had both hit on the same basic idea for the bootie construction. I thank YarnThrower for the pattern as it got me past a sticking point.

I should have the first bootie finished shortly and will post a photo once it is.