My Projects or Why I Am Keeping Secrets
Nov. 29th, 2011 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crewgrrlUnless you are a friend of mine on Ravelry, you wouldn't really know what I have been knitting. This is because a chunk of my projects are presents. My overdue wedding party gifts, overdue baby gifts, eventually the wedding socks I promised my husband of 3 months. You get the picture. Not only are they presents, some of them are a special kind of present. I am knitting baby sweaters. "Baby sweaters?" you ask. Yes. Baby sweaters. "But baby sweaters aren't especially special presents." Hush you in the back. These are special.
These are sweaters for babies who have not yet arrived. These are woollies and cottons* (and if you're getting a baby sweater in cotton blend you are a dear friend) for wee ones still cooking. Sweaters like this are sometimes the first garments a baby wears and that makes them very special. By necessity they are to be knit in gender neutral colors (I like either bright primary colors, rainbow pastels or muted creams and forest colors for preference), washable yarn and in a pattern that understands the unique physical properties of newborn babies. Namely that their heads are overly large, they are horribly floppy and their torsos are out of proportion to their legs and arms**.
This means cardigans. Pullovers DO NOT WORK for infants. Even their onesies have those wee neck snaps to ensure that the head opening actually gets over the head. Also, due to the floppiness, pullovers act a bit like straitjackets. It's hard to get floppy arms out of a tube and into smaller tubes. Cardigans are very open, both allowing the arms to be put in before the sweater is closed and the neck to close around the actual neck rather than needing to pass over the enormous head.
I'm delaying the hats that go with these sweaters though. You see, infants don't need gendered clothing. Baby girls do not require pink (though mine are probably going to suffer through quite a bit of purple while I knit down the stash) and boys are not the sole proprietors of red, green, blue and brown. Hats, on the other hand... You see, there are few things more charming than a little lacy cap on a baby girl. And baby boys don't look as cute in them. Baby boys look adorable in rolled brim hats***. So the matching hats (still in the gender neutral colors of the sweaters) will wait until these babies have announced themselves and the contents of their diapers**** to the world.
I have also finished my modified Leaflet cardigan. If you go and look at the pattern, you will see that it has these trendy short sleeves that all the cardigans had this past fall. I think these sleeves are silly, so I sort of winged a sleeve (it doesn't have clever sleeve shaping that actually conforms to the sloping shape of the human arm) with the leaf lace motif on the forearm. They are awesome sleeves if I do say so myself. Yes, it's purple.
I am delaying knitting on my Doctor Who socks until I finish the current pair on the needles. This is yarn that I never would have purchased. While it contains purples, it also has colors I never knit with unless knitting with inherited yarn or for others. It does, however, contain the classic colors of Tom Baker's original 4th Doctor scarf (along with a description that tells you that this yarn will not knit socks that are bigger on the inside). I'm thinking something to take advantage of the stripiness, either a feather-and-fan or jaywalkers.
I'm working on a Baby Sophisticate jacket, which is all![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadesong's fault. This is the second of 2 overdue baby presents, the other being a charming lace set that went out in the mail yesterday. I have one lace kerchief left to finish (and I'm about 90% of the way there) before my bridesmaids' gifts are all done. I'm finally picking up the massively overdue wedding afghan for levana_b and masteraleph. Hopefully it'll be finished by the time they next get to live in the same state!
I think that's enough yarn catch-up for the time being.
*There is no clever diminutive for this.
**This is not precisely true, but it sure looks that way.
***Baby girls look adorable in them too, but this is all the boys have and I'm willing to let them have it for the first year.
****Gender being a social construct that no newborn is capable of articulating, no matter how precocious.
These are sweaters for babies who have not yet arrived. These are woollies and cottons* (and if you're getting a baby sweater in cotton blend you are a dear friend) for wee ones still cooking. Sweaters like this are sometimes the first garments a baby wears and that makes them very special. By necessity they are to be knit in gender neutral colors (I like either bright primary colors, rainbow pastels or muted creams and forest colors for preference), washable yarn and in a pattern that understands the unique physical properties of newborn babies. Namely that their heads are overly large, they are horribly floppy and their torsos are out of proportion to their legs and arms**.
This means cardigans. Pullovers DO NOT WORK for infants. Even their onesies have those wee neck snaps to ensure that the head opening actually gets over the head. Also, due to the floppiness, pullovers act a bit like straitjackets. It's hard to get floppy arms out of a tube and into smaller tubes. Cardigans are very open, both allowing the arms to be put in before the sweater is closed and the neck to close around the actual neck rather than needing to pass over the enormous head.
I'm delaying the hats that go with these sweaters though. You see, infants don't need gendered clothing. Baby girls do not require pink (though mine are probably going to suffer through quite a bit of purple while I knit down the stash) and boys are not the sole proprietors of red, green, blue and brown. Hats, on the other hand... You see, there are few things more charming than a little lacy cap on a baby girl. And baby boys don't look as cute in them. Baby boys look adorable in rolled brim hats***. So the matching hats (still in the gender neutral colors of the sweaters) will wait until these babies have announced themselves and the contents of their diapers**** to the world.
I have also finished my modified Leaflet cardigan. If you go and look at the pattern, you will see that it has these trendy short sleeves that all the cardigans had this past fall. I think these sleeves are silly, so I sort of winged a sleeve (it doesn't have clever sleeve shaping that actually conforms to the sloping shape of the human arm) with the leaf lace motif on the forearm. They are awesome sleeves if I do say so myself. Yes, it's purple.
I am delaying knitting on my Doctor Who socks until I finish the current pair on the needles. This is yarn that I never would have purchased. While it contains purples, it also has colors I never knit with unless knitting with inherited yarn or for others. It does, however, contain the classic colors of Tom Baker's original 4th Doctor scarf (along with a description that tells you that this yarn will not knit socks that are bigger on the inside). I'm thinking something to take advantage of the stripiness, either a feather-and-fan or jaywalkers.
I'm working on a Baby Sophisticate jacket, which is all
shadesong's fault. This is the second of 2 overdue baby presents, the other being a charming lace set that went out in the mail yesterday. I have one lace kerchief left to finish (and I'm about 90% of the way there) before my bridesmaids' gifts are all done. I'm finally picking up the massively overdue wedding afghan for levana_b and masteraleph. Hopefully it'll be finished by the time they next get to live in the same state!I think that's enough yarn catch-up for the time being.
*There is no clever diminutive for this.
**This is not precisely true, but it sure looks that way.
***Baby girls look adorable in them too, but this is all the boys have and I'm willing to let them have it for the first year.
****Gender being a social construct that no newborn is capable of articulating, no matter how precocious.
