Yes, I'm late. Have I really led you to expect anything else? Didn't think so.Maria's Baby Blanket
Maria is having a baby boy in... um... September, I think. Her shower was this last weekend. It kinda snuck up on me. I had planned on making something really nice. Intense was the word I kept using in my head. But then intense takes time and I barely got this done, which is not intense at all. But nice, all the same. I used Red Hart SuperSaver yarn in Lt. Blue and Ocean. I used about 13 oz. of each color. I liked this combo because it seemed boyish to me, without being overwhelmingly so. Maria seemed to concur and thought that if the next one was a girl, it would work for her, too. So there's that.
It's also huge. Too big, according to The Husband. According to Jessi, there is no such thing as too big blankets which is why we have a rainbow granny square afghan in our basement that would cover a king sized bed with a twin bed shoved up against it and still be too big. It's about 48x40, which, okay, pretty big for a baby blanket, but I like it. I did a gauge, but I must have messed it up, because my 48 edge was supposed to be 36.
This is one of my favorite patterns and I've made it two or three times. It's quick. Probably this one was about eight hours start to finish and like I said, it's bigger than it should be. You use a super-giant hook (Q) and work two pieces of yarn at the same time. To keep it from being too lacy, the pattern is based on a single crochet stitch, but it still works super-quick. Really, there's not much to it, but it looks different because of the mega size of the stitches. The double yarn keeps it from being too lacy, too. You can find this pattern in "More Double Quick Afghans for Baby." Also, please let me know if you find the original Double Quick Afghans for Baby because I love this book, but I'm just wondering what the first string looked like.
In other crochet news: my friend Nicole is also pregnant. Due in December. She isn't going to find out the gender. I am flummoxed by this and am amazed that anyone can handle that kind of suspense, and to choose to... Well, let's just say that I don't get it. Anyway, she is a crocheter, too, and so I feel like there will be plenty of hand made blankets and afghans around, so I was thinking of making a little sweater and hat combo. I can easily do a newborn size for travel in January, or I can do a 12 month-ish size for the next winter. Either way. My question is... what color? I hate pastels in general, and especially baby green and yellow, which are just so insipid to me. I was thinking about brights as gender-ambiguous, rather than pastels... But brights just seem less baby, which could be good if I do a 12 month-ish thing. Or, I could do white. Which is always nice for baby stuff, but I don't know, it just seems done. To death. By me. I guess I'm getting tired of white yarn. My other question is, Are cherries for girls only? I have a really cute pattern for a hat with little two little cherries on it and I could easily adapt a sweater pattern to match, but I think cherries are girly. Am I right? I mean, fruit, right? Shouldn't be, but seems like it is.
In other non-crochet news: My house will kill you. Or maybe it's me. In any case, while we are still reeling from the loss of our fabulous dog, the fish up and dies too. Goldie is no longer with us and is in fishy heaven. She lived a long, almost two year life, which is good when you come from the fair, yo. And, I'd be sad, but this part of me says, Yippee, I can take a break from fish tank cleaning. I must be evil.
8 comments:
I vote for grass green, apple green, navy blue, royal blue, or maybe red (though I don't like red much). I think one of the greens would be great. If you wanted, you could do something with buttons and save them for when the gender was announced and choose your color (or shape--I love cutesy buttons on babies: teddy bears and the like). Or whip out a ruffled hem. If you did a button front cardigan, it could work as a jacket and mommy could coordinate it with an especially feminine or masculine top. If I had a baby, I think I'd want a sweater that could work as a jacket.
I think bananas, apples, or oranges would be fine, but probably not cherries or grapes. And I've seen some pretty girly apples. But there could be manly apples. Men's torsos are kind of shaped like apples, I think.
Neither a mom nor a crocheter,
ann
Hee, evil Jessi.
Re: making stuff for those obnoxious people who don't find out the gender of their babies-to-be. (Oh wait. I was one of those. We didn't find out until the birth, and I like it that way! Though it is helpful when you're making something for someone else to know the gender...) What about navy blue? Or a nice deep green? Or teal? Or chocolate brown? I like those dark colors on babies better than insipid yellows and pale greens anyway. And if it's a girl, slap a pink flower on the front, or a butterfly or something. You could make that part of it detachable somehow. I like Ann's idea with the buttons, too.
how about a stripey sweater using the primary colours - red, blue and yellow? they'd work for both genders. i love colours on a baby but end up buying usually white stuff because if any stain gets on it, i just bleach it. you know how difficult it is to remove newborn poop stain from clothes!
Great suggestions! I'm especially loving apple green or chocolate brown right now.
Suze - I am not at all surprised to hear that you didn't find out the gender until they were born. To be clear, I think that's pretty amazing. It takes waaaay more will-power than I had. Or will ever have. I can definitely respect it, even if I don't get it.
Consider using Gryffindor's colors. If they are Harry Potter fans they will appreciate it, if they aren't Harry Potter fans, they should be.
As for the cherries, I would not use them for a boy. In fact, I think I would shy away from any fruit. I am pretty strong believer that little boys don't have to wear boyish things and little girls don't need to wear girly things, but if my son was wearing fruit on his sweater, I think would go around telling people it is my wife's fault.
We didn't even bother to do the 20 week ultrasound with Daniel! That probably doesn't surprise you much, either. (We had to with Anya b/c of some things that showed up on an earlier ultrasound...fortunately it all came to nothing and she's normal, at least as normal as a child of mine can be...)
Honestly, I think that's probably one of the big differences: temptation. After we lost Ethan, we had 9,638,823 ultrasounds with Brynna and about 3,638,823 with Maren. All that peeking and all that them knowing. I could have done it if I had to, if not for that. Of course, I didn't have to either, so... I'm not saying I didn't want to know. I'm a huge control freak and I wanted to know everything they could tell me. If there was a test for in utero hair color, I would have considered it.
lol hair color...
Well, I certainly would have done the same thing if I'd had your experience. I can't imagine...remember Liv from college? The same thing happened to her. She had a boy, then a girl about five minutes later (well, actually they're more like 15 or 16 months apart), then a stillborn daughter, and now they have another daughter who's maybe a little older than Anya. Crazy.
My last US with Anya was at 18 weeks, so even if we wanted to know (which we didn't) I don't think they could tell. Sure makes it easier for gifts. I just found out a friend of mine is having a girl and you can bet she's getting something pink and sparkly from me. (Please don't ask why I have pink sparkly yarn in my stash. It's actually very nice, but you know...it's pink and sparkly. SO not me.)
By the by, much as I love Harry Potter (I've only read the books 4 times through) I don't think Gryffindor colors work for a baby. Sorry, Roy. I agree about the cherries, though. In fact, I think dressing up babies like food in general is a little spooky.
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