Things I make for Maddy: Aviatrix Hat

Y’all already got a sneak peek at this hat in the last photo of my last post, but since it’s my first FO post-baby, I wanted to give it a dedicated FO post of its own.

Ravelry Project Page
Pattern: Aviatrix baby hat
Yarn: Brooklyn Handspun “Instant Gratification Sock” in “Celery Stalk”
Needles: size 2 Knitpicks Harmony dpns
Time to knit: 2 days!

As I mentioned in a previous post, my baby girl’s noggin had outgrown the hats I knit for her before she was born, and since I like to take her with me everywhere I go, she definitely needed a new hat so that we could leave the house! I’d seen several of these Aviatrix hats on various knitting blogs and thought they were so cute, so decided that I’d make one for Maddy.

The button came in a package that a friend of mine sent to me shortly after Maddy was born, after she’d heard that I had no button stash of my own. I love the look of the turquoise against that green! You can also see in that picture that I used the tubular cast-on instead of what was called for in the pattern. I just don’t see the point in using anything other than the tubular cast-on for 1×1 rib. It looks SO nice.

My poor sleep-deprived new mama brain couldn’t quite get things right, though…I miscounted and knit the chinstrap too short, and also forgot to knit any buttonholes. I solved that problem by taking the length of yarn left after I bound off, and crocheting a little button loop at the end. I figure if she outgrows that length, I can always crochet extra loops as needed on the end of that loop. I’m actually pretty happy with how that detail worked out, even though it was purely the result of inattention!

I’d love to show you a photo of it on my dear Maddy. She’s worn it a lot already, but my girl, she does not really do “still”. Perhaps this weekend, when I have my husband home to help me out, I can get a modeled shot. But for now, just trust me: it’s adorable.

in which I become a babywearing advocate

(I’ve been reading bits of Winnie-The-Pooh to Maddy, and have grown enamored of the “In which…” openings for each chapter)

Y’all, I have become a die-hard baby wearer. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t pop my girl in the carrier while I go about my daily business, and the idea of pushing her around in a stroller or leaving her to sit in an infant seat (which she wouldn’t do anyway…my girl needs mama contact, and HOW) is utterly foreign to me. Look at all the things you can do while wearing a baby:

Make lunch

Watch DS9

Give your baby girl naptime

Snuggle

Do laundry (and LOTS of it!)

Visit campus

Work at home

Knit

Nurse

And if you combine those last two, and knit during nursing-in-the-carrier time, you can knit your baby a new hat in just two days! I’ll be giving Maddy’s new Aviatrix a post of its own later today, but seriously, a good 80% of it was knit while nursing her in the carrier. You just can’t beat that sort of multitasking. And while I can only speak for my own experience, the day I started being able to wear Maddy is the day she stopped being so fussy and cranky. Babies love touch!

The carrier we use the most (which you see in every photo above) is the Beco Gemini. It can be snapped to be narrower at the base, perfect for the wee ones (though my girl isn’t so wee anymore – she’s 95th percentile for weight and height!), and is really well proportioned for petite mamas like me (I’m sure it’d work great for the less-petite, too, but a problem I’ve had with other soft-structured carriers is that they’re just cut too wide to be comfortable for me). We’ve also experimented with the Sleepy Wrap, but I find it super awkward to get on and off (as a short, scrawny mama, I’m just SWAMPED by the amount of fabric!), so don’t use it that much. It’s hard to know what will work for you without trying a bunch of things, which can unfortunately get pretty expensive (speaking of which, I’m thinking of selling off the other soft-structured carrier we have, a Boba 3G, because it just doesn’t seem to work for us), but once it works, it’s like magic. I’d go completely bonkers if I couldn’t carry Maddy around with me all the time and nurse her whenever she wants without being stuck sitting down. Such freedom! And wonderful bonding time with my baby girl.

Yay, babywearing!

(I promise, I’ll post about the Aviatrix hat later!)

just a bit of ribbing

Before I get to the crafty stuff (and there isn’t actually much of that), how about a totally hilarious photo of my kid?

The finger gun just kills me. Totally serendipitous, but I love it.

