My first foray into designing

I am designing a baby sundress. I don't really like to accumulate a stash, so when I finish projects I look for something to do with the leftover yarn right away (my recent opera scarf is a good example). For some reason I decided that a cute little infant tank sundress would be a good way to use up the ribbon yarn. This is the approximate extent of my planning for this garment:

96 st --> 48 st / dec 6 st. 8 times ev. 6 rows?

Then I just launched in. I don't yet have enough done to know whether I'm setting myself up for severe disillusionment.

My main problem is that I don't have a good sense of the approximate size and shape of babies, and I don't know ANYONE with a baby girl. (It disappoints me that society is still at a point where the moms I know, progressive as they are, would probably be hesitant to let me try my sundress on their sons just for sizing purposes.) The secondary problem is that even if I did have a way to obtain baby measurements, recent evidence has demonstrated that gauge on Deco Ribbon yarn is not a straightforward size indicator. So, I resort to guessing. The nice thing about babies is that they are sort of blob shaped and pretty much anything will fit them at one point or another.

Pictures this weekend of my progress (with my new digital camera, due to arrive today!).