Baby Crazy

It seems like these days, everyone I know is procreating. Therefore, I have been subjected to the interesting (and often torturous) chore of gift knitting. Or gift crocheting, as the case may be. You never know whether the parents will appreciate the gift as much as they do store-bought presents, and there's always that chance that they won't let the baby use whatever the handmade item is, even if you tell them that it's machine washable.

This month, I had two different baby showers to attend, so my time was filled with making tiny FOs for homo sapiens WIPs (I guess that should technically be WsIP, but that just looks weird).

For my friend Jacque, who is expecting a girl and has decorated the nursery in black, pink, and white, I made a star-shaped blanket, knowing she'd appreciate the sort of punk girl vibe it gave off.

It wasn't the nicest handmade gift there by any means, but it was made and given with love, and that's what matters, right?

Then, for my cousin's impending boy-child, I made two smaller items. I sort of wanted to keep them both for myself.

I'd had this tiny lion in my queue for a while, but I'm terrible at not wanting to seam things, so I knew if I had a deadline I'd actually do it. He was super simple to make, and I modified the tail slightly to have that little orange poof at the end instead of the yellow loops called for in the pattern.

The other thing I made for my cousin was not as cute, but slightly more interesting.

(pen included for scale)

This was fun to see come together. Knit in strips of varying colors and then seamed together, it achieves its ball-like shape through the interlacing of the pieces. I wasn't too excited about it while knitting it, thinking that surely mine wouldn't come out as well as the ones pictured on Ravelry, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was so easy, and the finished item looks so interesting, that it may just become one of my go-to baby knits.

Now, please, everyone I know: stop having babies so I can knit the things I want to.