Closing out the Year of the Rabbit with bunny baby booties for baby Felicity born last month!
Baby bunnies for a bunny baby!
Cuter stacked or unstacked?
· Overall inspired by the Baby Bunny Slippers by Two Girls Patterns
· Booties are essentially the Orange Pumpkin baby booties by Croby Patterns, with my own modifications for increasing the size to 6-12 mo (based on the 6-12 mo pattern for the Piggy baby booties).
· Bunny ears are based on the Yarn Bowl‘s bunny baby booties.
· Lily Sugar’n Cream in Soft Ecru
· Caron Wintuk (100% acrylic) in Baby Pink
· Aunt Lydia’s Fashion Crochet Thread Size 3 in Black (for eyes)
I originally intended for these baby booties to be a quick, simple project: A basic bootie plus ears and just a few stitches for the faces. These booties were still a relatively simple project, but the finishing touches took much longer than I expected. Totally worth it though–I am very pleased with how well these booties turned out!
As pleased as these bunnies!
Bunny Baby Booties
Sole (pink): 6-12 mo size of the universal bootie sole by Croby Patterns (see, e.g., Piggy baby booties)
Upper Part
Ecru, worked in rows (i.e. at the end of each row, sl st in first st and begin each row with ch 1):
Row 1 Bphdc around. (50)
Row 2 Sc around. (50)
Row 3 Sc 13, hdc 1, *hdc2tog, hdc 2* 5 times, hdc2tog, hdc 1, sc 13. (44)
Row 4 Sc 13, hdc 1, hdc2tog, dc2tog 6, hdc2tog, hdc 1, sc 13. (36)
Row 5 Sc 10, hdc 1, hdc2tog, dc2tog 5, hdc2tog, hdc 1, sc 10. (29)
Finish off.
Ears (make 2 per bootie)
Pink:
Follow Row 1 of the ear pattern from the Yarn Bowl‘s bunny baby booties.
Leave long tail for attaching to outer ear. Finish off.
Ecru:
Row 1 Same as above, follow Row 1 of the Yarn Bowl’s ear pattern.
Row 2 Sc around.
Leave long tail for attaching to bootie. Finish off.
Sew pink inner ear to ecru outer ear.
Tails
Make one pom pom for each tail. I used the technique described in this video. Leave long tail for attaching to bootie.
The universal baby bootie sole pattern by Croby Patterns is my favorite baby bootie sole pattern I have come across so far (admittedly, not a very large sample size). I particularly like the back post half double crochet method for joining the upper to the sole. That seems a lot sturdier than other patterns I have seen that join by crocheting in the back loop only around the sole. Here, the back post half double crochet is visible on the sole. Croby Patterns typically makes the first row of her booties’ upper portion in the same color as the sole, but here, I changed to the main color for the entire upper portion.
I didn’t like the visible stitches around the edge at first, but they’ve grown on me!
The eyes are sewn on with black thread (three stitches per eye), and the noses with the same pink yarn used for the soles and ears (two stitches per nose).
^.^
I considered not adding noses and leaving the faces like this, but tiny pink noses are too cute to resist!
For the ears, I wanted pink insides, but I didn’t like the look of the pink showing through on the back of the ears. So I made two layers for each ear, so that the pink shows up only on the front.
Layers ready for assembly!
Layers assembled!
Close up!
The double layer of crochet for such a small size made the ears quite stiff and not at all floppy. Better for posing and not getting in the way of tiny baby feet, I guess?
Stick straight ears!
The bows are simply pieces of pink yarn tied on. I debated whether to add the bows at all, and then whether to secure the bows so they don’t come loose. In the end, I added the bows, but unsecured so they are easy to remove (and are basically guaranteed to loosen at some point if these booties are worn).
Before bows:
Already cute!
The seams are a little bit visible without the bows.
After bows:
On the bow trend! 🎀
For the pom pom tails, I initially tried just wrapping yarn around my fingers, but that resulted in a messy and not full enough pom pom. So I begrudgingly looked up how to make a pom pom maker and cut one out of cardboard.
The pom pom maker resulted in a much fuller pom pom, but tying the pom pom with the same yarn did not work because the yarn was too thick compared to how small the pom pom was. So instead, I tried again with sewing thread to tie the pom pom. I was worried the sewing thread might not be strong enough for attaching the pom pom to the bootie, so once the pom pom was completely tied up, I threaded a long strand of yarn under the sewing thread and used that yarn together with the sewing thread ends to attach the pom pom to the bootie. Third time was the charm!
Clockwise from top left: (1) Outer circles traced from a pill bottle cap, and inner circles from a dime (still not sure if this was too big for the inner circles?); (2) Pom pom maker ready to go! (3) Second pom pom maker attempt: Got rid of one cutout and just held the tie yarn in place; (4) Third pom pom maker attempt: Success with sewing thread for a tie!
Pom pom tails all done!
Of course, each bootie was thoroughly GRUMPed at before being gifted!
GRUMP boop!
A few more bunny-eared GRUMP photos over on our Tumblr!
Bunny kiss good night!
the whimsy turtle 