Sydeny's Leg Warmers

"I'm at that age." That is what I tell the ladies at work. My current 'that age' is the one that comes right after the 'that age' where everyone I know is getting married. You guessed it! Everyone I know is having babies!

The babies started trickling in before I left Arkansas. (It is probably not accurate to consider twins a trickle, but we can't blame them for that). But I believe this is the year of the flood. I currently have 3 baby projects in one stage or another. The first of which is out for delivery.

Hubby and I met our friends Steve & Liz through our master's program. Steve was in our cohort, and Liz is his awesome life. It is completely honest to say that the only regret that I have from grad school is not spending more time with Liz. Hubby and I were hoping that they would visit good ol' NYC before having a baby, but things don't always work out the way we want. They are expecting beautiful baby Sydney in December.

Since Steve and Liz love Halloween, I thought about making Sydney a cute little outfit like I did for Charlie. Honestly though, I am intimidated about making something for a baby to wear at a certain point in time. I don't have a baby, so I don' t have any practical grasp on their sizing. Instead, inspired by one of Kelly's podcasts, I decided to knit her some leg warmers. According to the moms Kelly interviewed they are one of the most useful hand knit gifts. There is no problem of trying to make them fit with the diaper (in fact, if it is chilly, they don't even have to come off to change the diaper), and they continue to fit for a long time rather than just a couple months. My goal was to knit something that would be loved and used to shreds, so here they are Sydney's Leg Warmers.

Pattern: Legwarmies by Alana Dakos
Yarn: Knit Picks Felici in Gelato

Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm)
Notes: I loved making these. They knit up super quick (about a week of sporadic knitting). While working on these, the only time that I even paused was to point out to Hubby just how cute they were going to look on chubby baby legs.

There were a lot of comments in Ravelry about them being too big. I went down a needle size, but other than that, I pretty much ignored them. Seeing as Sydney hasn't been born yet, I have no idea what size her legs are. Even if they are too big, I imagine she'll work her way into them. Though if Mom and Dad find themselves thinking, "Man, I wish we had a smaller set of these fantabulous leg warmers," all they have to do is ask (/wink).

This was my first project with self striping yarn, and it was fantastic. I was completely obsessed with getting to the next color. I knit these two at a time and started them both at the beginning of the same color. I don't know why it amazed me so much, but I was just delighted that kept matching up.

While I was focusing on these one color at a time, I kept trying to tell myself that these colors really weren't that girly, and I could have just as easily given them to a boy. Green. Yellow. Brown. Blue. There is absolutely no stereotypical female biases in there at all. And the pink? Meh! That is just one stripe per repeat, and they are intended for a baby. What baby boy is going to mind one pink stripe. But, now that they are done, and I can see them as a whole, I know that I just couldn't give these to a little boy. Why? I don't think that colors are really gendered or that any baby would be scarred from mixing it up a little. I finally realized that it is because of my relationship with the parents. My friends are all in different states. I'm not really a close part of this baby experience for any of them. It is bad enough that I can't provide the support that I would like to. I would hate for them to think that I forgot the sex of their baby because my busy city mouse lifestyle.

Enough chatter, I have to get knitting. There is another baby gift due before December, and I don' t have enough socks to make it through November.