Craft & Clutter

Despite not really being evident here as of late, I have been crafting up a storm (I believe I'm up to 5 completed projects and 2 works-in-progress for the year, not that I'm counting).

A few weeks ago, right after committing to knitting Fair Isle Totoro mittens for A Small Fox, in typical Sarah fashion, I went out, bought the yarn for the new project, got home and promptly decided I needed to knit a surprise baby hat for my college roommate's newborn daughter.

Why my brain works like that I do not know. It's just something I've learned to live with. At least I was getting something done because if I try to fight it, nothing (and I mean, NOTHING) gets done (that includes housework).

At least this time, I didn't choose a big procrastination project. Just a tiny little baby hat that I've had my eye on for months. I'm so happy I finally jumped in and did it because though I swore off hats for a while in December, having zero pressure to do this one made it a breeze. No problems. Yay! And it knit up quick, but you know what was even quicker than knitting it? The USPS. I sent it out standard 1st class mail on a Saturday afternoon and by Monday evening I was seeing picture of my adorable teal hat on an adorable baby girl.

I think the Aviatrix will become a go-to baby gift (that and the Saartje Bootees).

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The Aviatrix is actually being modeled by my childhood baby doll, Rosie (wow, mom dropping off all those boxes of toys came in handy!). If you saw Rosie without this adorable hat you would think that I was a very bad child, but actually it was my sister who was the bad one. You see, Rosie belonged to her well before I was even a glimmer in my parents' eyes. And it was my sister that took scissors poor little Rosie's head. So Rosie has wildly chopped hair, but after searching around for what kind of doll she really is, I think I'm partial to the chopped look as opposed to the 70s bob I think she originally came with - from what I can tell she's a 1975 Vogue Hug-a-Bye Baby (life-size and she used to cry) - she's just a little bit hardcore. ;)

Let me tell you what a pain it was to search for information on this doll. All I had to go on was the copyright imprint on the neck (1975 Vogue) and that brought up only one result that was feasibly her (the rest were tiny little dolls). I also tried searching by the information on her pajamas, but it turns out those belonged to another doll, a World of Wonders Pamela doll, who I guess was a little like Teddy Ruxpin, but I have no recollection of her at all.

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PS I'm still not done with that Teal yarn. Despite making an adult size hat and a baby hat, I still have more left. When it's not going into a dishcloth, this yarn I'm trying to destash sure does take a long time to use up! Any ideas what I can do with 1/4 - 1/3 of a skein of teal acrylic (it's surprisingly soft) and 1/2 - 2/3 of a skein of guacamole colored yarn (same stuff as the teal - see here for the color). I've been tempted to do a scrap yarn blanket, but I don't think I have enough scrap yarn in non-clashing colors. Hmm, maybe I should just do it. It can be a hodge podge of colors & fibers, just adding to it when I have those partial skeins. Ugh! I just don't know. Does anyone have experience working a bunch of different weights & fibers together into a blanket or something?