So, Madrigal is 8 weeks old now. Wow, these first 8 weeks have been crazy and wonderful and so very difficult! There’s not been much time at all for crafty business, but I did manage to sneak a tiny bit of time yesterday to knit the ribbing for an Aviatrix hat for my darling daughter, whose giant noggin has already outgrown the hats I knit for her before she was born. (I feel like I should take a moment to sing some praise for the GoodReader app on the iPhone, which gives me access to my Ravelry pattern library. I use my iPhone so much when I’m taking care of Maddy, and it is wonderful to have portable access to my knitting patterns (including Aviatrix)).

Since we can’t have a bare-headed baby in the sort of temperatures we get here in the winter, a new hat is a priority item! Of course, I’m now worrying that this hat won’t be warm enough for my baby girl, and am plotting a double-thick hat (much like my own) too. And since my baby girl doesn’t have any mittens at all (which simply won’t do!), I’d like to knit her a double-thick pair of those, too…and of course my designer brain is spinning with ideas to make them fit multiple sizes by having a row of eyelets to cinch the mittens around the wrist, but at different heights in the inner vs. outer layer (I’m not sure if that sentence I just wrote makes any sense to anyone but me, but I suppose I’m the only one who needs it to make sense, anyway!).

I’ve got other knits planned, too – a pair of fingerless gloves for a dear friend of mine being first and foremost among them. We’ll see how much time I can steal away for knitting in the foreseeable future; I doubt there will be many sweaters coming off my needles for the next few months, since wrangling something as large as a sweater body (or even sleeve) while wearing Maddy in the carrier is a bit beyond my current skillset!

What I made in 2011

I thought it might be nice to sort of recap 2011 in terms of my crafty endeavors. This past year certainly wasn’t my most prolific, knitting-wise, but considering that I also made a baby this year, I can’t really complain!

My first finished project of 2011 was the Garter Rib Cardigan:

That sweater has seen SO much wear in the last year! It’s pretty much the perfect sweater. I started another one, but haven’t yet finished it, nor have I finished the pattern I’m writing for it. But I’ve not forgotten about it!

Next, there was Sullivan. I don’t have a photo of my own, since I finished the sample on the last possible day I could in order to get it to Jared in time for photography. Designing and knitting a sweater during my first trimester turned out to be pretty darn difficult, but I’m so proud of the pattern. It’s done really well, and I’ve gotten great feedback from the people who’ve knit it, and overall I’m just really delighted with the whole experience of working with the Brooklyn Tweed folks and being part of Wool People and would love to be able to work with them again.

Other than those two projects, everything else I made this year was for my baby. Two projects were sweaters based off ones I’d designed in my own size: babyStripes!, and the baby version of the Garter Rib cardigan. babyStripes! ended up being a bit bigger than I’d intended, so I’ve not put it on Maddy just yet, but the baby Garter Rib was perfectly newborn-sized. In fact, I bet it wouldn’t even fit my chunky little girl anymore!

I also made hats. Three of them: A modified sweet baby cap, intended to match babyStripes!, a plain 2×2 ribbed cap, and a pumpkin hat, which we used when we brought her home from the hospital two days after Thanksgiving.

So, what does 2012 have in store? I have no idea. I plan to finish a few patterns (and maybe create some totally new ones), and I’d like to knit a couple more cardigans for myself (since cardigans are all I can wear right now, what with having become Madrigal’s sole food source!), as well as some more things for Maddy. I’m hoping to make it to Rhinebeck this year, and even if *I* don’t have a spiffy new Rhinebeck sweater, I’d really like for my baby girl to have one! But I’m not going to set any real goals or expectations for myself on the crafty front. It’s just too hard to predict how things will go now that I’m a mother. And expectations just set you up for frustration and disappointment. I just want to enjoy this year, and especially my baby girl, as much as possible. If I get a lot of crafting done, great, and if I don’t, so be it.

adjusting.

There hasn’t been much in the way of crafting since Madrigal was born (though I was able to knit a few rows yesterday!), but that’s no reason not to update the blog! Maddy and I are doing pretty well now. I’m definitely nowhere near 100%, but I can lift her and carry her (still need to be careful about this, though), and can sit fairly comfortably again, and all that good stuff.

