This came from a leaflet called Snuggle-Up Baby Afghans. It’s the one with the blue and pink stirpes. I’ve got a couple of upcoming babies and at least one is a boy, so I decided to use all blue. This is a very bright blue for a baby but I like it. They say babies respond better to bright colors so why do we make everything for them out of pastels?

I debated whether or not to add the fringe, I suppose because I don’t really enjoy making fringe, but the waffle texture and stripes made it look a little too much like a dishrag without the fringe. It’s funny how I consider finishing tasks like weaving in ends and adding fringe to be work but crocheting to be fun. The motion for adding fringe is almost exactly the same as for rug hooking, so if I were a rug hooker, that’s what I’d be doing all along and I suppose I’d think it was fun then. Actually, I started a rug once but never finished it, so maybe I just really don’t like that hooking motion!

I’m not very good at getting the fringe all trimmed up evenly and usually end up feeling like I cut it three times and it’s still too short but Todd is concerned that a baby could choke on fringe if it were too long so in this case short fringe isn’t a bad thing (not that I’ve ever heard of a baby fringe choking incident).

I made these from Booties by the Dozen for my soon-to-be nephew Logan. His soon-to-be father is a huge sports fan, so I think they’ll be a hit. I really hate working with thread though, especially black thread. It’s so hard to see the holes or to count stitches and it really strains my eyes.

Here’s a funny story about making these booties. I had started them before and got as far as both soles and one upper. Then I couldn’t stand working with thread anymore and put them away for a while. When I got everything out again, I couldn’t find the spool of black crochet thread, so I walked down to Wal-Mart to buy a new spool. Well, they had every color on earth except black. On my way back home I thought about where that black thread could have gone. I couldn’t have run out of it, so it must be somewhere.

I keep my crochet thread in a plastic tub inside a chest that also holds bedding for the guest room, but I used to keep it in a plastic bag. So I figured that probably the plastic bag had spilled open and the black spool had gotten lost amongst the bedding and hadn’t made it into the tub and if I looked when I got home I’d find it mixed in with the sheets, but if not I’d drive down to AC Moore and buy another spool. Well, somehow when I got home I forgot that I was going to look for the spool in the chest (probably because I like going to AC Moore) so I got straight in the car and went and bought a replacement spool which I promptly started using to make the second upper.

Now for the tragedy: when I’d finished the second upper and held it against the first to make sure my gauge hadn’t changed, I realized that they weren’t quite the same color of black. There’s black and then there’s really black and the first one was only black whereas the second one was really black. So I had to make the first upper over again using the new thread. And the kicker is that when I went and looked, the old thread was right where I figured it had to be.

So chalk up one walking trip, one driving trip, $2.39 for a spool of thread, and one extra upper to the mistake of not thoroughly looking in the first place.

In case you hate working in thread as much as I do, I found a place online (Laydeebug) selling what I’m pretty sure are these same booties, only made for you already. Believe me, I considered it!