Four of my married friends are having their first babies. Two just bought houses, one already owns a house, and the other is in graduate school, like me, but has figure out how to have the family and go to school at the same time. They are all wonderful people, and I wish I had my shit together as well as they did. But 30 is still young enough. I'll start worrying if I'm at the same place as now when I'm 40.
The one thing that balances out my green-eyed envy for my friends starting families is that they give me an excuse to knit and be creative. One friend studied fish when we were in the same lab - before she got a "real" job and move on with her life. The other friend(s) have yet to find out the sex of their baby, but recently posted a picture of a knitted shark baby hat on Facebook. The husband of that new family said he didn't want a shark eating his baby. But what about a fish, sucking on the baby head?
My "Fish Hat" made in Fall 2009
Both of these friends reminded me of "Fish Hat [Dead or Alive]" from Winter 2008 Knitty.com. The hat, with a 20 in circumference, is intended for children and adults. And having made the hat once before I knew that you could fit a newborn into the hat.
So I had two challenges.
1) Modify Fish Hat to fit a 0-6 month old.
2) Make my baby fish hats colorful even though I bought cornhusk colored yarn because I didn't know or forgot what sex the babies were when I went to the yarn store (0ops).
2) Make my baby fish hats colorful even though I bought cornhusk colored yarn because I didn't know or forgot what sex the babies were when I went to the yarn store (0ops).
Crystal Palace Bunny Hop Yarn in Cornhusk
For the tail, I knit both sides of the fish together, increasing by Making One (M1) between each stitch and doing a 1X1 rib stitch with short-rows to give the tail a fork (Message me on Ravelry or leave a post if you want more detailed directions). Same basic idea with the fins where I picked up stitches with some scrap baby yarn for the one baby I know the sex of. To finish it off I sewed on felt eyes.
One finished "Baby Fish Hat" and one waiting the baby's gender
I'm still waiting on the sex of the other fish-head-baby to add the fins to the second fish. But in the meantime I'll work on the other baby gifts. I've still got 20 weeks to figure it all out...Thank goodness I don't have to figure out my life by then.
Ha! You said I had my stuff together. Boy do I have you fooled!
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness, though, we don't ever have it all "together." There will always be something nagging at us, some challenge to overcome. For me, if it's not now then it will be when I'm trying to travel to do research in another continent, and if not then, then when I'm a professor. It seems that now I have a lot of flexibility, as opposed to being a full time professor when I'll be fighting for tenure. And sadly, it's at the moment that many of those who've waited until they are fully tenured and settled that they enter an age where having children is more difficult (biologically.)
All in all, I'm quite excited for the challenge--although don't get me wrong, I'm freaked out and daunted, too. I rely on other's strength at this time.
But I'm constantly reminded that we live in a place where we are enjoying an unprecedented time of comfort. People are having babies in countries at war, when they're not sure where their next meal may come from, or health care is atrocious, and those babies still grow up and do incredible things. I'm lucky that I can eat and do prenatal yoga and have a job that I enjoy--in other words, there are moms out there who have it much harder than I, and they're the ones I look to for courage and strength.
As for the fish hat--I can't thank you enough. It really did come out incredibly cute and I love that my friends shower love on my baby even before she's here. Even the "shark-eating-baby naysayer" thought it was great. I'll take a picture of it soon!