I was provided with two rattles to facilitate my review.  As always, all opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

Well, I had more pictures, but they didn’t even turn out as well as the one above — yikes.  So you’ll just have to click over to Estella‘s website or Facebook page to get a better look (and see the others)!  (They have a Twitter account, too, but of course Twitter’s not so much about pictures.) [UPDATE: New pictures!  I got a chance to take a new batch of pictures, and these turned out better.]

The Estella hand-knit baby rattles are, fortunately, a lot more awesome than my photos!  So many rattles nowadays are just cheap plastic — not very beautiful to look at, and…I don’t know, just not an amazing thing to introduce our little ones to, touch-wise, either.  I don’t have words for it, really, there’s just this sense of surrounding our children so often anymore with “fake” and not with “real” things, made out of “real” materials.  I think we can do better than that.

Estella’s knit rattles are one way to do that.  The designs are fun.  Estella is based in New York City, so there’s a whole new line of NYC-themed designs, like a taxicab, a metro card…and this pretzel.  Isn’t that awesome?  You know it’s going to go in the mouth, so how’s that for a little one munching on a soft pretzel?  I love it!  (The pretzel is an exceptionally great style for little hands to grasp, too.)

There are other styles, too, though, if you’re not an urbanite.  I love the football, myself.  It’s a fabulous “baby’s first football.”  (There’s a baseball in the mix, too.)

The stuffing is just your standard polyester fiberfill.  The knitted outers vary.  For instance, the pretzel I have here is an alpaca/acrylic blend.  The football is 100% cotton.  (I prefer the cotton, personally, but they’re both nice.  Just different.  The shop listing says 100% cotton for both, though, so I’m not sure if I might have gotten an older “model.”)

You’d think that being inside a stuffed object would dull the sound of the rattles, but it doesn’t.  They are different, though.  The football has a higher-pitched rattle than the pretzel.  I don’t know if they’re all different, or if there are just two or three different rattle sounds, but it’s interesting to note that baby can have multiple rattles and they’ll introduce him to different sounds.

I also like that these are soft and cuddly, so when the baby inevitably smacks himself in the face with it, it won’t hurt.

I really like these for my own little ones, and I think they would make a great baby gift, too!

If you’d like to shop at the Estella boutique before November 14th, I have a coupon code for you.  Get 15% off any purchase over $50 with coupon code EST15OFF6.

Estella is also holding a rattle giveaway, so you’ll want to head on over and check that out!