Baby Sizing

It's that time again, time to put the pedal to the metal and crank out some baby things for a shower. How do these things creep up on me? My friend Mary made a special request for purple booties and I am happy to oblige, but of course I can't just make booties, I need to make a hat too! I've known about this since sometime in the fall, and Mary is due in April, so I had plenty of time. I made a winter hat for myself, the Cabled Chapeau (which you will see a finished picture of soon), worked on some other unfinished projects, and started but didn't finish a scarf for my sister's birthday in December. I wanted to finish the scarf before starting the baby things, but now I'm getting down to the wire.

Mary's baby shower is March 5th so I need to mail the gift by March 1st. That's two weeks from today! Now if I could just get knitting...though that hasn't been the problem. The problem is size.

I picked out the patterns months ago, bought the yarn a few weeks ago, but didn't sit down and read through everything until I was ready to start. Common mistake. I bought Plymouth Encore in worsted, but the Etanapipa snail hat calls for bulky, and Saartje's Bootees call for fingering weight. Ugh!


-Snail Hat-
1st cast on - size 10 needles, yarn doubled. Too confusing, can't figure out if the hat is the right size, pulling from both ends of one skein. Frogged.
2nd cast one - size 9 needles. Cast on 64 stitches. Slightly stretched it's 16-17" - too big for a baby, more like a toddler size. And I had added a stitch somewhere. Frogged.
3rd cast on - size 9 needles. Cast on 48 stitches. Stretched it's 12" - way too small. Frogged.
4th cast on - size 9 needles. Cast on 56 stitches. Stretched it's 14-15". Sticking with this one.

Never mind that bebecita probably doesn't need a woolly knitted hat in April. It's upstate NY. It still snows in April and May sometimes.

I've been referencing this size chart to figure out how big to make the hat.

-Saartje's Bootees-
1st cast on - size 7 needles. Seemed to crowded. Frogged.
Waiting until I'm finished with the hat to cast on again, probably with size 8 needles.

Knitting updates

I thought it was time for some knitting updates so here we go. I usually end up burying my thoughts on proejcts on various Ravelry pages, but this time I'm putting those comments in both places, since people seem to check here and not in the notes section.

***Disclaimer***
If pigs start flying and the people these things are intended for actually visit my blog, tough.

Berry Baby Hat
Started March 18, Finished April 6, 2009 for Tom and Emily's babe (maybe).
Not doing the weird knot thing at the top but just having a straight up stem. Finished except for binding off the stem and weaving in ends and blocking. Yay! This worked up pretty fast, so I might make some more. Though really - what colors are for boys? I had made this for a boy originally but a friend said that if it was for her that she wouldn’t have put her baby boy in a hot pink raspberry hat. Eh. Do I give it to them anyway? It's really cute, and they're not ones to only dress their boy in blue, but raspberry? It's progressive, right?

Baby Comfy Kimono Sweater
Started July 13, 2008 (before a baby was in sight) for Tom and Emily's babe.
I need to make one more front panel, then stitch it all together. The baby shower is on April 26, three weeks away. I need to mail the sweater and hat to a friend in order to get the gifts there in time since I will not be able to go to the shower.

Baby Blanket
Started Feb 3, 2009 for Ayondela's babe.
I've been working on this for two months now and it measures 23-24 inches. It needs to be 30-36 inches before I can start decreasing. If I fudge it a little. Am I ever going to finish this thing? I'm supposed to have it done by the baby shower May 9. Granted, I've also made a cowl and berry hat from start to finish, and worked on the baby sweater, but still - this project was supposed to be fast and easy. Why oh why didn't I use larger needles???

Oh, and there's one other project that I have in mind as a gift this year. I don't know if there's enough time to make it, if I have the skill to make it, or if I will lose my mind. I've already bought the yarn for this project and found an insanely complicated lace pattern. I don't think I'll even be able to touch it until May. Maybe I should reconsider...

Snoozing in the wings...
Babette blanket and Irish hiking scarf. These two fill in the gaps when I don't have other pressing projects, though I've had pressing projects since November. Oops!