Yes, I should have been editing my manuscript rather than knitting this. And yes, db does have a neck somewhere under those jowls.
The dress is the Ravelry freebie Kaia Babydoll knit in the 6 month size for my 85th height percentile 5 month old daughter. I knit it in Zara (red) and Aurora 8 (gray); the red was held doubled and knit on 9 dpns; the gray was held single and knit on a 7 circular.
Modifications included knitting long sleeves. Basically, I followed the pattern but put the sleeve stitches on a holder; after I knit the dress I picked up and knit the arm stitches, picking up 8 stitches in the armpit and knitting in the round. I also did a k1p1 rib on the collar because it looks neater than a single garter stitch edge. To make it long enough, I also did one or two more skirt increase rounds than the pattern called for.
The necessary soaker is another free soaker pattern on Ravelry, searchable as Wool Diaper Cover by Cynthia Combs. Obviously I didn't pick the pattern because of its pithy name.
Todd's family has a disturbing tradition which involves the family patriarch (or whoever has had enough holiday wine to be suggestible) putting on a Santa suit and scaring all the babies and small children at the party. The small children receive awful plastic gifts to compensate them for their trauma; tiny babies, however, receive nothing more than a crippling blow to their developing subconscious.
Db looks annoyed, which of course makes me proud. The crying baby on the left is db's new cousin - the lucky recipient of the flower hat, pirate hat, and nautaloid toy of blog posts past.
Db's adorable mary janes were also knit by me using the Tiny Shoes pattern by Ysolda Teague. Perhaps my daughter has exceptionally narrow patrician feet or perhaps I didn't quite pay enough attention to the gauge, but the medium size was immense. I knit one on December 23rd and despaired; on the morning of the 24th I did a little emergency surgery, taking a pair of scissors to the bottom of the bootie, frogging the bottom half, and then doing a three needle bind off after the 5 rounds of garter stitch called for in the pattern. I then knit the second bootie in a mere hour and a half (including all finishing) and wove in the ends of the dress while Todd loaded the car. Rock star finish.
Creepy materialism-teaching visit from Santa notwithstanding, it was actually the least painful Christmas Eve party ever because of db:
knitcrit: baby baby baby baby baby. babybaby?
annoying libertarian relative: baby babybabybaby baby!
knitcrit: baby baby.
strung out on Valium relative: babybabybaby babybaby baby. baby?
knitcrit: baby baby baby. babybaby! baby baby baby.
Babies - the new, non-alcoholic way to survive the in-laws' annual Christmas Eve party.
