Hockey season has only been over for almost two months, but hockey is always on our minds here.
I'm due in late September, so there is a possibility (though these are sized bigger than a newborn) that our baby will get to see hockey on TV and watch their first game all dressed up to root for BU.
The baby sweater is the Baby Pullover, a free pattern from Bernat. I followed the lead of another BU alum on Ravelry who had done most of the grunt work for turning the sweater into a hockey sweater. What I did that was different? I decided I still hate seaming and so knit the entire sweater in the round. This mostly worked until I got to the neckline and had to coordinate instructions from multiple sections of the pattern at once. Definitely a spot where writing things out ahead of time would have been key.
Next up was the Baby Robitaille helmet, which was a quick knit though slower finish because I put off sewing on the single snap. Once I had the snap separated it was, well, umm. Yeah. That. I did have to have someone separate the snap for me, because I had just trimmed my finger nails all the way back. For once I didn't even sew half of the snap on backwards. Take that pregnancy brain!
Lastly, I made the hockey skates (it's a free pattern on Craftster). Now the skates look huge, and while we hid it for the photo, I need to resew on the blade portion on the back skate. I don't think the pattern had any sizing or gauge guidelines, and given I don't really know much about baby booties I knit away not thinking about their size. It's possible that they will fit fine. My husband has very wide feet, so this might be for the best!
Oh, and for the blades, I took my grey yarn and cast on 24 stitches using a size 4 needle. I knit the even rows as instructed, but when it came to separate for the upright portions of the blades, I knit 6, bound off 12, and then knit 6.
We bought two pairs of 14-inch white shoelaces for the sweater and the skates. If I had to do it over again, I'd buy the next size up, because these were too short to easily tie. 14-inches sounds so much bigger until you are actually faced with the reality of lacing a garment.