on making clothes for babies

One would think that knitting for babies means quick projects (and therefore quick FO-satisfaction) and good practice for adult clothes. I just don't ever manage to churn out something baby-ish that looks like it's supposed to, and/or might actually fit the baby I'm making this for.

Most of my baby projects are meant for my little niece who was born in January. Problem is, her growth rate is so unpredictable. She was too small at birth, so she was the size of a newborn when she was 3 months old, and now she's catching up like crazy but is technically still undersized. Should I make clothes in the size she has now (of which I only have an estimate)? By the time I finish the project and send it from the USA to Germany (might take up to 3 weeks), she has likely outgrown the clothes. Should I make clothes that are too big now but will fit later? What if I make 'big' summer clothes but they won't fit until it gets too cold to wear them? How tall will she be in the winter, and is it too early to plan a coat?

Maybe I should STOP making any baby clothes until I have a ... local ..... baby to fit them to (wink to bf).

Anyways, I made this dress for my niece:

Fiona Baby Sundress, my project

 and the matching shrug:

confection baby shrug, my project

I also knitting a matching hat but I haven't put the final touch on yet. And I mean the pesky blocking.

FO: Earl Blue

Whatever I knit, I always make my bf look at it, and I expect him to compliment me on it. Sweet guy that he is he takes it with patience. I have knitted this pair of socks for myself a while back. The pattern is Zombie Socks by Sheryl Giles.

my Zombie Witch

When I finished them he happened to be sitting on the couch complaining about how cold it was in the house. I had JUST the solution for that. He was a bit reluctant to put on socks that had this crazy color (Knit Picks Imagination Hand Painted Sock yarn, colorway wicked witch) but I convinced him that nobody would see it if he wore them at home. He ended up wearing them all day, even when he left the house. He came back saying that he didn't like how the socks feel in shoes.

I decided to knit socks for him that he would like. He thinks socks should be simple and in a dark color (*sigh*) so I gave him a few simple (yet not stockinette stitch only) pattern to choose from, and had him pick a yarn from my stash. He decided on the Earl Grey Pattern by the Yarn Harlot, and Cascade Yarn Heritage Paints in colorway 'isle of sky'. I bought this yarn more than a year ago when I took my parents to Chicago (including a great lys). The yarn is not very soft but it's nice to knit with, and the color is really pretty. I started off casting on the number of stitches given in the pattern, and after a few inches into the leg I thought it might be too wide to fit his skinny legs. He looks at me and says "Well, they will fit YOUR legs" (which are, well, a little more sturdy).
I started anew, with fewer stitches. Then the ankles. Even though bf's legs are very skinny, his feet and ankles are not. Plus, he has this funnily shaped feet. They are very flat and almost rectangular but his big toe is the highest point. So it's more of a trapezoid actually. Since I'm really bad at improvising, I just followed the pattern as written, only that I left more stitches after the heel turn to make the foot wider than the leg. The toes of the socks converge at the center, although they should slant towards the big toe. Again with the inability to adjust. Anyways, they fit ok. They are a little tight at the leg (hmm) and bf has some problems pulling the socks over his ankles. Still, he likes them. And I know now what I have to change to make better fitting socks. For starters, use stretchier yarn.

Earl Grey socks on bf's foot

Mitten Mania

Another night in my lab bridging the time between two head-chopping-off events with knitting.

Lately I have been into making gloves and mittens (I don't really know what the difference is). My lovely friend Petitmains gifted me gorgeous Malabrigo sock yarn (I especially love the colorway) and I made it into fingerless gloves that I'm wearing essentially every day, although the weather right now calls for warmer ones. This is the world's end pattern (rav).

I modified it just a little bit, and substituted the original lace panel with Grecian Plait, which is so adorable.

Another friend liked these gloves so much that she decided to make a pair herself. Unlike me, she doesn't actually like to knit with tiny needles and with such fine yarn (this one here is light-fingering) so I thought I had plenty of time to knit her one myself and give it her as a Christmas present before she gets around to even casting on hers. I was not mistaken ;)
I decided on a different pattern, though, when I found the Bronte's Mitts (rav). I thought she would like these Victorian-era-style fingerless gloves. Again, I was not mistaken ;). Doesn't it make you really happy when someone likes what you knitted for them? They are made from off-white fingering plus light-green lace weight yarn, which gives them a soft green look. You can't really tell from the picture, though. I learned the provisional cast-on for these babies. In the end I did a normal cast-off instead of the picot edges from the pattern because picot is so high maintenance.

