Baby Cocoons and Blossoms

Anne Geddes is an Australian photographer who now makes her home in New Zealand.  She focuses on taking ethereal photos of babies and says. . ."emotional content is an image's most important element."  Her photos are very well known, used in cards and calendars around the world, and she was the first person to introduce me to the baby cocoon.  Here's an example of her photos and a cocoon all in one.

If you'd like to see more of her photos, please click on this link.  The light and serene setting is very soothing which combine to make all the babies Geddes photographs look like little angels. (Of course, it doesn't hurt that her photos almost exclusively capture them sleeping.  Sleeping babies are always angelic no matter what they did just before they fell asleep.)

See how the baby above is in a tubular wrap. Way back, when I first saw these photos, I had no idea what the container was called, but I knew some day I'd find a pattern to make one.  Intuitively, at least to me, they make sense for a newborn.  A cocoon can help the newborn feel safe, surrounded and in familiar space.

I must have muttered this interest in a cocoon out loud to Tena because on the yarn crawl she found one.  It was made from a free Ravelry pattern designed by HMS Bluebird.  This project introduced me to a new stitch, the twisted drop stitch to boot.  Using the near-ever present Google search function, I found this very helpful video to learn how to do the stitch.  Within a little over an hour, my cocoon was complete.

My version of the cocoon

Upon closer examination of the completed work it became clear to me that perhaps I'd need to do some tweaking with the pattern.  First, the long-tail cast on, in my hands, yielded a very inelastic opening, which probably isn't good when you are trying to insert a newborn.  A light went off in my head, and I decide to see how hard it might be to get something wiggly in the cocoon.  (You know where I'm going, and I do hear you groaning as you read this!  Yes, I do.)

I don't have a baby readily available, nor do I even own a small doll to test this cocoon, but I do own a cat and he is rather small and wiggly.  I did, with ever so slight amount of manhandling, get poor Mike, the cat, in the cocoon, although I believe he'd call it a bag or sack.  It was during this test-sacking that I more fully determined the weave might be too loose.  One or more of his four legs seemed to find their way through the weave.

I've told this story of bagging Mike to a few folks and to a person I was asked:  Did you take a picture or video of this event?  REALLY, have you ever tried to put a cat in a bag when he absolutely doesn't want to go there.  I'm lucky he even tolerated the moments he spent in the cocoon much less having the wherewithal or a free hand to take a photo.  Just imagine a very  unhappy cat.  And as Geddes says: "emotional content is an image's most important element."  Mike's image would have contained the emotion of complete disdain, I believe.  Here's a reasonable reenactment, only this cat doesn't have its paws slipping out of an open weave:

Not Mike, the cat, but the attitude is spot on.

Mike, the cat, was almost immediately released and as is his habit after such incidents, spent the rest of the evening avoiding me.  By the next morning all was forgotten though.  Mike does not hold a grudge, I love that about him.

Then it occurred to me, I have a colleague with a near newborn.  Perhaps this baby would be willing to test drive my cocoon.  But before it was ready for a newborn, it first had to be thoroughly washed, blocked and dried.  Rey and Gloria got the cocoon today for Jordan.  I'll share the feedback from them when I get it.  Maybe even a photo or two.

Finally and on a complete random tangent, we are in full flower mode here in the Pacific Northwest.  Here are a couple of quick photos from my yarnd.  The clematis is that lovely colour of maroon with its fuzzy center and the rhododendrons in red are breath taking.  Do you hear the bees buzzing?  They were everywhere in the rhodes.   All this means summer is around the corner, or at least I can hope it is.