It’s getting cold here and since Nettie is topping the charts for everything, not least of all for head size, I realized that she is in need of some bigger hats for winter. You might remember Nettie’s early aversion to hats, so you have good reason to balk at my decision to invest more time and labor in a new batch of headwear for her. Well, Nettie may have inherited her big head from her dad. But she inherits her hard head from me. If it’s below 60 degrees outside, I worry that her ears will get too cold. I don’t know what happens when your ears get too cold, outside of an earache, but I have a general anxiety about it. So that little skeeziks is going to wear a hat when we go on walks. It might kill one or both of us, but we’ll die with warm heads.

I made another pointy-gnome-style bonnet for her, which was my favorite hat from the first go-round. The pattern is super easy and the style is cute and practical. This time I used blue yarn. Because everything is better with blue bonnet it it! Even a screaming baby! And I lined it with a piece of an old red sweater, so it’s extra soft and warm inside. I made the ties long and colorful so that maybe she’ll think they’re pretty and fun to play with. Here’s a link to the tutorial: http://www.danyelpinkdesigns.com/2014/07/crochet-pattern-little-maiden-bonnet.html?m=1. It’s by Danyel Pink Designs and she calls it “The Little Maiden Bonnet.”

I'm making Nettie do something that terrifies her - learn to wear hats, so it's only fair that I work on facing one of my fears, too. No, she doesn't know that I'm trying to be egalitarian and probably wouldn't be at all motivated by that if she did, but it's the principle. And when you're home with a six-month-old all day by yourself, you have to keep it real, folks. So yeah, I'm kicking things up a notch. Otherwise the biggest exercise my brain gets most days is trying to remember the words to "The Rakes of Mallow." (don't ask....)

So I'm facing a big fear. One that I avoid all the time, because I DO go on Pinterest a decent amount. And my feed is always full of simple sewing tutorials for toddler clothes. Which of course I pin. The problem is that I don't sew. I don't sew because I'm afraid of sewing machines. Very afraid. I avoid them if I can, and when I do encounter one I try not to look directly at it.  Just being near one raises my blood pressure.  When people tell me about their sewing projects my self-esteem plummets. Seamstresses actually intimidate me more than people who run marathons or don't like chocolate. Or make their own fresh coconut-probiotic yogurt. Or claim to have enjoyed pregnancy. Sorry. Where was I?

Oh, yes, sewing machines. First of all, you have to thread your blasted bobbin. Which entails multiple thread breaks and always ends in a knotted-up, swollen blob of thread that has completely consumed the spool. Then if you manage to get a working bobbin, you have to thread the machine, which for me, means reading the manual and trying to follow the two-dimensional diagram.  I thread the machine about a dozen different ways before I actually get it running, and by the time I have seams running smoothly on the top and bottom, the bobbin thread has run out and I don't have the mind to run another. Not to mention the nerves left to manage the foot feed, which is the most terrifying part of all. The dreaded jerky "hum---um---um---um." The slow pressure and the suspense as you wait for the needle to lower and the fabric to start feeding through, then the dreaded "hum----hum---hum-hum-bum!bum!bum!bum!" of having pressed too hard and let the machine run away from you, taking your fabric with it. I have two sewing speeds: no speed and full speed. It makes my feet sweaty just thinking about it.

So I decided to start with something that didn't require a big monetary investment in fabric or time, a little fabric ball for Nettie. She doesn't have any balls yet and this pattern promised to be quick and easy. But really, don't they all promise that on Pinterest? Come on. 

Was it quick? Was it easy? Well, I gave it a go and I'll show you how things turned out soon in another post. Here's Nettie passed out in her blue bonnet after our walk.