Knitting for Two: 20 Simple Designs for Expectant and New Mommies and Babies

by Erika Knight

Pregnancy and the special time during the first year of a baby's life is a time for nesting and nurturing-and the perfect time for an expectant or new mother to take up knitting. In Knitting for Two, renowned knitwear and textile designer Erika Knight presents a delightful collection of knitting patterns for soon-to-be and new moms and their babies. Knitters can choose from 20 easy-to-knit projects in a variety of color schemes. There are knitting projects using easy-care yarns in soft neutrals accented with baby blue, pink, and green; or fine yarns like cashmere in pastel shades of pink, blue, green, taupe, and cream. Other projects use vibrant colors like lime, fuchsia, and red. The patterns for mothers-to-be are stylish, feminine, and sexy and include a long-sleeved, chunky rib wrap; a cardigan with chiffon rose decoration; and a long twinset. The baby patterns are sized for premies and 0-12 months, and include a round-neck sweater with shoulder buttons and matching pull-on pants, a lacy bonnet, and a pixie-style hat with earflaps.

Genres: Knitting

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2004

About the author

Keep it simple, chic and contemporary! So says Erika, textile designer and fashion design consultant, whose trademark has been the traditional with a twist. Coming into knitting via fine art training, she is highly regarded in her field and works for many international companies designing ready-to-wear ranges. Author of Comforts of Home (Martingale), her latest book is Simple Knits for Cherished Babies (Collins & Brown).

Reviews

[Abbey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mom designs OK; baby patterns SUPERB!! rating = three-and-one-half stars.

Thought I'd take a look at this one since I'm such a large woman and thought perhaps some of the patterns might fit me a mite better than the runway refugees types of designs do... (grin) Unfortunately I was not at all impressed by the designs shown here for women - a couple were slightly interesting, all were pretty basic, AND the sizings were absolutely awful - three sizes only, and those only for 34", 36" and 38" sizes! geesh. IMO that lets out about 60-70% of all potential knitters! (sorry, Pet Peeve).

But the designs for babies were simply wonderful, varied in yarn weights but all basic patterns with nice finishing touches, and nearly all of them very lovely to look at, easy to make up, and only one small conceptual mistake - who, in their right mind, would put enormous yarn pom-poms on a very young child's hat or sweater? Yes, they looked "adorable!!!" but aren't the parents worried at all about the choking hazard?? I know, IF they use natural yarns rather than acrylics the yarn would, eventually dissolve in the baby's stomach IF they are lucky, but, really, why set yourself up for such a worry?

ANYway, pretty nearly all the baby's patterns here were wonderful, and I fell quite in love with several of them, especially a beautiful little sweater with a gently gathered yoke that was amazingly simple to make up - it's the sort of thing that you ought to keep in your patterns pile for multiple future uses! Ditto a chunky little tweed sweater pattern that looks as though I could make it up in a few hours, but it has a nifty trim and looks delightful!

Recommended for those seeking a few not-so-boring basic baby patterns, and well worth a look-see by anyone who needs to/wants to make something for a young child (sizings tend to range from newborn to ~12 months). Yes, there are lots of basic baby pattern books "out there" but this is a good one IMO, with several very useful designs that would be very easy to slightly alter each time you make it/them up. Good basic "go-to-" stuff.

[Priscilla King · Rating 3 out of 5]

During the active lifetime of company owner Stephen Sheard, a style of knitting patterns and books came to be known as the Rowan Look. It emphasized thin yarns, often in odd high-fashion colors, often knitted in odd high-fashion shapes, usually in one color but sometimes in mad mixes of twenty to forty colors. (The original vision was that thicker jackets and blankets could be knitted with two or three strands of those thin yarn, together.)

This book has the Rowan Look and, even worse to some eyes, it's a product of Knight's pink-to-purple stage, with one black sweater for Mommy and lots of odd, unflattering shades of mauve for everything else. We are not talking about even baby pink here. Not that you're likely to find those then-high-fashion shades of mauve yarn today anyway.

There are a few things, like the mad-mix-of-colors hoodie for Mommy, that will be easy for most knitters to make. More of these patterns will take extensive shopping. Non-specialty shops in the United States tend to offer yarn that knits up at 7 or 8 stitches to the inch only in acrylic or in bias-prone cottons spun for crocheting doilies, and only in white and "baby pastels." When you do find thin yarn made of natural material in colors adults wear, it's worth buying a bundle. These lightweight sweaters will be easy to wear, and not even all that hard to redesign if you want to omit the then-fashion shaping; they'll just take more knitting time. If you enjoy the process of knitting that's a plus point.

Babies, fwiw, fuss less and sleep longer when dressed in lightweight cotton knits rather than chunky acrylic ones--at least in the Middle and Southern States--so if you want to knit for a baby it may be worth using this book to knit a complete layette of lightweight cotton baby things.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't like most of the patterns. Also, some of the pictures weren't flattering to the model.

[Jennifer Gee Conway]

One of two books I know of that predominantly feature maternity knits...differs from the other, "Expectant Little Knits" in that it includes knits for baby. Since there are more than enough knitting patterns for babies in the world, I don't know that they are needed here, but it's cute. I like the idea of wrapping diaper (or kilt) pins with sweater yarn and using for fasteners. Most of this stuff is not really my style, although there is a lovely classic yoked cardigan for baby on p. 84 and a lacy bonnet with a great star (or flower) on the back of the head on p. 90. Just ignore the god-awful huge ribbon on the sides. If I were choosing one maternity knitting book, I'd go for "Expectant Little Knits." If they weren't both at my library, that's what I would do.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was like the experience of finding a really cute dress or top on the clearance rack and then realizing it is maternity... does it matter? I love this book - I got it for the baby knits for my niece on the way, but was pleasantly surprised to see all of the great adult knits too. I particularly loved the cotton striped cardigan... would anyone ever have to know that it was from a maternity book?

That said, the baby knits are also adorable. The book is a winner and if you (or a friend or family member) has babies in the future, definitely check it out.

[Yan Bin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a complicate book to understand because the techniques they wrote are for experts. Whether it is hard or not, this book can help the mother keep busy with things and draw her relationship with her child closer. The clothes are so cute.