Rosanna Dell 10/20/15 Rosanna Dell 10/20/15

Because I said sew...

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.

Rosanna Dell 5/13/15 Rosanna Dell 5/13/15

Hung out to dry... life with a newborn

For some reason, I never considered that I would carry little N to term. I was sure that I would be one of the lucky mothers who shaves the last painful week or even just a few days from the standard 40-week-haul. My estimated due date was set for the day after Easter, and I was absolutely confident that Nettle would be with us in time to celebrate the holiday. What I wasn't taking into account was Nettie. And Nettie has ideas of her own.

So as her due date came and then went, I had to find ways to fill the time. Aside from several painfully slow and laborious walks a day, I found myself almost compulsively knitting and crocheting tiny hats. Because babies need hats, right? Their tender little heads get cold without them. Good mothers of newborns keep them in hats. I was determined to have a healthy supply of handmade hats. No cheapy, thin, store-bought hats when I had time to make them myself. I had found a new calling in life: making tiny hats. My yarn stash went from six skeins to 50 in about a week. No joke. I started with crocheted hats made with "chunky" yarn. These were easy and quick. Then I knitted beanies. I tried a turban, then two. I crocheted bonnets. I even made one of these pointy, elfin-style hats that I thought I didn't like. Turns out I do like them. I knitted one of my own pattern. Added embroidery. Nothing was going to stop me; if I wasn't eating or sleeping, there was a crochet hook or knitting needles and yarn in my lap. I was working on a diaper cover and booties to match the pointy yellow cap the night I went into labor.

And of course, as it happens, our baby only needed ONE hat. And it wasn't the adorable gray knitted hat with the embroidered sheep (never mind that it was so small that it fit like a yamaka; see photo below). It was the generic blue-and-pink-striped hat that all newborns have jammed on their slimy little heads.... and which I struggled to keep on her bobbing, butting, stubborn, hat-hating head for the next six hours, until she had her first bath.

Then we sent it home with Grandma to have the cat smell (This is supposed to help prepare pets for the soon-to-arrive baby. That's assuming they come near it, as our cat would not.) I tried to replace it with a sweet little sherbet-colored knitted hat with a pom-pom on top. A battle followed that lasted the morning, but by lunch-time, it was clear that one of us was wearing thin and the other's efforts were only redoubling. I flew the white flag, or more appropriately, the ecru scalloped crocheted bonnet... and that marked the end of Nettie's hat-wearing career.

Four weeks with a newborn has taught me to leave all expectations of what you would like to have happen behind. Actually, if you don't come to terms with that in the first week you're in for a lot of disappointment and pointless struggle. So I haven't fretted much about the dozen-odd, unused hats I spent weeks making and will never see her wear for more than a minute at a time. Or the crocheted shoes or knitted jumper and diaper covers. I'm too tired to fight her and I'd rather just enjoy my baby. Which I can do well enough when she's just wearing a diaper, or her favorite ratty, hand-me-down sleeper.

But just for posterity, I thought I'd try to get a few photos of Nettie modeling some of her hats... Okay, okay; you'll see I didn't really try that hard. So there are a few photos from the hospital when I was still fresh and not as fully-acquainted with my strong-willed child. I did try with a few of the hats once we got home and then gave up and just cheated and took photos of them out on the clothesline. But here's a little Dr. Seuss-inspired-rhyme to go along with the pictures. (Nettie is partial to Dr. Seuss.)

One hat, two hat

grey hat, blue hat.