Do you remember when I learned to crochet a baby beanie? I was happy to pick up a new skill, but it almost felt like a parlor trick. I mean, it's not like I was going to start making beanies left and right. Right? Heck, I even finished that blog post with a joking recommendation for people I know to have more babies precisely because I figured it was a one-off type occurrence.
Well, the universe has a quirky sense of humor. As it turns out, I now have FOUR close friends and family who are all pregnant. What's more, they are all due around the same time. What are the odds? I can understand four such people being pregnant at the same time, or even being pregnant in the same year (I'm at that age). But four people all due within a month or so of each other? What are the odds?
One of those people just so happens to be my sister. She is the first of us siblings to have a kid, so it's an extra special big deal. It wasn't a matter of whether I was going to make her kid a beanie, it was a question of what that beanie was going to look like. I wanted this thing to be super awesome. So, I went hunting for interesting beanies.
Ultimately, I settled on a pattern for a 1-up mushroom. For the uninitiated, the 1-up mushroom is a mainstay in the Super Mario Brothers video games. For many of those games, you get multiple attempts to beat levels. Each such attempt is called a life, and a 1-up mushroom adds an additional life to your total. I figured that having a baby was the real-life equivalent of a 1-up mushroom, so this seemed like the perfect idea. Also, there's the small fact that my sister loves the Super Mario Brothers series.
So, I went about crocheting this beanie. I had to adjust the pattern in that video a bit, since it was originally designed for an adult. This was obviously not meant for an adult. However, I'm no pro. I had to guess and backtrack a bit to get the general mushroom shape. Mind you, "backtracking" in this scenario means undoing a bunch of stitches in a round. That can mean undoing 50+ stitches, to give you some idea of the scale involved. Let's just say that you really don't want to screw up.
I also consulted the Mild Fiancée a few times, to see if she thought the beanie was the right shape or size. In fact, I asked her enough times that she decided I needed a model of some sort in order to actually measure whether or not the beanie was the right size. However, it's not like we have babies or toddlers lying around. The next best approximation was a baby doll. They're shaped like a baby, right? So, for a few dollars, I gained a baby-shaped measuring tape. The funniest part was that she asked a couple of the moms at the store if the doll was the right size, but they universally remarked that the doll was more like a premature baby. So, I actually had to make the beanie fit very, very loosely on said doll.
Eventually, after quite a few nights of crocheting to get it right, I had an actual beanie. Heck, I even spent a short car ride crocheting to put the finishing touches on the beanie. I think it turned out well, though I also know full well where I could've done a better job. The Mild Fiancée thought the whole thing was amusing, so she took a picture to commemorate the occasion:
Well, the universe has a quirky sense of humor. As it turns out, I now have FOUR close friends and family who are all pregnant. What's more, they are all due around the same time. What are the odds? I can understand four such people being pregnant at the same time, or even being pregnant in the same year (I'm at that age). But four people all due within a month or so of each other? What are the odds?
One of those people just so happens to be my sister. She is the first of us siblings to have a kid, so it's an extra special big deal. It wasn't a matter of whether I was going to make her kid a beanie, it was a question of what that beanie was going to look like. I wanted this thing to be super awesome. So, I went hunting for interesting beanies.
Ultimately, I settled on a pattern for a 1-up mushroom. For the uninitiated, the 1-up mushroom is a mainstay in the Super Mario Brothers video games. For many of those games, you get multiple attempts to beat levels. Each such attempt is called a life, and a 1-up mushroom adds an additional life to your total. I figured that having a baby was the real-life equivalent of a 1-up mushroom, so this seemed like the perfect idea. Also, there's the small fact that my sister loves the Super Mario Brothers series.
So, I went about crocheting this beanie. I had to adjust the pattern in that video a bit, since it was originally designed for an adult. This was obviously not meant for an adult. However, I'm no pro. I had to guess and backtrack a bit to get the general mushroom shape. Mind you, "backtracking" in this scenario means undoing a bunch of stitches in a round. That can mean undoing 50+ stitches, to give you some idea of the scale involved. Let's just say that you really don't want to screw up.
I also consulted the Mild Fiancée a few times, to see if she thought the beanie was the right shape or size. In fact, I asked her enough times that she decided I needed a model of some sort in order to actually measure whether or not the beanie was the right size. However, it's not like we have babies or toddlers lying around. The next best approximation was a baby doll. They're shaped like a baby, right? So, for a few dollars, I gained a baby-shaped measuring tape. The funniest part was that she asked a couple of the moms at the store if the doll was the right size, but they universally remarked that the doll was more like a premature baby. So, I actually had to make the beanie fit very, very loosely on said doll.
Eventually, after quite a few nights of crocheting to get it right, I had an actual beanie. Heck, I even spent a short car ride crocheting to put the finishing touches on the beanie. I think it turned out well, though I also know full well where I could've done a better job. The Mild Fiancée thought the whole thing was amusing, so she took a picture to commemorate the occasion:
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| I may have also been amused by this whole thing |
One down, three to go.
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