These last couple of weeks, my dear friend Kris arranged for a group of my grad school friends (including herself) to come over and help me out now that my husband is back at work. I am so absurdly grateful for this – I really have no idea how I’d've handled things without all of Maddy’s honorary aunties helping us out!

I’ve been using my iPhone and Instagram a lot to take and share some photos of Madrigal, and I thought it’d be nice to share some of them here, too. Here’s Maddy and I in our matching Garter Rib Cardigans:

And here are three generations of us Gegg ladies, featuring Maddy in her stripey baby cap:

Here’s Maddy in the hat that Kathy made for her:

The most exciting development over the last couple days has been my ability to wear Maddy. Here we are with the Beco Gemini carrier:

And in the Sleepy Wrap:

It was thanks to the Sleepy Wrap that I was able to knit those few rows yesterday, which went a long way towards making me feel more like myself again:

Here’s hoping I’ll be able to do some more crafting as Maddy and I get used to hanging out with each other all day during the latter half of my maternity leave. I hope all is well with y’all, dear readers, and that you have a wonderful and happy Winter Solstice!!

A very special FO

Madrigal Alice Harrison Watts
Born 10:26am, November 26th, 2011
7lb, 7oz; 21 inches long

my sweet daughter,

i want so many things for you, darling munchkin: for you to be a healthy,
happy, compassionate person, to feel comfortable in your own skin, and
to never lose your interest in learning about life, the universe, and
everything. always remember that you are so very, very loved.

love, mama.

I am a mother now. My sweet girl, Madrigal, had an incredibly dramatic entry into the world. I wrote about her birth here.

more munchkin knits

I finished knitting the baby-sized Garter Rib cardigan this morning:

It’s not quite an FO yet, since I have no button stash, and almost certainly won’t be making it out to anyplace where I’d purchase buttons for awhile, and therefore can’t put the finishing touches on this little cardigan. I ended up using raglan decreases for the yoke, rather than replicating the seamless set-in sleeve construction of the grown-up Garter Rib cardigan, since seamless set-in sleeves seemed like slight overkill for a baby sweater. I’m pretty darn tickled with how this came out, dorky as it may be to knit my offspring sweaters to match the ones I’ve knit myself!

Every baby needs a shawl-collared sweater, don’t you think? Now I just need the munchkin to decide it’s time to make an appearance. I’m so impatient to meet you, little one!

some more works in progress

As of today, I’m a week away from my due date. We’ll see if the munchkin decides to arrive early or late (first babies tend to be late, but you never know!). I’m so, so distracted at this point, just so impatient to meet our little munchkin! So here, look at some of the not-yet-finished projects I’ve got going!

Still working on those baby pants. I lost one of the dpns I was using, and can’t stand knitting with only 4 dpns (I like my needles to form a square, not a triangle!), so I didn’t make any progress for awhile until I was able to get ahold of a full set of size 6s again.

I ended up trying out these newfangled square cut needles, and I’m liking them pretty well so far! But the pants themselves are turning out a bit bigger than I’d anticipated, so I think I’m going to set them aside for a bit since there’s almost no way the munchkin will be able to wear them for awhile, at least.

Instead, I’m going to work on this:

Look familiar? I had some extra Eco Wool leftover from my Garter Rib cardigan, and apparently I can’t resist making baby-sized versions of my own designs. Of course, I still haven’t finished the second me-sized Garter Rib cardigan, and in theory I’m working on the pattern, too, but like I said at the beginning of the post…I’m a wee bit distracted lately!

sweet baby cap

You guys, baby knits are FAST! Who knew?

Ravelry Project Page
Pattern: Sweet Baby Cap (with garter ridge mods)
Yarn: Knitpicks Chroma Fingering in “Bare” and “Prism”
Needles: 2.5mm Knitpicks Harmony dpns
Time to Knit: 2 days!!

I cast on for this adorable little hat after I finished babyStripes!, and am already finished with it. Craziness. When I got the yarn for babyStripes!, I picked up matching skeins in the fingering weight version with the intention of making a matching hat. It turned out that the length of the color repeat relative to the circumference of the hat didn’t exactly yield the same sort of striping as in the sweater, but I’m pretty tickled with this delightful ombre effect.

