Last Friday, my friends Doug and Susan welcomed their son Raymond Paul into the world. The little guy was about 8 weeks early and tipped the scales at just 2 pounds 11 ounces. I guess one of the big worries with preemies is lung function. It turns out that Ray's lungs are stronger than they expected, thank goodness.
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While everyone is delighted that Ray is doing so well, his early arrival totally threw a wrench in the works, knitting wise. I was supposed to have until the middle of January to make a gift for goodness sakes.
I hadn't decided what to make yet. I hadn't picked the yarn. To top things off, I was totally befuddled by size. Exactly how big is a 2 pound 11 ounce baby?
Fortunately, I had some time on my hands. I had just had my knee surgery and was going to be planted on the couch at home for a few days. I poked around my stash and found several small skeins of superwash fingering weight BFL that had been given to me by Aimee, the owner of a wonderful yarn and tea shop,
L'Oisive The in Paris.
Once I had the yarn, it let me know that it wanted to be a series of hats. I surfed around a little on the internet and cobbled together a pattern of sorts. I decided to start with the blue. I cast on 80 stitches and did a K1P1 rib for a couple of inches and then moved on to stockinette. Once it looked about right, I started the decrease rounds and that was that. One down.
The first one looked pretty big to me so I only cast on 60 stitches for the next hat. I picked the green yarn this time around. Instead of K1P1, I did a roll edge. It turned out pretty darn small, but is as cute as the dickens.
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Last up was the yellow hat. I split the difference between the other and cast on 72 stitches. This time I worked the first bit in K2P2 rib.
This turned into a perfect recovery project for me. Anything requiring any real brain power would have been a waste what with the pain meds and all. Figuring out how many stitches to cast on and deciding on three different edges was about all I had in me.
I know they aren't fancy and I usually don't pick pastels for babies but somehow these teeny, tiny little hats are making me extraordinarily happy.