Thursday, July 5, 2012

Monkey Bib


Part of my 2012 resolution was to decrease my yarn stash. I have a ton of baby cotton in my knitting cupboard, so I decided I should start knitting some baby items to hold in reserve for when all my newly married friends start having babaies! I chose the imp bib as my first bib knitting project because I love to give monkey toys to my puppy.

My ball of Bernat CottonTots (color Sunshine) had 107 g to start. I love it when there is too much yarn in a ball, so often I find them short a couple of grams! The project required a total of 41 g.

I love how it tells you how many stitches are remaining before each turn. This makes it SO much easier to keep track of what you are doing. I had just about finished the short row bottom when I realized that I wanted the fabric of the bib to be tighter. My gauge was fine for almost any garment, but I wanted the bib to be able to protect whatever baby wears it from messes! I therefore started over on size 5 (from size 6) knitting needles.

The short row bottom on size 6 needles.

I knit the short row version of the pattern with icord ties. I followed the chart because written instructions from this kind of pattern give me a headache. When the pattern says to bind off 11 stitches (for the neck), you actually need to bind off 12 to get 13 sts remaining on each side.

This moneky didn't require a lot of blocking. I still wet blocked (without pins) to help it flatten out. The below picture is of the bib before I blocked it:


How cute is this bib? I see more bibs in my knitting future.