Had several babies in the oven this winter and wanted to knit projects - but not just booties! Found this pattern through Unwind Yarn Shop MI newsletter for a baby sleep sack - and voila! better knit project! I bought the pattern and yarn in a kit from the shop. I actually had nearly three balls left over (about 2.5), so it was a really great value and now I have two really nice balls of Cashermino to perhaps knit up booties and hats to match with!

Design Methodology and Inspiration

• baby’s parents are outdoorsman types, dad being a professional fishing guide
• mom really likes natural, earth tone, subtle colors (no pink for her! and they chose not to know the baby’s sex)
• I deliberately randomly created the stripes as mismatching in order to make it feel like a river was running through it - like currents do under water both in temperature, flow, volume and in clarity (also known as turbidity!)
• The embroidery then depicts a sandy river bottom, reeds, and itty bitty little fishies for fun

Project highlights

• Only found one errata* in pattern, otherwise was well written and fairly easy to follow

• as written, says to place markers at 40 and 80 stitches, but when I got to binding off for raglan sleeve, second marker needed to be at stitch number 120 (which is 80plus* 40). Could be a matter of interpretation, but I marked it as placing stitch markers at 40 and 120, respectively, of 160 cast on stitches.

• The yarn was really nice to knit with and as far as stitch definition? Wow, looks fantastic. Photographing the color was very difficult tho - the lighting never really could catch what it really looks like!

• 19” of stockinette can take awhile, be forewarned! Looks like a small project, it isn’t really! This is a pretty good project to be able to pick up and knit on while completing others, though once you get to the top of your 19”, you’ll have a decent amount of finish work (zipper sewing and the like)

Additional Baby Saks

• I’m lumping in two other baby Saks in the photo album of this project as I also had a set of twins to knit for - a boy and a girl

• I “machine” knit these on a vintage Bond Sweater Machine in pieces, then seamed them, and then knit the raglan tops, sewed in the zippers.

• The “machine” knit leaves a lot to be desired - there was no row counter so I had to sort of guess-ish knitting two front panels and the back panel lengths. This caused me great anguish with the pink version, though the gray version came right together. I had to move on, the kids have been on the planet for three months and I need to get their little bodies in the Saks!

• I certainly got my practice of mattress stitch in…about 21” of seaming up both sides was required for both as well as grafting the fronts to the back - another practice that will put you to shame - far different than grafting 8 stitches for a toe on a sock versus 80 stitches across the bottom of the sack!

• These were knit with a self striping acrylic baby yarn (name escapes me sudddenly) and it sure did make for interesting stripes/Norwegian style color work - maybe the only thing about these two Saks that I find remotely acceptable about their craftsmanship lol