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Monday, April 23, 2012

One More For My Baby, and One More For the Road...

It has been a couple weeks since I posted, and those weeks have been consumed with life and death and baby knits. Friends' relatives have died -- brothers, mothers, and surrogate mothers -- there have been miscarriages, and two friends have given birth. Add to that, the three additional baby showers I have been to, and that's a whole lot of life transitions being commemorated!

Transitions mean stress, and as I complained to my friend, Jennie, about the resulting demands on my time, she said, "why don't you just pull a hand knit gift from your gift box?" haha! Well, her mom had such a thing. I guess I just have to be proud that I am not manic.

That did put me in the mind of baby knitting, though. I have to admit, I haven't done a lot. I knit one cardi before my first baby, and squeezed at least two of the three into it, but I'm pretty sure that was it for their baby hand knits.

Recently, however, I have knit my cousin's first baby an Elizabeth Zimmerman February Baby Sweater last year, and they loved it. As seen previously, I was knitting on a purple garter baby cardi on Good Friday. I was very pleasantly pleased with that knit. The yarn was a reclaimed Knit Picks Shine worsted. I had knit one other baby sweater out of shine before, and it was okay. But, I think the yarn responded much better to just a simple knit. I knit a hat and bootie set for another friend, and then another FBS, hat and booties for a good knitting friend.

That went so well (really enjoyed the Lucy Neatby Celestial Merino hand dyed yarn!), that I decided to knit a layette to enter in the fair for nobody in particular. Well! That must have even my clue to mess up. I knit it halfway in two different yarns, but each yarn, including the third one I finished it with, was so different from one another, and the row gauge was terribly varied. I was using an old pattern that had no final measurements, so that took lots of guesswork. Thankfully, babies come in lots if sizes and grow rapidly, do I know it still will be useful. I just don't know if I like it.

Finally, there was a baby shower two days ago for a dear friend's dayghter's firstborn. Jan died two years ago from ASL, and this would have been her first grandchild. I think I floored Katie by giving her a sweater her mom had knitted. Mark gave me Jan's knit bag, and this sweater was in pieces inside of it. There was no matching yarn, so it was a little tricky, but I think I pieced it well.

Welcome to the world, baby Micah!

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