What is a Baby Bag?

To answer right away: it's a knitted bag with a flap top; you put a baby in it thus keeping her warm but leaving her a lot of room to kick. During the night/naps, it may also remove the need for a blanket completely!

This was one of those knits when you just wanted something simple to knit "in between" or to take to your knit night and/or to use up stash. For me, both statements are true. I have been knitting so many shawls and even socks lately, I wanted something very very simple to work on, that will also use up the yarn I got from ravelling an old sweater my Mum made me years ago, that had been stained (by wahing it with another sweater that bled) and stretched unwearable.

I had frogged the sweater already last year, but didn't really have an idea for the yarn before this. I was looking for inspiration in my collectionn of knitting books and in AwareKnits I then found this cute baby sleeping bag pattern. It was calling for DK yarn, so I decided to double the fingering weight acrylic (or maybe a blend - I don't know for sure) to knit the baby bag.

The pattern was really easy - you first knit the back, basically knitting every row for the bag bit, then decrease half the stitches and work the overall flap in stockinette, dividing the work for the shoulder straps. Then you work the front pretty much the same, just working a pretty lace pattern to the front flap.

You were then supposed to sew the pieces together, but as I really don't like sewing knitted pieces together, I decided to crochet the baby bag to one piece! The good thing about AwareKnits is that it's "bi-stitchual", meaning it also has guidance and patterns for crochet. I was able to check how that chain crochet stitch was made again, and succeeded in joining the pieces neatly. Then I crochet even more, as you were to crochet the edging of the front and back flaps (to make them a bit prettier and stop them from curling I assume). Even this I did OK, in my opinion! In the end I attached two buttons to the shoulder straps and blocked the piece, basically just making it wet and laying it on the floor on a towel to dry. Simple, but it worked!

Here are the specs:

Pattern: Rainforest Wrapper Baby Sack from AwareKnits by Vickie Howell
Yarn: unknown recycled yarn, it could be Anttila Fleur though. The yarn is a bit more yellow than in the pictures, but still rather pale.
Needles: 4mm KnitPics circular used as flat
Modifications: none intentional, I forgot the button holes from the shoulder straps so I just crocheted a little loop afterwards for it.

This was a really fun project, truly great for that mindless garter stitch bliss that is sometimes so very needed, but also had that bit of interesting lace. Not to mention it is a baby item, so there was not too much of either! I will be giving this baby sleeping bag to charity, as I have no babies around to give it to (or at least babies to parents that would be convinced to use a baby bag!)