Baby knits
I've been keeping my hands busy with some baby knits lately. They're so little that they knit up quite quickly, and they're easy to take here and there in a little plastic bag thrown into a purse. Also it's something to do outside when I can't bring myself to stoop over a weeding project. Harvey knows just how to manipulate me too, and when he wants to keep playing outside instead of heading out on errands he points to a chair and says, "Mama sit dere ninning?"
pink, but not tooooo pink
I started by using up some small balls of scrap wool and a pattern from this book (thank you Bedford public library for your large and awesome knitting selection). If you're looking for a learn-to-knit book, this is a really good one, and the instructions for each project are written out in long descriptive form. If you already know how to knit and follow a pattern this feature may be kind of annoying, but the projects are so good that it's still worth a look, especially if it's in your local library and therefore free.
made from bits and pieces and showing it
The problem with working with bits of scrap, though, is that you never know if that ball of yarn will hold out till you're finished, and in the end I didn't have quiiiite enough gray to complete the edging. So as you can see from the photo above, the front edge is half gray and half green. Enough to make my eye twitch when I look at it, though I'm sure no one else would ever notice. Good thing I know 3 people about to give birth to baby girls, because this one is going into the gift pile.
bubble gum pink and ready for the carnival
This next sweater also came from scrap yarn - some cotton I had bought for a girl dress right before Harvey was born and then abandoned for obvious reasons. I wanted to try out this pattern for a baby cardigan knit all in one piece. Turns out it was extremely satisfying to knit. If you stitch up the seams as you go using a crochet hook then you never even have to break your yarn, making this a project I can complete from start to finish in just 4 days. Since this one ended up being more of a 6-month size than a newborn size it's also going to go into the gift pile too, for a baby shower this weekend in fact. I'll gladly trade the fact that I have no girl sweaters in my drawer for a season of free baby gifts.
so sweet you could eat it
Dan suggested the big white button. He should be the knitter, really.
I liked the one-piece cardigan pattern so much that I decided to knit another one, only this time in more neutral colors and using up a bunch of different yarn scraps. I was inspired by a sweater I saw Harvey's friend Noah wearing at church. It had wool mixed with silk and ribs mixed with straight stitch in absolutely no predictable fashion. I was all, "That's CRAZY! That sweater should not be able to exist!" Then I spent I week wondering if I could hold my OCD at bay long enough to make one. The result is this newborn sweater:
pleasantly unplanned
This was a rather difficult exercise for me, trying to make a sweater that's patterned in a fashion of n'importe quoi, but I really like the result. It's easier to make the mental leaps required for an experimental sweater when it takes less than a week and all the materials are free. I ended up liking it so much that I made a matching hat.
perfect if I give birth to a woodland elf
After all that I still had some white organic cotton left over, so I made a cute little turbain hat from this pattern (bigger than newborn size, fyi).
will probably fit for fall
And some fantastically soft booties.
Harvey wants these for himself. Sorry dirty boy, you need real shoes.
The booties are a brilliant pattern from the book I mentioned above, knit all in one piece with almost no finishing. I'm starting to feel that I can take on any knitting project as long as I don't have to weave in any ends.
After three sweaters two hats and a pair of booties I finally exhausted my supply of scrap yarn and buttons. Just the excuse I needed to order a some more organic cotton and pick out a few more buttons, which Harvey and I did this week. So hopefully there'll be some more projects to show before baby shows up, and maybe I'll even keep some of them.