There are some people who think a handknit is appropriate for every gift-giving occasion – I, sadly, am not one of them, because if I committed to that philosophy, I would do nothing but knit gifts for others. And yet? I broke my own rule last week when I whipped out this little number for a coworker expecting a baby, to go with one of Knit One Purl Too’s favorite children’s books. The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog is a great work of littratchure in part because the lessons learned (i.e., for true happiness, one must share the hot dog) are not so overt that the book is Teaching Children Something At the Expense of a Fine Story. I’m sneaky; I always think kids learn life lessons a little better if you give them a book called The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog instead of one called Nice People Share, you know what I mean?
The bib is of the Mason Dixon Knitting variety, made out of stash Bernat CottonTots from one of my very first projects (shh! don’t tell the baby I used yarn I already had!), and though it may look unassuming, I think this is my very first buttonhole experience. Woo! Unsurprisingly, even though this was ostensibly an event filled with co-workers and it was supposed to be a “book shower,” I was not the only giver of a handmade item – someone’s mom had made a swell handmade quilt, so she and I hung out in a group of two handcrafting peeps, ooohing and ahhhing over the fun of making things for babies.
But that is not my only FO: Because I am versatile, I also make things for moms – my mom to be specific. These are the Mom socks started in December on my trip to San Diego, ripped after discovering her feet were narrower than I thought, and reknitted with a Sherman heel and your basic toe (first seen as part of the 56-stitch, 56 row sock pattern, at least by me). They are not exactly the same as Christine’s, but I find it amusing that we knitted very siimilar socks (note that she started hers after I started mine and still finished before I did – impressively fast!). Some knitting pron for the geeky: a closeup of the heels (this is really the only place the color didn’t match). 
Next up? The second half of the Retro Rib leg you saw in the last post; after all, the next item I finish ties me with last year’s lame total of six completed objects. Making New Year’s resolutions is obviously a big contributor to knitting productivity.
*One of my favorite albums is the Oscar Peterson Trio’s We Get Requests, for several reasons: First, the great title which makes one of the all-time greatest jazz pianists sound like a short-order cook. Second? I never get tired of listening to The Girl From Ipanema (right-click and save, if you like). Well, now you know.
