Baby Bird Mobile

About a month or so ago, I joined a group on Ravelry that did swaps among its members. I decided to join, and the first "swap" that came up was for everyone to knit a gift for a current member that was pregnant. I love to knit for babies, so I joined right away not really concerned that I was not going to receive anything in return. Especially considering I needed an excuse to knit more of my stash, since it seems to be growing exponentially.

At first I did not know what I wanted to make. This being a group of knitters, I didn't want to make the typical baby gifts (hats, sweaters, booties, etc) not that there is anything wrong with that but I was sure that some of the others would be making them as well. I stumbled across this pattern on Knitty Flock By: Meg Bakewell and thought it would be perfect!

I got off to a false start on it when my lovely spouse accidently cut the dowels the wrong length that required a trip back to the hardware store. Then I knit diligently on this project for the space of a month, and taught myself to crochet a chain and the provisional crochet cast-on (which I love). Honestly, it would not take that long to knit but I have a horrible habit of having many projects on the go at once. I also finished a baby kimono (for another friend), a shawl, and started another shawl while I was knitting this.

Baby Birds

I did take some liberties with the pattern, I decreased the amount of leaves to 16 instead of 24. I didn't knit each bird with as many colours as I didn't know what her decorating scheme for the nursery would be and didn't want it to be too "busy". I painted the eyes on the birds with black puff paint instead of embroidering them on, but I like the way it looks. Who knows maybe I'll convince myself to make another one of these for my own home!

I sure hope she likes it.