skull, bones, yarn, fascist ideas about babies

warning: knitting content.

my baby sister and her husband are all sorts of pregnant and just so you know, almost every female i know of childbearing age has been pregnant during the last three years. it's like they all joined some cult and instead of shaving their heads or drinking kool-aid, they got knocked up. this means i've been knitting baby things nonstop for a while. baby things are nice because they're small and quick and i can use my littlest dachshund for sizing. yes, i do. i did a blanket for the first baby i knew and hated it. this was back when i was knitting for the parents and i picked a cuddly pale yellow yarn that had the word "baby" right in the name and a promise that "acrylic" wouldn't make the baby irritated. what i made was a stupid yellow blanket that looked like scrambled eggs. i named it after the hayden carruth poem scrambled eggs and whiskey, but i think i may have damaged the poem instead of helping the blanket.

the thing about babies is that although they are, for the most part, sort of cute, this does not mean they want treacly crap strewn about them in soft pastels. babies like bold colors. babies are not exceptionally passionate about bunnies and kitties. they like hard things to bang on and throw. babies are dangerous. so i made my sister's new kid a blanket in black with a bone colored skull and crossbones in the middle. although the basic pattern is the same as the scrambled eggs blanket, making this one did not destroy my dignity or my sanity. i used alpaca wool. it knits up nicely and is quite warm. if he wants, the kid can sleep outside in winter. really.

i knit on the train and at work and in a cafe some days and people always ask what i'm knitting. "a baby blanket for my new nephew," i say, smiling. "oh, how adorable. what's on it?" "a skull and crossbones," i reply, holding it up proudly because it's my first successful attempt at intarsia. i am like a five year old holding up a finger painting masterpiece and i want praise. generally the praise comes in the form of something like, "oh, that's not really for a baby!" or "are you sure?" or something equally likely to be stupid. when i say, "of course i'm sure. yes, it's for a baby," they say, "oh, well, i guess if you want to..." and things trail off. thank you for your permission. i do want to. now that i've met you, i really, really want to. the best part is that even if coworkers and total strangers manage to wrangle their comments around to something like, "how unusual," the facial expressions are unmistakable. most folks look like they're smelling something awful and experiencing searing gas pains at the same time. some actually cringe as though the blanket will get them if they stay too close. it will. the blanket gets stupid people. yep. i couldn't find a fairy godmother for the kid so i made him a stupid-people-getting blanket.

for those of you who might want to make yourselves something like this, i'm pretty halfassed with patterns. the border is moss stitch and the skull is something i found online. if you've never done intarsia, a flat project in one color is your best bet. because of the crossed bones and eyes and all, at one point i had seven or eight balls of yarn hanging off and endured multiple jokes around the subject. putting them in ziploc bags made things slightly easier. the balls, not the jokesters. although... check the link to intarsia chart paper over in that links section and if you're feeling like doing your own pattern, there's a link to an intarsia pattern generator. you download any image (even a photo) and it will grid it up for you in a variety of sizes.