Milo's Baby Blocks

I finally finished the toy baby blocks I've been knitting for our former neighbors Scott and Erin who just had a baby named Milo. They are 3" x 3". It was easy to knit little squares for the sides, and even the letters weren't too hard to do once I figured out how to carry another color behind the main color. The hardest part was finding foam cubes to stuff them with! I ended up having to make a trip to JoAnn Fabrics (and there are none within 20 minutes of our house) where they sell foam by the yard. I had Justin use his saw to cut them into cubes for me...he was pretty pleased to get to use such a manly tool for a craft, and now he gets to say he helped make them.

I really like how the mix of colors turned out. The two blue colors (unfortunately the sky blue looks more like white in the pictures) I had leftover from a striped belt I made, and the two green colors were given to me. At first I was sceptical of the greens, because I thought the one was too olive-toned and the other too dark, and I thought bright and pastel colors would be better for a baby gift. But I wanted to use colors I had, and I'm glad I did because Scott and Erin are artsy and like darker-toned colors. I also wanted to do the same pattern for each block, but at the last minute decided to mix up the colors. I thought it would look more artsy, but I had to plan out a specific rotation for the colors because I can't handle sponteneity (which is why I'm an engineer). I love how things only turn out cool when they're not how I initially want them to be.

My great aunt Phyllis was the one who gave me the green yarns. She was my mom's dad's sister, and my brothers and I were pretty much her grandkids since she didn't have any family of her own. She taught me how to knit when I was younger, and although I forgot and had to re-learn a few years ago, I like to think that I'm carrying on her tradition. In the summer of 2005 I visited Aunt Phyllis in Dearborn, Michigan on my drive from Chicago to Philly after spending a month at home after graduation. She had a stroke a few years earlier and hadn't been knitting, and I told her how I had taken up knitting again and asked her if I could have her yarn, knitting needles, and accessories. She didn't answer me, and I don't know if she understood me, but I like to think how happy she would be to see her knitting things being put to good use. This project is dedicated to her, and hopefully there will be many more to come.