Baby Pope of the Fuzzy Purple People, Pray for Us

We're just back from the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Montreal. Having db at the conference was a lot easier and more fun than I thought. People sure do love babies - I had the distinct impression that, if given a choice between attending a paper session or kissing db's tiny soft adorable baby feet, probably about 99% of the conference attendees would select the latter, without hesitation.

Somehow, we had made it to November without a handknit winter hat for db; I briefly considered buying one for Montreal, but quickly realized that were I to put something store bought on her head, I would regret it forever and secretly regard it as indicative of my failure as both a knitter and a mother. Plus of course I love knitting dorky hats for babies too helpless to resist having them put on their tiny bald heads. So I bought a ball of the fine 50% merino/50% angora Cloud Nine (Cascade Yarns) and by the time we pulled up to our friend's house in Montreal, I had produced a hat that kind of makes db look like the child-pope of the fuzzy purple people.























I couldn't stop laughing at for the whole first day it was on her head, and had Montreal not gotten unseasonably warm and therefore not good fuzzy hat weather, I probably would have continued laughing over the next few days, too.

Speaking of weather, the friend we stayed with is a climate scientist who so completely embodies the absentminded scientist archetype that he had seven, count'em, SEVEN expired jars of aspirin and ibuprofen in his medicine cabinet.















The collection ranges in vintage from 2002 (an excellent year for ibuprofen) to 2008 and had been moved from at least one apartment in New York City to two different apartments in Montreal.

The internet (so reliable...) says that the US military (again, so reliable...) has done tests on ibuprofen that indicate that the medicine retains full potency for at least a year after the expiration date and that older medication loses potency but does not turn into deadly poison (which was our concern). Todd went for the 2008 ibuprofen; he's still alive and well as of this writing.

I had a job interview at the conference, about which I am deeply, deeply ambivalent. My current job has a crap sabbatical policy and a high teaching load, but other than that, I am very happy at it. The potential new job is at one of the richest and most selective liberal arts colleges in the country, located in rural Vermont in between the Green Mountains and the Adirondack Mountains. The nearest real city is Montreal, actually - three hours by car. In terms of cost of living and school for db, the job would be a real improvement, and the teaching load is much lighter and the sabbatical policy much better. The school is so rich that it OWNS ITS OWN SKI SLOPE. Anyway, I think I interviewed very, very well and now I am afraid I am going to have to go give a job talk in January. It's too early to be having this crisis since they won't announce their short list until mid-December, but I can't help but wonder if I would adjust to the rural life and vastly improve my skiing skills or go absolutely out of my mind because the nearest good sushi would be a 3 hour drive away.

Topaz complete!

Not too much to say about this uneventful, cute little knit.






















It's surprisingly wearable - normally I think dresses look stupid on very young babies, but db pulls it off, I think.






















The rather pricey Hanna Anderson tights, however, are immense - I will definitely have to knit a pair of matching green mary-janes to conceal how big the feet are.

Fast, easy and cute. Should it be babywear?

The back side of Topaz is complete - it took longer to find a moment to photograph/blog it than it did to knit it. It's a shock to knit with a worsted again - in this case, the Malabrigo called for in the pattern - rather than a DK or sport weight. I can't remember the last time I knit with a worsted, actually. I understand why knitters with less of a protestant work ethic than myself love Malabrigo - it's fast, easy, a single (ply), and has just enough variegation to entertain without challenging. But whatever - the finished product is going to be awfully cute.























This is a very hasty photo - in person, the shoulder straps are actually the same width and the hem is straight. My major modification was to knit the straps in seed stitch - the original pattern calls for stockinette, which rolls and looks like crap.

Db is finally asleep. I say finally because we all woke up late and I was feeling cranky about having not accomplished anything and so after breakfast even though db was clearly sleepy I decided to give db some face time/play and tummy time (I resent that I have to use that stupid phrase, but I can't think of another that would both convey the concept and be wise and ironic) so I could feel like I had accomplished something before noon, and of course db reacted like a normal baby, which meant she got overstimulated and therefore uncharacteristically cranky and unable to fall asleep on her own, forcing me to bouncy walk her around the apartment until she calmed down enough to fall asleep on her own.

I am not sure if blogging about my failure to accomplish anything before noon counts as an accomplishment.

Third's a charmer

The third and final hip knit item for my incoming niece is complete:






















Nautie, short for Nautiloid, a 2006 Knitty pattern.
















Maybe taking all the pictures of db has made me overinclined to slavishly photograph anything that strikes me as cute.















And Nautie is a very cute prehistoric beast, and so much cooler than a run-o-the-mill dinosaur.

Knit on #3 dpns from scraps of Zara - or it was supposed to be knit from scraps until I decided that it needed a yellow face and therefore a quick run to the local yarn store was in order.















It took longer than I thought it would to knit this guy - having a baby really cuts into one's leisure time. The only modifications I made were picking up stitches to knit the head rather than knitting it separately and sewing it on (duh) and embroidering the pupils on the eyes rather than using black felt. This should make the eyes completely child safe and also prevent unsightly black felt shedding all over the white of the eye. Because no child should have to live with black lint in the whites of a stuffed toy's eyes.

And now, finally, on to something for my daughter - about which more when she lets me near my laptop again.

quickie

I knit a tiny newborn size hat for my incoming niece:






















Between this and the pirate hat, she'll easily be the coolest baby in Portland, which given the hipster population of Portland is really a meaningful title.

