Knitting for the Family - Part 2

Good friends of ours are expecting their first baby this April. So, i happily took a break from knitting for my partner and baby in order to make some fun baby girl goodies. While there are oodles of fun patterns out there for girls - i will try not to lament again about not having the same volume of cute baby boy things to wear - i wanted to make them something less girlish. As i was looking around at all my craft porn, i knew that they would appreciate this decision, especially how we all still seem to believe girl = Peptobismal Pink.

Anyway, again i digress... So, i picked two lovely patterns from my Vintage Knits for Modern Babies book. I made the Apron Tunic Dress in a lovely muted green, using Debbie Bliss Cashmerino dk. And as my friend loves this shade of grey-lavender like i do, i wiped up these Ruby Slipper booties in no time. I am planning to make some for Lil C too.
The booties were an especially easy and straight forward pattern, that really takes just a couple of pieceful (i mean peaceful! pun intended) hours. The tunic dress was a bit more of a challenge as i could not understand some of the instructions. If anyone else has made it, let me know if you understood how to make the front without adding the pockets. The pattern calls for pockets but i thought a 3 month old would not need them, and this way J could stencil the cute doe for us to applique on the dress. I sent an inquiry email to the author for support, but only got a generic email back telling me to take the work to my local yarn store, a week after i already gave the gift to my friends. As i did not find any errata or other mentions of this pattern online, i went ahead with my plan and just made two back pieces. It worked out great! And, as you can see my 8-month old SON looks cute as a model and it fits fine.

Oh, and a gift is not complete without proper wrapping. So, i whipped up a knit bow to use. I loosely followed the instructions here, but made it much smaller (knit 7 across instead of 13). Maybe the wee one that comes in April will be able to wear it as Lil C is modeling!