Babies! Yarnage! Pictures in glorious >>>Blog-O-Vision(tm)<<<

This is my pal Benjamin, aka Baby Nemo. He models a dashing chapeau resplendent in shades of scarlet and eggshell, accented by a boldly patterned blankie with... uh... swords on it.

See, in Y!PP we've got this swordfighting puzzle that's vaguely Tetris-esque. Blocks have different colors with different types of swords on them. So some friends and I got together and decided to each make patterned color blocks that looked like those in the game. The simple variation between knit and purl stitches proved more than adequate for patterning, and we decided on mercerized cotton for its washability and brightness. Jacquilynne (in Toronto) did the finishing and the blue and yellow, also creating the patterns in Excel, while Lemur (in St. Paul) took the green and I took the red. I also included the baby stripey cap seen here. In the game, particular patterns of colors score in different ways based on what sword you use, so we picked a pattern and arranged the color blocks accordingly. Then Jacquilynne finished it all off with a cabled gold binding made to look like rope. (More detailed pictures of its construction can be found here -- trust me when I say that's actually blue, not purple.)

I'm sure that some people would have been a bit mystified by the patterns, but how awesome to be able to take something that Benjamin's dad had a hand in and make it into a bright, snuggly gift. We couldn't have been happier with the end result, and as you can see we had a very happy baby (and mom and dad!) as well.