Thursday, March 17, 2011

Thirteen Days

That's right, Tadpole will be two weeks old tomorrow. I have no idea where the time has gone. Mr. Tinks and Frogs and I have been having a blast getting to know our little girl. Even Nayyir seems pretty pleased (ok, exceedingly tolerant) of the new addition to our household.

We're all getting used to some new routines around here. For instance, I don't think I've typed with both hands for thirteen days now. (I'm holding Rowan with one hand and typing with the other at the moment.) So, for the sake of expediency, I'm going to skip my usual individual responses - if that's ok - and say a mass thank you for all of your comments on my last post. I really enjoyed reading your kind words and they were great company during 2 a.m. feedings.

Moving on . . . this is ostensibly a knitting blog and I even have a bit of knitting to share. Perhaps those Nancy Bush socks that I was so careful to save for the hospital? Nope. I didn't knit a stitch while I was there. I've been working on it (and Laminaria) in fits and spurts, but my couple of rows a day pace doesn't make for very fast progress.

What I have been working on is hats. Baby hats. The little pink cap from the hospital was discarded pretty quickly in favor of a handknit and I figured she should have a couple more options.

First, I cast on with leftover BFL handspun from Coraline but quickly discarded that plan when I realized how blue the hat looked. I've said "she's a she" enough times in the past almost two weeks to want to avoid blues for the time being.

Then I whipped up this one out of the cashmere left over after I lined my Thorpe.


She only wore it long enough for me to snap that picture. It's a bit small, to say the least. I was extremely confident going into this project because I finally had her head circumference to use in calculating how many stitches I would need. But what I had was her head circumference immediately after birth and, as my mother gently reminded me, babies' heads compress quite a bit on the way out. We measured again and her head is an inch bigger.

On to hat #2.


(Yes, I took a quick break from burping her to snap this pic.) It's a cable and rib pattern that I made up for some leftover malabrigo. It's still based on the too-small head figures but between the elastic fabric and a little soak in some wool wash, it fits pretty well.

Hat #3 finally used the right numbers and fits her very well. It's a basic stockinette cap with twisted stitch 1x1 ribbing knit up out of some leftover merino/tencel handspun.


 I'm looking forward to the time when it won't take me three days to finish a simple little baby cap.

But for now, there are plenty of other finished handknits around here to enjoy.

9 comments:

Gale Bulkley said...

Already two weeks old? That's hard to imagine. She's a pretty little thing and a very obliging model.

Jacey said...

Aww, these are precious pictures. I'm glad to hear her head will be warm! I just love her wrinkly arms.

Brendaknits said...

Thanks for sharing those pictures. She is just eh cutest.

MamaMidwife said...

Perfectly beautiful! Thank you for sharing pictures of your newborn! The knitting is nice too (but not as sweet!).

Anonymous said...

babies' heads compress quite a bit on the way out... did you REALLY need reminding... hehe

and as to looking forward to the day when it takes less than three days to knit a hat... I understand that may be in 18 years or so... :)

she's adorable.

Jennifer said...

Awwww - what a lucky little peanut to have you for a Mom. Cuddles to all.

Unknown said...

She is so adorable! Smart to take one of those pictures from the back as we're just too taken with her cute little face to really look at the knitting :) Geri

Rachel said...

Compressed heads? Yeah, I suppose that makes sense, but not something I would have thought about either!

Cute parade of hats (even ones that don't fit!)...and look at that lucky baby snuggled under that beautiful blanket!

elizabeth said...

Oh! She likes Hat #3! You could donate the first hat to the hospital for preemies, maybe?