The Baby Knitters Club

Last night was the first meeting of the Baby Knitters Club, which just so happened to coincide with Monday night Knitting Circle and my friend Anita's first attendance there.

Quite a while ago now I told Anita we should start the Baby Knitters Club (if you've never read any of the Baby Sitters Club books then you have really missed out - baby sitting, running your own club, the dilemmas of growing up, solving mysteries, stereotype personalities - the books have all you could want if you're aged about 8 - 11 and a spin-off series). So far the membership of the club extends to her and me which is very handy because we now live on the same street (which is so Baby Sitters Club) and as such I think our meetings will be on a 'when we are both at home with nothing to do' basis.

So last night could have been just any old Monday night Knitting Circle but because Anita came and because we both started our 'tiny baby creations' (I'm thinking this should be the Baby Knitters Club manifesto), it was actually a double-whammy event (unbeknown to anyone but us of course).

This is my potentially very tiny baby creation (sourced from Ravelry). I have no idea what size this is going to turn out because the pattern calls for Aran (which according to Ravelry is 10ply) weight wool but when I went to Knit World I was told that, helpfully, New Zealand doesn't make Aran weight wool so there's not very much of it around and what is around is imported so it's rather expensive (and I wasn't buying 2 $15 each balls of wool to potentially repeatedly rip up as the pattern is full of knitting gobbledygook that I need to try to interpret/have the internet work its magical powers of explanation on for me).

So on Knit World girl's advice I bought 8ply wool and am using the size needles the wool calls for - so instead of the 5mm and 4.5mm needes the pattern calls for, I am using a 4mm and a 3.75mm (because again, as I know from my hat and as Knit World girl told me, 3.5mm is not a popular needle size in New Zealand and Knit World doesn't have them. I am becoming suspicious of Knit World. Are these things really 'hard to get in New Zealand' or just 'hard to get at Knit World'?).

I tried to combat the very tiny possibility created by the thinner wool and smaller needles by knitting the next size up (as Knit World girl also suggested) but then when it came to casting on more stitches a few rows after the original cast on amount (which was the same for all sizes), I forgot my plan and followed the size the pattern is written in instead of the size in the brackets. So that plan was quickly aborted (I realise this isn't an ideal word choice in the context of baby garments but neither is terminated and I can't think of any others) because by the time I realised what I'd done I couldn't be bothered ripping it up and starting again (it took me approximately two and half hours to do what you see in that photo there, but in fairness to me please note that it's all curled up).

SO. I don't understand how what I've done correlates to the picture on the pattern but I did learn a different way of casting on thanks to Ellen at Knitting Circle - the one thumb cast on, which I now realise my Nana tried to show me last year when I showed her the cast on method I'd learned from Stitch n Bitch and she said, 'That looks complicated, I do it like this' but (recurring 'Cherie Knits' theme) I didn't get it, so stuck with the way I'd learned. I also remain entirely hopeful.

Not that I know any babies to knit for.