I’m relatively new to using wool, and new to knitting (I just started in February). However, I love using wool so much that I decided to attempt to knit my own soaker. I searched the internet for patterns, and came across a couple of free soaker patterns that I decided to try (I’m currently working on another pattern). The first pattern I decided to try is a by a Finnish woman and can be found on the Ottobre Design website. This particular soaker is knitted with straight needles, and is then stitched together at the very end.
Without photos of the finished product, I really was on my own. I won’t tell you how many times I had to restart this project due to mistakes at the very beginning (remember, I’m a beginner). Before this project, I had only worked with a knit stitch, so I had to learn purling to do the waistband ribbing. Counting stitches proved to be my biggest hurdle:
While this is a beautiful moss stitch, it’s not what I needed. This is a photo of one of the many times I had to undo my knitting and start over. But, I finally got the hang of it (and learned a lot in the process):
Since becoming pregnant and having a baby, I’ve noticed that I have a difficult time paying attention to television shows or movies. I’ve found that knitting helps me to focus more and it relaxes me. It is definitely teaching me patience as well!
This pattern forced me to learn a lot of different knitting techniques: increases, decreasing rows, and the mattress stitch to name a few. Thank goodness for the internet and YouTube — I can’t tell you how many tutorials I watched throughout the process of making this!
While it took me a few weeks to get this done, realistically, this project could get done in a week (knitting in the evenings, as I do). I sat on the project for a few weeks at the end, before attempting to stitch it together. I am not great at sewing, so the thought of having to learn a special stitch (mattress stitch) and sew the whole thing together was overwhelming.
I finally did complete the soaker, and have an amazing sense of satisfaction in having completed this! I love it, imperfections and all.
The unfortunate part? I used the 10-24 month pattern, to get the most use out of the soaker, but my son is only 9 months…and on the small side:
He likely won’t start wearing this until the fall 🙂
I really want him to wear wool this summer, so I’ve started a new pattern using circular needles – wish me luck!
Hey, it looks great! It’s nice to know I’m not the only one stumbling through the diy soaker patterns (I would totally NEVER put any pics of the fleece speaker I just finished)! I’m sure just as soon as our little guys pity train, we’ll get our projects just right! 😛
Thanks! Both of my knitted soakers really helped me to learn how to knit, so that was a good thing. They don’t look great, but they do the job 😉 Good luck with yours!
Thanks! This ^ type of soaker, the knitted, are second on the to do list… Preceded by the prefold to fitted project … Have you tried doing that yet?
I haven’t tried it yet, but I have a dozen toddler prefolds that I need to do something with. Training pants instead, maybe?