Not a Baby Gift!

Can you believe it's not a baby gift? Neither can I. I came over all craftistic last night, and after sewing 4 snaps onto a new blouse, I pulled out a project that's been languishing since Christmas. With any luck, it'll be ready by the time I need it this winter. Since I am Little Miss Always Cold, I find a large collection of scarves in many colors is a very handy thing to have in the cooler months. I had a black scarf made of this same yarn in the same pattern that I wore almost all the time in the office, and I decided that I wanted one in a creamy color as well for those when I'm wearing my cream-colored office sweater (as opposed to my black office sweater; you'd better belive I have more than one office sweater). As you can see by the trailing end, it's a work in progress. This is worked lengthwise, and right now I'm about one-third of the way through the width.

As it turned out, some time after I had measured the beginnings of this scarf against the length of the original black scarf, I lost the black scarf. (Boo!) So this will be my new default scarf for this winter, or at least until I make a new black scarf just like the one I lost. Which will be just like this one (except black).

Oh, and for the record, it's ridiculously simple to make, and the closest crochet equivalent to knitted 1x1 ribbing. Chain until you have something just a bit longer than you want the end result to be. Single crochet in the back loop of every stitch until it's the width you want. Finish off and sew in ends. As I said, ridiculously simple. Although the yarn makes it a bit more challenging; the one thing I don't like about Microspun is that it's a 6-ply, and the plies split way too easily for my taste. It's a bit tricky to work with, as you have to closely watch every stitch you do; much better suited for listening to music or podcasts than to trying to watch TV. Still, it's so beautifully soft that the end result is worth the effort.

Not a baby afghan, for once.

For once, I took the advice of just about everyone in my knitting group and did not crochet or knit an entire afghan for an expected baby. These are for a coworker, whose second baby boy should be appearing in another week or so. We missed our chance to have a shower for her first baby because she left for her maternity leave before she (and we!) had planned for her to be out of the office, so we made up for it by having a small shower for the second baby.

These are crocheted from a little book of bootie patterns that I picked up a while ago. This is a very clever little pattern, something that I don't think you could do if you were knitting instead. They're done in two pieces; first the round wagon-wheel pattern on the top of the foot, then you chain out into space and back to form the part that goes around the heel, and then from there down to the sole. Then you pick up at the chain again and work up to finish the top part that sits around the ankle. Sew in a bit of elastic, just to make sure they stay put, and you're done! Took only a few hours to finish, and could have been a bit quicker if I'd paid a bit closer attention to what I was doing. (I did have to frog a bit of the first one because I was distracted by the movie I was watching.) Welcome to Baby K!