My grandmother and my aunt were both knitters. It was my grandmother who first introduced me to knitting when I was 8. My aunt no longer knits and the last two times my mother has gone to visit her, my aunt has dug into her stash and sent my mother home with large bags of yarn for my daughters and me.

One bag has 25 or more skeins of wool in a variety of colors. Many are labeled with a tiny fold tag that says "4 ply knitting worsted 100% wool". The other bag was over 20 skeins of vintage Red Heart 100% wool and Coats and Clask wool in bright colors. Mostly pinks, blues, and purples. I didn't even know Red Heart made wool, and you know, it's a pretty nice wool too! Fairly soft, holds it's shape well and just right for making soakers and toys.

One can rarely have too many soakers! Grandbaby took a growth spurt and I made these Curly Purly soakers in the larger size, with a couple of modifications. I also knit some soaker liners for nighttime wear. Directions for making the liners are at the end of this post.

PROJECT DETAILS:
PATTERN: Curly Purly Soaker
NEEDLE SIZE: Double points, 4.0mm US6; 3.75mm US5; 3.25mm US3; 2.75mm US2
YARN: Vintage Red Heart 100% wool
MODIFICATIONS: The legs fit this chubby baby best when tapered. I start the leg cuff only going down one needle size, and then change to smaller needle sizes every few rows as I go until I knit about the last 1/3 of the cuff with smallest needle called for.

SOAKER LINER PATTERN:

Liners can easily be adjusted to fit cover size. I'll explain that here. If you are looking for step by step instructions, I have those for the liners that fit a large size curly purly at the end of the bottom of this post.

Those who have used the liner seem to find it easier to place the liner over the diaper and then pull on the soaker rather than putting the liner in the soaker first.

Figuring stitch numbers based on cover size: I make my liners on needles one size smaller than the needles used for the main body of the soaker. So for this liner, my main body was done on a size US6, and my liner on a US5.

By doing this, and making the longest narrow section of the liner 2 stitches narrower than the narrowest area between soakers leg openings, the liner fits neatly. On the curly purly pattern, the stitch number used near the bottom of the pattern right before the grafting is the number you would use to figure from.

In the case of the medium, large, and x-large sizes, that would be 20 stitches. That means I want the longest narrow section of the liner to be 18 stitches wide. The cast-on, for the wider section before the decreases, needs to be 10 stitches more than that, so I cast on 28 stitches.

If you want to use the same size needle as the body, I would suggest subtracting 4 - 6 stitches from the curly purly pattern stitch number before the grafting section instead of just 2.

The liners I made for the large cover are 5.5" wide at each end and 3.5" wide in the middle and a total of 12" long.

PATTERN FOR MEDIUM, LARGE, and X-LARGE CURLY PURLY LINER:

MY GAUGE: 20 stitches = 4" 40 rows = 4"
If you are using the method above to figure out stitch numbers and the same yarn, gauge should not be an issue. Row gauge is not that important as you can simpy knit till it's the length you want.

NEEDLE SIZE 3.75mm US5 or size to give the density of fabric desired.
YARN: Worsted Weight Wool
STITCH PATTERN: Garter All rows are knit.

The numbers that worked for me to meet my desired size and gauge for the large size Curly Purly are in parenthesis.

Loosly cast on the number of stitches for desired width at widest point. (28 stitches)
knit for 1" (10 rows)
Decrease 1 stitch at beginning of each of the next 10 rows (18 stitches remain)
Knit even for desired length (8")
Increase 1 stitch at the beginning of each of the next 10 rows (28 stitches)
Knit even for 1" (10 rows)
Bind off loosly