I modified the pattern slightly, knitting garter ridges for the colored stripes instead of knitting everything in stockinette, and I absolutely love the texture! I’m tempted to knit another one starting with a color from the cooler end of the spectrum, so that the munchkin can have a “warm colors” and “cool colors” version of the hat. Heck, it only took two days, right?

something’s blocking…

…and it turned out even cuter than I could possibly have imagined:

I’m so pleased with this little sweater I can hardly contain myself. All of the little details I planned from the beginning came together so perfectly, which doesn’t always happen. What a relief that it did, given how little time I’ve got before the munchkin’s arrival! Now, no matter what, there will be a sweater from mama for my little munchkin before the big day!

I finished the yoke and collar this weekend, and then added the i-cord zipper facings last night at our knitting guild meeting (Anne Hanson was our guest speaker!), where I think I might have freaked out my tablemates by having some fairly intense Braxton-Hicks contractions!

I used the same trick here as on my Stripes! sweater, switching to garter ridges for the colored stripes at the yoke. I just love that added bit of texture!

It was a bit of a brainteaser to figure out how to reverse the braid + corrugated rib detail at the collar (and included working out how to work a braid from the purl side, which turned out to actually be quite easy!), but it ended up working out beautifully.

I do still need to install a zipper, and I’ll be the first to admit that doing so terrifies me slightly – I’ve just never added a zipper to a sweater before! I’m not sure if that detail will end up getting finished before the munchkin’s arrival, but a zipperless sweater is still perfectly functional, so I won’t sweat it too much.

babyStripes! is back in action

Yesterday, I wasn’t feeling so well, and so I pretty much just knit and did a bit of light housecleaning. I’m determined to have a sweater knit for my little one before they make their arrival, and so I decided to tackle babyStripes! once again:

I decided awhile ago that I should rip out the “in-the-round” version of the sleeve I’d already knit, and reknit it flat, but for some reason just couldn’t ever bring myself to do it until yesterday. I think I’ll be able to create a seam that’s more attractive than the seemingly unavoidable jog in the stripe pattern would’ve been had I continued in the round. I’m still loving the corrugated rib + vikkel braid at the cuff – I just can’t get enough of that detail, it seems!

At this gauge (5 sts/inch), a baby sleeve doesn’t take all that long, so I actually ended up knitting both of them yesterday. Before I cast on for the second sleeve, I wound off a length of the yarn so that I’d be starting again at the same point in the color repeat. I’m a perfectionist like that – I wanted my two sleeves to match! Today I think I’ll tackle the yoke – who knows, perhaps I’ll have a finished sweater for my little one by the end of the weekend!

I’ve been working on the pattern as I knit, and now that I’m getting closer to being finished, I have a question I’d love to get feedback on. Since I’m using exclusively Knitpicks yarns in this design, I’ve been toying with the idea of submitting it to their Independent Designer Partnership Program and publishing the pattern that way (assuming they’d take it). Have any of you published patterns through Knitpicks’ IDP? Was it a good experience? Would you recommend it?

pumpkin hat!

I’ve stopped going into campus regularly, and am almost entirely working from home these last few weeks leading up to the munchkin’s arrival. Though I do try to actually accomplish worky-work every day, I sometimes get a bit distracted by making things for the munchkin when I’m home.

Case in point: the hat I’m knitting in the above photo. I decided awhile back that I absolutely had to knit a pumpkin hat for my little Thanksgiving baby to wear home from the hospital, but I had no suitable yarn (orange just isn’t a color I use very often). Thankfully, Danielle came to the rescue, and sent me a ball of Knitpicks Stroll in the appropriately-named “Pumpkin” color. The yarn arrived last week, and I didn’t waste any time casting on. I finished yesterday after an unintentional knitting marathon (like I said, I get distracted!):

Ravelry Project Page
Pattern: Cosset (with improvised stem/leaf)
Yarn: Knitpicks Stroll in “Pumpkin” and “Grass”
Needles: Size 1 Knitpicks Harmony dpns
Time to Knit: Just a couple days!

