Go, Lions! Go!

Yes, I realize the Lions are out of the playoffs. But I have this coworker. And he loves the Lions. It's been a trip watching him this season really believe that this could be the year. But it wasn't. But maybe next year will be...

Anyway, this coworker is expecting a baby this spring and I was invited to a shower. I can't make it to the shower but I can certainly send a gift--personalized and hand-made because that's how I roll.

Bibs are pretty much my go-to shower gift. I'm sorry if you didn't register for them; you're going to need them. When I first read the invitation, I thought I had only one week to finish the gift and got kind of uptight about it. But a more careful reading revealed that I had a week to RSVP and more like three weeks to finish. Ohhh, much better. (Sort of.)

So while I was still in panic mode, I found a chart on Ravelry for the Detroit Lions logo. The chart was made for a reverse stocking stitch lion on a stocking stitch background. I thought it would do, but when I found out the pattern was only written out row by row and not charted, I knew I had to make a chart in Excel. Once I had entered all that info, I figured it wasn't much more work to tweak it for my use.

I added the eye and the lines to separate the front legs and the mane details. And I redid most of the tail and the lower feet. You know, just a little tweaking. I didn't go so far as to add the open (roaring) mouth of the real logo. Sometimes close enough is close enough.

Like any bib with two-colour work, I did this with the double-knit technique. Makes it reversible and eliminates and floats. I used blue and cream cottons that I had raveled from sweaters. (The same I used for the elephant bib.) I went down a needle size, however, because I needed more stitches and didn't want it to get too big. I think the result was better than on the larger needles. The blue and white aren't quite the right shades, but I'm not making this to sell in the pro shop.

The border is done in garter stitch with just the blue.

After the lower border, I knit the first row of the pattern holding both colours. On the next row I knit the one colour and purl the other, starting the double knit portion.

It's very clean on the "right" side. (I consider the side with a contrast border to be the "right" side. It's purely subjective and mostly irrelevant since it's really double sided.) On the "wrong" side, you can see a little of the contrast colour:

When I get to the top I just knit the paired stitches together to decrease down to the original number of stitches. The contrast yarn is even less noticeable there.

I know many people don't use buttons on baby things, but I dare. I just hate the thought of ties and Velcro. (Both applying it and using it on a baby.) I found one in my button jar that I thought would work. And it fit the button hole I made so that's a bonus.

The buttonhole was an easy affair. I just cast off two stitches in the middle of the row. On the next row I knit into the front and back of the stitch before the hole and after the hole. It came out neater than casting on two stitches.

I hope they like it. If not, well, it will be covered in baby spit soon anyway.