KNITmuch Issue 2 | Page 38

All baby yarns in lovely pastel colors! 3 yarns perfect for baby Michelle Nguyen Although some yarns are lumped into the same category, it's useful to take a closer look and see how they compare to each other, reviewing the benefits, attributes, and things to watch for when knitting. Here's a general overview of three yarns perfect for baby, Red Heart’s Soft Baby Steps, Comfort Sport and we'll revisit Cutie Pie yarn. My first impression of Red Heart's Soft Baby Steps yarn, was “omgsoftsoftsoftysoftsoft” because it was just that soft. It’s like a fluffy silky cloud spun into a tangible fiber. I was duly impressed when I looked at the fiber content and realized it was 100% acrylic as well. This saves all the trouble of giving washing instructions and worrying about a baby gift being thrown into the washing machine when it needs to be hand washed. The yarn itself has a very faint halo around it that makes it look soft, but not enough to decrease any stitch definition. Soft Baby Steps yarn is also slightly shiny, not in a sparkly kind of way, but the way silk yarn has a little bit of a shine to it when you’re looking at it from an angle. It’s also a worsted weight (Medium 4) so it works up quickly on a US8 [5mm] needle. Worsted is one of my favorite weights of yarn because you can knit things up relatively quickly and the stitches are small enough that you can still add stitch detail that would be impossible on thicker yarns. Doing a baby sweater in bulky yarn would knit up very fast, but you would be hard pressed to do things like cables, or honeycomb stitches; the material would be very thick. Photos by Michelle Nguyen 38 KNITmuch | issue 2