Baby Shoes

Look!  I made booties!
I have made booties before, but it has been a while, and there is a special and new sense of happiness and satisfaction when you take string and turn it into something with form and cuteness.  I have to give all credit to my mom and her parents and their parents for passing down a very satisfying and enjoyable skill.

Thanks, Mom!

My silil, or sister-in-law-in-law, that is to say my husband's brother's wife's brother's wife, is having a baby.  I found this out when she started posting baby items on her Pinterest.  One of those items was these baby shoes, found on the Crochet Dreamz blog, the pattern designed by, well, whoever it is that writes that blog.  I can't find her name.

If you like to crochet things, and you might be invited to a baby shower in the future, i recommend her site.  It has lots of super cute patterns, and she sells the patterns by PDF, for $5.00 or so.  I might have purchased the PDF for these slippers, except i was in a hurry and didn't want to risk waiting the advertised 24 hours to receive a pattern, so i decided to see if i could make it up.  Or at least make up something that looked really similar.

I was please with how similar my experiment is to the booties in the picture.  And then i decided to try my hand at writing a crochet pattern.  I do not mean to undermine the designer in any way.  And i am sure that her patterns are more certain than this one will be.  I simply want to try my hand.

So for those of you who read crochet, here's my pattern notes.

The size guides say that 0-3 size booties measure 3 3/4 inches, and 3-6 size measure about 4 inches in length.  Mine measure in between these two sizes, so i'm going to say they're about size 3 months.  But a real baby would be the best measure.  :)

Materials
    Worsted weight cotton yarn.
    Size E/4 (3.5 mm) crochet hook
    Four 5/8 inch buttons
    Needle and thread to match yarn

Sole
     Chain 10 loosely.

Round 1
     3 dc in 4th ch from hook (3 skipped count as 1 dc).  dc in next ch and in each ch across.  7 dc in last ch. Working in free loops of beginning ch, dc across to end.  3 dc in last ch.  Join with slip stitch to top of first dc.

Round 2
     Ch 3, 3 dc in each of next 2 dc, hdc in next 2 dc, sc in next 1 dc, hdc in next 2 dc,  dc in next 2 dc, 3 dc in each of next 2 dc, dc in next 2 dc, hdc in next 2 dc, sc in next 1 dc, hdc in next 2 dc, 3 dc in each of last 2 dc, join with slip stitch, to top of beginning ch 3.

Sides/Top

Round 1
     With right side facing, working in back loops only, chain 2, hdc in next dc and in each dc around, join with slip stitch to beginning ch 2.

Round 2
     Ch 1, sc in both loops of same stitch and each hdc around, join with slip stitch to beginning sc.

Round 3
     Ch 2, hdc in both loops of next 8 sc, hdc in back loops only of next 6 sc, dc decrease 7 times in back loops only (this will use up next 14 sc of previous row), hdc in back loops only of next 6 sc, hdc in both loops of next 8 sc, join with slip stitch to beginning ch 2.

Round 4
     Ch 1, sc in both loops of next 11 hdc, dc decrease 7 times (this will use up next 14 stitches of previous row), sc in next 11 hdc, slip stitch in beginning ch 1.  Finish off, hide loose threads.

Strap

Round 1
     Ch 9 loosely, 3 dc in 4th ch from hook, sc in next 4 loops of ch, 7 dc in end loop of chain, sc in loose loops of next 4 ch, 3 dc in last loop, slip stitch to beginning ch 4.

Round 2
     Ch 1, sc in same sp, 2 sc in each of next 3 dc, sc in next sc, slip stitch in next 2 sc, sc in next sc, 2 sc in each of next 7 dc, slip stitch in next 2 sc, sc in next sc, 2 sc in each of next 5 dc, slip stitch to top of beginning chain 1, finish off and hide threads.

Finish

Use thread to sew two buttons to each of the round ends of each strap.  Use your judgment on aesthetics.  Then sew straps to tops of slippers.  A few well placed stitches in each end should be just right.


I hope you crochet experts will let me know how this works for you.  Writing patterns might be fun if i catch the hang of it.