I know I could’ve made it look even more “pumpkin”-ish had I made the stockinette columns wider than the purl columns, but I was more worried about making sure the hat would fit our munchkin’s head, so went with the very stretchy 2×2 rib of the Cosset pattern I’d used for the other baby hat I knit. By switching to green yarn just before the i-cord stem, and then improvising a leaf, I think I still got a pretty pumpkin-ish looking hat.

I can’t wait to bring our little munchkin home in this hat!

the munchkin’s nursery nook

Remember this post? Well, I finally got to implement some of those plans, and the result is here:

We’ve been slowly working over the last few months to convert our closet into a little nursery nook for the munchkin. It’s not a big room at all (maybe 5′x8′), so it doesn’t have room for a lot of the “normal” nursery accoutrements (e.g. a glider), but I’m still so delighted with the little space we’ve created for our munchkin. We’re planning to use a co-sleeper at first, so this room won’t actually see a ton of use (other than for storing stuff and diaper changes) for a few months, but it makes me happy to have it done.

The dresser is mine from when I was a kid (and still has my clothes in it because there’s nowhere else to put them). The white shelving unit was in the closet before. You can barely see it, but our hanging diaper bag (from PlanetWise) is on the opposite wall – this saves us floor space over having an actual diaper pail. We put in the corner shelves yesterday, which turned out to be more difficult than anticipated given how non-square our walls are. The crib is an IKEA Somnat. The gorgeous baby quilt hanging over it is from my friend Kris (and another little scrappy quilt from C is on top of that!). The crib is currently full of stuff that needs to find a better home. The wall art (monster and robot prints) is from Etsy. Wool felt pennants were made by me :)

I bought one of these bundles (the “Party Mix” one), and cut out 4 triangles with a 4″ base from each strip. These, I threaded (in approximate ROY G BIV order) over a strand of Cascade 220 in a bright lime green:

In the end, I was able to make two stands of pennants, perfectly sized for that back wall of our nursery. I used the leftovers from each strip to create little 1″ squares:

I then strung those squares up (again in rainbow order) on strands of Knitpicks Palette (again in a bright lime green):

And finally, using a bright green plastic embroidery hoop, strung all those strands up to create a little mobile:

The mobile has yet to get hung up, but I’m hoping to do so in the next week so that the whole room is put together before the munchkin arrives (which shouldn’t be for a couple more weeks, but babies are unpredictable little creatures!).

So that’s the munchkin’s little nursery nook! I’m really happy with what we’ve been able to do to make a nice space for our baby in a tiny house on a tiny budget. And it makes me happy that wool plays a big role in the decor!

P.S More knitting-related munchkin crafting to come in a future post!

munchkin pants in progress

I’ve gotten a bit behind in my blogging, in that I actually have had several things I’ve been meaning to write about but keep forgetting to make the time for it. Maybe I’ll get a bunch of posts up in the next few days to catch up. Or maybe I won’t – I’m learning that I probably shouldn’t promise much of anything at this stage of being VERY pregnant. I’m a total space-case these days!

Anyway, I’ve been knitting for the munchkin (of course), and thought I’d show off the latest work in progress:

Baby pants! I’m using this pattern. I’m not loving the super-terse style in which the pattern is written, but hey, it’s free. And the pants are coming out pretty cute so far (I’m a bit further along now than in the picture above). I really like the ribbing at the sides – should make them nice and stretchy to go over cloth diapers.

The yarn I’m using is some leftover Araucania Nature Wool, and I just can’t get enough of the green. I hope my little munchkin likes these pants!

well that didn’t take long!

Turns out baby hats are pretty darn quick! Behold, the munchkin’s first handknit-from-mama:

Ravelry Project Page
Pattern: Cosset
Yarn: Brooklyn Handspun Softspun Plus in “Cyanea”
Needles: size 2 Knitpicks Harmony dpns
Time to knit: Oct 8-11th

I’m hoping to add a few more things (including babyStripes!) to the handknits-from-mama pile before the munchkin arrives, but at least now I know my baby will be getting at least ONE handknit from me. I’m really tickled with how the yarn created those swirly stripes as I knit – I was a little worried that the stitch count might result in some icky pooling, but instead I got swirls!

I love that little i-cord knot at the top, too!