Finding clothes of some kind or another for a new born baby is not usually very difficult. There are many dedicated stores that stock their own established ranges of manufactured items. Blue for a boy, pink for a girl, and in standard baby size because, as everybody knows, babies come in standard sizes.

Ordinarily they will be made from standard synthetic material, and to fairly much a standard design. To be sure there will be a wide range of choices, but as there is also a very wide range of babies out there there will nonetheless be hundreds, indeed thousands of babies sporting the same "uniform" as your own very special and quite unique little one.

It is because your child is unique that he or she deserves some special consideration when choosing baby clothes. There is still something about hand knitted apparel that stands it apart from production line garments. Whether it be jumpers, hoodies, cardigans or bonnets the common factor is that the item was lovingly knitted for your baby and for your baby only.

Knitting, of course, is one of those talents that has become more scarce as necessity has abated. Most of us of a certain age can remember our grandmothers sitting in their armchair, clicking away irritatingly and making strange movements which, seemingly quite by magic, resulted in a slowly but unrelentingly expanding length of wool appended to one of the needles. Somehow this ever lengthening piece of fabric transmogrified itself at some stage, a stage we seldom witnessed, into a jumper, a scarf or some other such garment.

This two needle method may have become a more specialised field of expertise as new generations instinctively abandon the hard work option in favour of synthetic convenience, but the upshot of this is that a discipline that was once understood by many - if only sometimes in a crude, rudimentary form - has now become a specialist skill possessed only by the truly expert.

In today's world the hand knitted item is an indication of discernment, as well as of originality and appreciation of quality. Hand knitted baby clothes stand out amid a jungle of uniformity and idle, ill-considered convenience. It's not just jumpers and cardies that can be made in this way, but hooded jackets, blankets, bootees and a whole range of essentials for your little person. Almost anything that your baby wears can be produced from two needles lovingly committed to his or her own comfort if the option appeals more than the cold mechanical offerings of the conveyor belt.