Babies, babies, and more babies!

It is that time of year again when people are trying to be skinny to no avail. Some of them have excuses...I, for one, do not. I am in the process of making another baby gift for a friend. She is due at the end of August and so I have put it off too long. This will be her first child and it will be a boy. Boy gifts are a lot harder for me than girl gifts because there is so much to choose from in the way of patterns for girls and even some of the patterns for boys look too girlish to make for a boy. Perhaps that is my own view. My dear husband has deemed himself very much a "manly man" and cannot be bothered with things that would threaten his man card. His answer to all my questions is "fine." What does that mean?!!! Fine is his way of saying "I'm not really paying attention but I'm sure you won't leave me alone unless I give you some kind of answer so I'll give you the most noncommital answer that won't evoke any further conversation." Who knew so much could be in one word. So I knit on...I am making "Tom" from Rowan's archives. It's a little vest and so far I'm a little confused as to how it will turn out. I guess we'll see. I have two more gifts to get started on and finish by December. I suppose that doesn't sound like a lot but at the rate I knit or find the time to knit, it might just take me that long. My biggest problem is in picking out the pattern for the gift. Every time I look at patterns I find something that I'm sure would look so cute on me. I guess I'll have to stop that.

Quick Baby Gift

It is nearing the end of May and I realized that I have a baby gift due in June. So I ran off to Ravelry to find a quick gift for a girl. I thought about trying Blossom which is a wrap dress by Melissa Wastney but for some reason the sizing wasn't coming out right. It seemed very small even though I used bigger yarn and a bigger needle and used the largest size the pattern had. Though I didn't go through the whole pattern, it said it was knit in one piece and I only CO 72 sts for the bottom. I will probably try that pattern again when I have more time to think about the pattern and make the necessary adjustments. As for now, I just wanted to do a mindless project that I could complete easily with the hopes that it would be useful. I decided on a seamless kimono by Jacki Kelly which I got off Ravelry and it turned out to be very simple. I added ruffled sleeves and a ruffled edge on the bottom only because I didn't feel like doing a garter stitch edging. I really need to expand my horizons and get a book on edgings. I had eyed a book at my LCS but I didn't buy it. I hadn't figured on needing it. But now I am changing my tune. The Kimono was easy enough that I just wrote down some notes from the pattern and went to work. I am not so sure about the ruffles, I have never done ruffles before so they might have turned out more "ruffley" than I had intended but overall I guess it is okay. The only problem I had with the pattern was I had one too many eyelet holes for the I cord. I used Bernat Soy Naturals in Celery and Rice. I did two toned because I ran out of yarn and I got them on clearance.