As you may have noticed, there has been a lull in creative activity at the Casa de Cusser these days. We’re getting my mother-in-law’s house ready to sell, and because I used to paint houses for a living and therefore can’t stand the thought of hiring someone else to do it, I volunteered to do the painting. To no-one’s surprise, this turned out to be a much bigger job than I expected, partly because I am very, very fussy about painting, and partly because it’s been a while and I am slower than I used to be. What has surprised me about this task (beyond the fact that it never seems to end) is the amount of creative energy it sucks out of a person. At the end of the day, all I want to do is sit down with someone else’s pattern, preferably in garter stitch, and binge-watch murder mysteries. This has not been great for writing or designing, but it sure has helped me make a dent in the backlog of gift knitting, especially tiny, fast baby knitting. Fair warning: there is an awful lot of adorable ahead.

First, I finished these:

Daphne and Delilah the Momma and Baby Monster by Rebecca Danger for The Woolet, in Rowan Wool Cotton. I’ve made a few of these monsters, and they never stop being fun. I like that there are two different sizes of monster, and that as he gets older, Woolet can derive hours of amusement from putting the baby in the momma’s pocket and taking it out again.  Many thanks to his mum, paparatti, for letting me use her photo.

Next, a blanket. When I offered to make this for Specklet’s baby, she sent some beautiful yarn that had been languishing in her stash. We have no idea what yarn it is, but I loved the colours and the texture and wanted to design something that would make the most of these qualities. I played with stripes and slipped stitches, and a weird thing happened: put next to each other in small amounts, the purples and oranges lost their richness, and the stockinette fabric seemed insufficiently squooshy, even with the slipped stitches. After a lot of experimenting, I came up with this:

Soft, nubbly, garter-stitchy loveliness. I think he likes it.

(Thanks, Specklet, for the photo!)

Of course, there was knitting for the new nephew, whom I dubbed Galactus, Eater of Worlds while his parents chose a name. He has a name now, but he’ll always be Galactus to me. So, for Galactus, a wee kimono-style cardigan (Åsa Tricosa’s stina in Rowan Baby Merino Silk DK):

and

These simple DROPS baby socks in some Knit Picks Felici from the stash. Why are they different sizes? I don’t know. Does it matter? Not really. He’s tiny. He won’t mind.