feverish knitting

Is it just me, or does everyone have baby fever? Suddenly it seems like no one has a blind clue how to work a condom and people are popping out babies left, right and center (abstinence-only education: so easy, a caveman could do it!). But here I am, no baby fever to speak of (although we had a shower at work Friday for 1 of our 2 pregnant colleagues and the baby Winnie the Pooh décor was quite adorable, I must say).
But I do have knitting baby things fever. The second pregnant girl here is on my team, and even though we aren’t particularly close (since I’m not close with anyone here, owing to hating my job, although most of the people are bastante amables), I’ve picked out not 1, not 2, but THREE things to knit for her baby girl. I don’t know what I’m thinking. Actually, I guess I do—baby things are cute, but small, so they (presumably) knit up quickly, which means more instant knitting gratification, less toiling for hours and hours over enormous, seemingly never-ending projects (ahem, Hemlock).
So, up to bat we have Saartje’s Booties, February Baby Sweater, and Personalized Baby Blanket (Ravelry links). The only one of these I’m concerned about is the sweater. I’ve got EZ’s Knitter’s Almanac, but it’s not so much a sweater pattern as some random thoughts on how one might knit a sweater for a baby, if one were so inclined. Yet somehow, many knitters on Ravelry have knit up some adorable sweaters using these vague directions, so it must, in fact, be possible. I guess I’ll be doing some research.

Now, back to Hemlock—I’m binding off! The problem? The bind off directions read as follows:
"K 1, * k 2 tog, O, k 2 tog, turn, p 1, work 5 sts in next st -- to work 5 sts in 1 (k 1, p 1) twice in the same st, then k in the same st once more. P 1, sl 1, turn, bind off 7 sts (1 st remains on right-hand needle). Repeat from * around."
I started last night and didn’t even make it to the first marker. This is going to take forever.

Lotus Blossom, sadly, has been one problem after another, and I can’t really pinpoint a reason. The first problem is that I don’t think I have enough yarn—I forgot that in order to adjust it a la Lickety’s Knit’s LBT, I would need extra yarn (adding an extra lace repeat), so I ordered only 5 balls, not 6. But we’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it (as my friend Mike used to say; I’m sure he stole that expression from someone, though, he was always a terrible plagiarist). I had been knitting LBT on the Metro and having no problems, but once I started working on it in the quieter, calmer, considerably less bumpy house, all hell broke loose. First, I put in an extra YO somewhere and had to “un-knit” (which is my usual course of action owing to less-than-admirable skill at frogging) a round, and then I dropped a stitch and had to rescue that. Now I think I’m back on track, but a bit hesistant to start up again.