Knitted Baby Romper made with garter stich- DIY Pattern & Tutorial

Who says that knitted garments are only for winter? Today I propose to make a Knitted Baby Romper made with garter stitch that can be used for those warmer months. The secret is to choose your materials carefully and adapt them to a season, if you decide to make it with cotton yarn you can be sure that your finished garment will be ideal for wearing it without an undershirt, however, if you chose a warmer yarn you can use it for the winter with an undershirt and a leotard to cover the legs. Of course, cotton yarn can be a good option for the fall or winter for those babies that get hot easily since this yarn maintains the body temperature without overheating the body.

Materials to make a Knitted Baby Romper – size 6 – 12 months

• 3 balls of 50 grams of cotton yarn for 4 mm needles. The yarn I chose for this tutorial of Knitted Baby Romper is the Cotton Merino from Drops. As you can see, the yarn is made from a combination of merino wool (50%) and cotton (50%). If you pay close attention to the images of the yarn, you can see how both fibers blend together.
• 4 mm needles.
• 8 wood buttons

Gauge

21 stitches x 47 rows in Garter Stitch

Step by step of How to make the Knitted Baby Romper

1. Knit the front part of the baby romper

We will begin by knitting the front portion of the Summer Knitted Baby Romper, where we need to make buttonholes to be able to close it. The first part of this portion is to cast on 30 stiches and knit two rows in Garter stitch.

The third row is where we make the buttonholes, for this reason we need to pay close attention.

To make a button hole, we slip the first stitch, knit two together (k2tog), bring the yarn to the front of the work (as shown in the images) and we knit the next stitch. As you knit this stich, you may notice that there is an extra stitch formed. This is normal as we brought the yarn to the front of the work (known as a “yarn over”), we have created an extra stitch. Every time you do this, there is going to be a little hole in your work.

How to make the buttonholes?

When there are 4 stitches remaining from the row we need to make the other buttonhole, to do this we knit two stiches together (k2tog), bring the yarn to the front of the work (yarn over) and knit the remaining stiches.

2. Knit the crotch region of the Knitted Baby Romper

At this point, our knitted baby romper will begin to take shape.

We will begin the crotch region by decreasing a stitch on each side every 4 rows, this means decreasing one turn and not decreasing the next turn.  Remember that a turn is made up of two rows. 

As you can see on the images, the increases and the decreases are 4 stitches from the end of the work. To make a decrease first we must knit 4 stitches, then decrease by knitting two stiches together (k2tog) and continue knitting until there are 5 remaining stiches, to finish the row do a k2tog and knit until the end of the row.

We will continue making a decrease every 4 rows until we have 20 stitches in the needle.

Now we are at the point where we need to start increasing on each side of the work every 2 rows and 4 stitches from the end. As I have said in various occasions there are many ways of making increases, I usually increase using the M1L y M1R technique ( abbreviations of Make 1 Left and Make 1 Right) that allows us to make increases leaning to the left and right of the work. You can learn to make these increases using this video for the left increase and the right leaning increase.

We continue knitting two increases every turn until there are 60 stitches in the needle.

3. Knit the back of the baby romper

To knit the back, first we need to cast on 20 stitches at the end of the work, then turn and knit the casted on stiches along with the other stiches of the work, and finally cast on 20 stitches at the other end of the work. At the end of this row, we should have 100 stiches in our needle (60 from the work and 40 casted on).

Next, we will knit these 100 stiches for 38 turns (76 rows) or the number of rows it takes to get to 18 cm.

4. Reserve stitches for the suspenders

At this point of the work, we must divide the stiches to make the areas of the armhole and the suspenders of the Knitted Baby Romper.

We must knit 20 stitches and reserve them in a stitch holder or other needle, knit the middle 60 stitches of the back and reserve these stitches on a stich holder and finally, the final 20 stitches in the needle will be the stiches we will be working on for to make the first armhole and suspender.

5. Knit the suspenders of the baby romper

To make the armhole, we will work the 20 stiches in our needle by making a decrease 4 stitches before the end of the row every 2 rows (remember, when there are 5 stitches left you should knit two together (k2tog) and knit the remaining stitches normally). We will continue this way until we have 8 stitches in our needle.

We will work the remaining 8 stitches for 52 rows (10 cm) then will bind off these stitches leaving a long tail of yarn of about 30 cm. This yarn will help us sew on the suspender to the back later.

Now we will continue knitting using the 20 stitches on the stitch holder to make the other armhole. We should work in the same way as the other armhole, however instead of decreasing at the end of the row, we will decrease the beginning of the row by knitting 4 stitches followed by a k2tog and knitting until the end of the row.

Once we are done with the second suspender, it is time to knit middle section by knitting the remaining 60 stitches in the stitch holder. This section will take shape by making a decrease on each side every two rows (or in other words two decreases every turn). We will knit in this manner until there are 38 stitches remaining in the needle.

6. Sew on the suspenders and the buttons to our Knitted Baby Romper

As you can see, we are almost done with our knitted romper. The only thing left to do is sew on the suspenders to the back and sew the buttons to their corresponding area.

And just like that, we have our finished Knitted Baby Romper! It is simpler than what it can seem at a first glance, and once you are more comfortable with making increases and decreases, you can knit an infinity of patterns without a difficulty. It is as simple as that!

I tend to make garments with only one color, one reason is because I like things simple and another reason is that it makes it easier to follow along the tutorial. Although, I bet that this Garter stich romper will look amazing if you want to use more colors, stripes, spots…you can get an idea, since it is a basic pattern you can modify it to give it your personal touch. Your imagination is the limit!

If you like this tutorial, do not hesitate to share it or comment below. I love to hear your opinions and I can try to resolve any questions that you may have if you decide to make it.

Kisses!