I buy most of my yarn online because I get less crazy with the spending. Often I look at yarn without buying anything (yay me!), which is great because 1. I have a whole lot of unused yarn already, and 2. I live on a grad student salary. Not so much when I walk into an actual yarn store. I always end up buying something. Like the Thrum Mittens kit by Fleece Artist, which was strategically placed near the cash register, and I couldn't help but noticing it when I was about to pay for my five dollar acryllic yarn that I came there for. I confessed the splurging to my bf right away when I came home. It's not that I am spending any of HIS money but I asked him to be my conscience in times of temptation (for above mentioned reasons). Doesn't work when he's not with me, and he's not very fond of yarn stores.

So, I was eager to start the thrummed mittens, and it went really well. Thrumming is a lot of fun! I also made a pair of thrummed slippers for my mom, but that's a different story. Before I was finished with those mittens, I fell in love with another fingerless glove pattern, the Endpaper Mitts, and I am burning to cast on those. I am going to be using yarn from my stash only because as I have mentioned, I have plenty, and should work on knitting it up. And since I have so much, I can't decide which to choose. Life is hard sometimes ;). As anyone can tell now, I got distracted and almost lost sight of the thrummed mitts. Which reminds me that I have a couple of other WIPs waiting for me (that don't have a deadline, so it's harder to stay focussed). I am currently also actively knitting on the socks for the bf, so I promised myself that I won't start the new gloves until I cast off the thrummed ones (especially since I actually need some warm gloves). JUST finished. Ta-da:

Another reason for better not starting yet another project is that I also have to work on my dissertation :P. If I have to choose between spending my evening on the computer or spending it with knitting ....  ah well.

things I'm going to write about

It's 12:30 am on a Monday, and I am in my lab waiting for insect embryos to get old enough so that I can cut off their heads. Because that's what I do in the part of my life in which I am a biologist. Not that I usually spend the night at school but that comes as a side effect of my project. Next to me lies a bag with one finished sock and the beginning of the cuff of the second one, and that's what I am going to pick up and work on in a few minutes. That's the knitter side of me. Currently I am high on caffeine from the coffee that arrived today (I have a subscription, gifted to me by my sweet bf). My other addiction. The current pick is Burundi Full City, from Africa, and it's delicious.

The socks (ravelry). I have knitted for my bf before but that is his first pair of socks. He is not really adventurous when it comes to sock design and color, so I let him pick the yarn and the pattern himself. Of course, the yarn came from my stash, and the pattern from my list of favorites ;). He chose the Earl Grey design (rav) and a blue colorway Heritage Paints by Cascade Yarns. Even though I knitted socks before, I don't actually know how to adjust the measurements. Bf has really skinny legs but wide feet, so I cast on fewer stitches for the leg (they're top-down socks) but left a larger number of stitches when I came to the foot. I finished one and gave it to him to try on. It fits snug at the leg and ankle, maybe a little too snug. I think if I block them on my own feet (with my legs being less skinny, and my ankles wider - I can't believe I have fat ankles. It's just bones after all!), it will do. Most importantly, I'm convinced bf will actually wear them!

The coffee. I will be getting two different one-pound bags of coffee every month, and I am planning to comment something on every sort I try. I love coffee (actually, can hardly function without), but I'm more of a less-effort coffee drinker. Means, I am sophisticated enough to grind the beans fresh and not to store them in the refrigerator. But than I dump them into a Mr. Coffee filter coffee machine. I apologize beforehand.

Hello!

My name is Nadine, and I love my life. I have the most wonderful man by my side and a cute kitty sleeping on my ankle. I'm the aunt of a beautiful newborn niece (who lives far away and I can't visit right now - slight drawback). I have lovely and caring friends who are also so much fun to hang out with. I have two storage boxes full of yarn that I can barely put the lid on. I'm almost done with grad school, and my research and writing is progressing so well that I think I might actually not throw everything away and join the circus after all. And I might get the job that I really want. 2011 has been promising so far!