Knit Hosenmatz Pants and Free Pattern by Mayumi Kaliciak and Antje Litzmann

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The Hosenmatz Pants are a free pattern by Mayumi Kaliciak and Antje Litzmann. Hosenmatz are casual baggy baby pants in fingering-weight yarns. Unlike the Baby Brights Tights that I already knit, these offer a lot of room to move. They are especially good for Kenji because they accommodate his cloth diaper butt! You knit the pants from the top down in the round. The long waistband and cuffs can be folded down first and later be elongated so Hosenmatz will grow with your child. Kenji has some readymade ‘grow-with-me’ pants and I love how flexible they are fit-wise!

The Hosenmatz pattern includes four sizes, from Newborn to 8-12 months. Since Kenji is a big baby, I knit the size 8-12 months even though he was only 5 months at the time. I used 2.5 mm needles to get gauge, as my gauge is always loose. The ribbed waistband on the largest size includes an i-cord tie, which will make sure the pants stay in place when Kenji crawls!

Originally, the pattern calls for fingering-weight yarn. However, I wanted to knit these a bit bigger to fit my big baby, so I used sport weight yarn instead. I chose Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash Sport in Daffodil, Como Blue, and Plum Crazy, leftover from his Marshmallow Baby Set. Originally I intended to knit just blue and yellow striped pants. However, I soon realized that I didn’t have enough Como Blue to finish Hosenmatz. Instead, I used blue as the waistband, and then striped it with the Daffodil yellow around the bum. I then striped the legs of the pants with the Plum Crazy purple with the Daffodil yellow. All together, now I call these Kenji’s clown pants!

The superwash wool yarn allows me to just throw these pants in the wash when they get dirty. The wool will also keep Kenji warm when winter finally hits. Due to the magic of wool, they will also keep him feeling dry and snug, even when it snows! Hopefully the vibrant colours and stripes also hides some of the stains that will inevitably happen.

Get the free pattern for the Hosenmatz Pants on Ravelry here. You can also get the pattern in German.

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