Paranoia and Other Everyday Afflictions

Perhaps I'm just new to this but knitting for babies fills me with a sense of dread.

Maybe it's because I'm sort of new to the idea that people I know are having children. Up until this point, all of my parents' friends were too old to be having children, I'm not terribly close to any of my (excessively numerous) cousins, and before recently, my friends were all too young to consider spawning.

It appears that this has changed within the last six months or so. 

Compounding this problem is that because of unfortunate circumstances, I became worried that my knitting might be some kind of horrible jinx. The first baby things I ever made, I knit for a former co-worker only to find out later that his wife had, sadly, miscarried. Which is horrible and awful and I can't even imagine.

So back into my cedar chest the little knit goods went, put away for another occasion. A friend of mine germinated a little girl so, in addition to the toy and booties I had made previously, I knit a little sweater, a doll, and a bib. They were darling, though I don't think they were ever worn or used by said child. Perhaps I underestimated how large a baby is... this is entirely possible as I don't think I've seen one in real life (up close) since I was five or six years old.

And then another friend of mine turned up pregnant and I knit her a baby blanket... and her baby ended up born incredibly early in emergency circumstances and had to stay in the NICU for ten weeks. Fortunately, she's alright now but I'm a little paranoid about giving her the blanket, lest I actually prove to be a jinx.

Now, I know logically that my knitting has absolutely nothing to do with anything in this instance. But it's still sort of nerve-wracking and unsettling.

So when a co-worker announced that she was pregnant, I felt two things: 

1) An obligation to knit her at least a little something

2) A sense of doom

So I'm waiting for her to announce what the baby's sex which, fortunately, extends the amount of reasonable procrastination I can allow myself. Knitting tiny baby things isn't exactly time-consuming in most instances-- fiddly, yes, but it generally doesn't take long to cast on the ten stitches around most baby limbs are and work up something nice.

In other news, I've been knitting quite a bit in the last week or so. I started a sweater for which I made a -gasp- real gauge swatch. That's right, gentle readers, I knit a swatch and then washed and blocked it.

Not that my project pictures particularly illustrate it, but my sweaters have always been a little... off. Not all of them, granted, but of late, it seems like I've forgotten that knitting tends to change gauge once it is blocked. I have several sweaters knit from gorgeous yarns from brilliant patterns that don't appear to be made for human beings with a normal distribution of limbs. 

But this one, knit in the most buttery of Malabrigo Worsted in Sealing Wax-- so perfect. At least I'm hoping it is. It's still on the needles so it's somewhat difficult to tell, but it's looking alright.

Also, I finished my Prairie Drift, for all interested parties... it's a bit small. It's lovely, but I could have knit another half-dozen or more pattern repeats for it to be a proper shawl size rather than a somewhat wide shawlette.

 I'll wear it but I'll be grumpy about it. Imagine Grumpy Cat wearing a shawl and you'll have a pretty good mental image of what I'll look like; a well accessorized grouch.