The hat was made on #5 dpns with scraps of Zara from baby projects past - the beautiful green is, alas, discontinued. I used the proportions of the hospital hat that db wore right after she was born - basically, I cast on 70 stitches and knit random stripes in the round in a 1x1 rib for 3.5 inches; I then switched to stockinette and reduced as follows: k8, k2tog for one round; knit one round; k7, k2tog for one round; knit one round; continue in pattern until you reach k4, k2tog round, at which point eliminate the knit rounds. When only 5 stitches remain (you'll have to improvise at the very end since the pattern of reductions only gets you to about 8 stitches at the end - for the final round, I think I k1, k2tog to get the final stitch count down to 5), change colors and knit about 1.5 inches of i-cord.

















The flower itself comes from this Knitty pattern: http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall07/PATTflowerpower.html

Having a baby has given me great insight into the uselessness of most baby knits - I can't imagine a newborn hat staying on unless it's knit in 1x1 rib and for slightly older babies, unless the hat ties under the chin, I don't see it staying on, either. Or maybe my hat-despising daughter is exceptional (well, of course she's exceptional in every way...) and she's given me a warped perspective on babywear.























Together with the pirate hat, I think this is a great gift, which is to say a gift I'd like to receive. It's amazing to look at the tiny flower hat and the pirate hat together - babies' heads really do expand at a disturbing rate during the first three months. The only thing that immediately strikes me as more disturbing (crossing my legs as I type) is the thought of pushing out a three-month-old size head rather than a newborn-sized head.

Arrrr

The baby pirate hat is finished - icord around the edges and a good blocking on a cereal bowl worked wonders for both the evenness of the colorwork and the curling of the earflaps.
















Db was obliging enough to model the hat - and I do mean obliging, since she absolutely hates having anything on her head. It's a bit large for her eight week old head - I figure it's about the right size for a three month old, which is about what I was going for, amazingly enough.

Basically, I knit this free earflap hat pattern

http://heyjulie.wordpress.com/2007/03/20/babykids-earflap-hat/

on 100 stitches (the jolly roger is a 20 stitch pattern from this pattern: http://cmeknit.blogspot.com/2006/10/skull-flap-hat.html) and made these few modifications which make sense if read alongside the original pattern:

I used Zara (salmon) and Aurora 8 (gray); it was exactly enough Aurora 8 - hardly any leftovers. Knitting the hat with two colors of Zara would be safer since Zara has more yardage. I knit the non-fairisle parts of the hat on threes and the fairisle on fives. Gauge for the threes was 6 stitches per inch and gauge for the fives was 7 stitches per inch.


















Increase to 19 stitches for the earflaps; after knitting both earflaps, cast on 15, knit the first earflap, cast on 36, knit the second earflap, cast on 15, join to work in round. 104 stitches (which becomes 100 stitches after one round if you follow pattern's advice of k2tog four times on the first round after the join). Begin working the jolly roger motif after knitting two or so rounds in the base color.


















After the jolly roger motif is finished, knit one or two rounds in base color and then decrease every other round as indicated in the pattern (knitting a round in between every decrease round) until there are 68 stitches on the needle; then decrease every round until 5 (?) stitches remain.

Finish with 3-stitch applied i-cord; tassels are 4-stitch i-cord.

Rage, rage against the pale pink blight

Despite a recent trip to the local second hand store with several bags of the most egregiously pink baby gifts, I still feel as though there's way too much pink in db's wardrobe. Not that pink seems to bother her.















She's just started smiling.















On the one hand, it's very gratifying to finally have an interactive baby after six weeks of newborn aloofness. Adorable aloofness, of course, but still. On the other hand, I feel strangely sad about db's passage from newborn to baby - she's totally different now. Probably this won't be the last time I marvel at how much she's changed.

I've also been forced to take it really easy for the past few weeks because of the abnormally long hard labor, and one can only watch so many episodes of the Sopranos before cabin fever sets in. The solution to both problems was, obviously, stenciling. The internet is full of free stencil images, and a few trips to the local art store and several swipes of the exacto knife later, we've begun to build a onesie wardrobe befitting a thinking, hip baby girl (as opposed to a wardrobe befitting a Barbie dream mansion-esque baby girl):































I'm quite pleased with the results so far.






















Probably db is, too.

The stencil patterns are all from this website: http://www.kittybuttons.com/stencils/categories/index.html

Instructions on stenciling here:
http://www.melissaclifton.com/tutorial-stencilb.html

In other thinking-hip-girl-baby wardrobe news, I'm knitting an earflap hat for Todd's brother's incoming baby girl. This is the swatch of the jolly roger motif:















The pattern is a highly improvised combination of this free adult-size hat design:

http://cmeknit.blogspot.com/2006/10/skull-flap-hat.html






















With this free baby hat pattern

http://heyjulie.wordpress.com/2007/03/20/babykids-earflap-hat/














I'm knitting it in Zara (salmon) and Aurora 8 (gray) merino. So far, so good, except of course the earflaps curl. I'm hoping blocking and applied i-cord will solve the problem but thinking maybe I should have done the earflaps in garter stitch. Oh, well. It's amazing what acute sleep deprivation will do to one's perfectionistic tendencies.