{"id":107,"date":"2010-01-12T22:14:03","date_gmt":"2010-01-13T06:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gknerd.com\/?p=107"},"modified":"2010-01-12T22:14:03","modified_gmt":"2010-01-13T06:14:03","slug":"the-baby-booties-of-doom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gknerd.com\/?p=107","title":{"rendered":"The Baby Booties of DOOM"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend, the Blanket Thief<\/a> and I were invited to a baby shower (well, technically, we were invited several weeks ago, but the actual event happened this weekend).\u00a0 And last week, I saw some Magic Slippers<\/a> that my friend Hot Pink Mama had created, and…well…I have plenty<\/em> of leftover sock yarn by this point.\u00a0 Most of it I’m keeping to eventually make a Blankie<\/a>, but there’s a few skeins that are wool or bamboo or corn based which wouldn’t fit in well with the other wool-based yarns, so Magic Slippers seemed like a great idea.<\/p>\n

I pulled out a leftover skein of something – I think it might be Maizy, if my memory isn’t failing me, but I have no idea whether that’s a company or a particular line of yarn or what.\u00a0 The ball band is long<\/em> gone, so the color is also past knowing.\u00a0 Really, the only thing I really remember about this one is that it’s got corn in it.\u00a0 And it makes really<\/em> thick, squishy socks.<\/p>\n

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Given that we didn’t know what gender the baby-to-be will be, mottled purple seemed like a nice, neutral choice.\u00a0 I read the instructions for the slippers at SockPixie’s<\/a> blog, turned on some TV, and went to work.<\/p>\n

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The sole took about an hour – SockPixie says that she can normally whip up a pair in that time, but I think I lost time between using a smaller needle size, slightly sticky yarn, and reverse engineering the pattern (because, er, I didn’t want to go back and look at the actual instructions…).\u00a0 I bet if I were using larger needles and\/or wool-based yarn, I’d come much closer to the pair per hour rate that she’s churning them out…although even then, I doubt I’d really match her speed.\u00a0 (Reminds self that it’s not a race, really<\/strong>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

For a bit of perspective, here’s the sole against my fingers.\u00a0 Keep in mind that I actually have really small hands and the needles are size 0 (2.0mm).<\/p>\n

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Again, at this point, I didn’t want to check the directions, so while I knew I had to pick up stitches I didn’t remember how many.\u00a0 I’d slipped the first stitch of every row, giving it a neat selvage edge, so I figured I’d just pick up a stitch per every slipped stitch.\u00a0 Ultimately, I think I ended up with about 65 or so stitches – and since I was supposed to end up with 62, that sounds pretty good to me.<\/p>\n

I loved the way the circular needle wrapped around the sole after the stitches were picked up – it reminded me of a trilobite.<\/p>\n

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This is where my booties stop looking like the original, however.\u00a0 SockPixie’s version is knit in garter stitch, I decided to go with stockinette so the cuff would roll over a bit at the top.\u00a0 I also did different sets of decreases (although that might not actually be noticeable, now that I think about it).<\/p>\n

At this point in writing the post, Monkey Kitty walked over the keyboard and managed to make my cursor completely disappear.\u00a0 Oh, the joys of having cats…although, as you’ll see later, there’s an argument that I deserved it…<\/em><\/p>\n

Anyway, the top of the booty was much quicker than the sole, and before I knew it, I had a booty!\u00a0 (Does anyone else think the singular of “booties” is weird looking?\u00a0 Or, at least, odd in the context of babies?\u00a0 Although, I suppose, it’s all a cycle – booty calls lead to babies lead to booties…er…anyway…)<\/em> Here, look at the booty!<\/p>\n

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Almost instantaneously, the second booty also appeared – it really was like magic!\u00a0 There was a pair!\u00a0 And they were sooo cute!\u00a0 Looking at them, I thought that maybe, just maybe, it would be a good idea to start making babies of my own – you know, so I could have my own sets of adorable little baby booties like this:<\/p>\n

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At that point, the Blanket Thief declared that we would have to get those booties out of my sight now<\/em>, and that I wasn’t allowed to make any more of them.\u00a0 He considers them the Baby Booties of Doom\u2122, and worries about the effects of me knitting more.<\/p>\n

I might still make a few sets in secret, though.\u00a0 They’re just too cute.\u00a0 Seriously.<\/p>\n

As to why Monkey Kitty might be mad enough to make my cursor disappear…well…right now, he’s my substitute baby, so I forced him to try them on.<\/p>\n

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Turns out, kitties don’t like wearing booties.\u00a0 They also don’t fit very well.\u00a0 Who knew?<\/p>\n

(Don’t worry, the booties were thoroughly washed before being given to the mommy-to-be.\u00a0 And, although annoyed and embarrassed, no cats were harmed in the making and photographing of the booties.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend, the Blanket Thief and I were invited to a baby shower (well, technically, we were invited several weeks ago, but the actual event happened this weekend).\u00a0 And last week, I saw some Magic Slippers that my friend Hot Pink Mama had created, and…well…I have plenty of leftover sock yarn by this point.\u00a0 Most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,28],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-baby-stuff","tag-monkey-kitty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gknerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gknerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gknerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gknerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gknerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gknerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gknerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gknerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gknerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}