Pattern Available!

Cabled Bubbles Hat($2.00 US)

This is a written out, round by round pattern. The location of the beginning of the round occasionally changes due to the placement of the cables, so a stitch marker is necessary to keep your place. A cable needle is also recommended unless the knitter feels comfortable cabling without one.

And because it is sized to fit a man, woman or child, it is a perfect knit to keep the whole family warm!

Baby Girl is Here!

Well, after a long labor (thank goodness for epidurals), Evangeline arrived on August 23rd at 4:18pm and weighed 6lb 10oz, just like her mom and dad.  She is now 6 weeks old and I'm not quite as deliriously sleep-deprived as I have been.  She really is adorable.

I was going to go on a little rant about breastfeeding, but I've decided there are enough of those out there and if someone really wants to know our particular story, they can email me about it,  It will suffice to say it is much more difficult than anyone led me to believe.

We also had a lot of trouble sleeping in the first weeks (she wanted to be held 24/7), but we have started cosleeping and that seems to be taking care of most of the issue.

Not much knitting has been done lately, but I figure that is pretty much par for the course.  A little every few days seems to be pretty good right now, since most of my day is feeding Evie and looking at things one-handed on the computer.  Hopefully knitting on a regular basis will return in a few more weeks.

The Perfect Buttons

So, I did end up finding the perfect buttons to go with the BSJ I made.  They are pink, yellow and purple daisies and they match the colors of the sweater like they were meant to go together.  Shankless buttons are so much easier than having to sew your own shanks.

Now that her sweater is complete, it is almost time for baby girl to be here.  I got a haircut to minimize hair maintenance in the first few months.

I do feel like I'm getting pretty close to be totally stretched out.  We have an induction scheduled on Monday (39 weeks, 2 days), so if she doesn't decide an early arrival is the way to go, that will be the day I deliver.  Only a few of my shirts are still long enough to cover the stretch panel in the maternity shorts, but I should be able to hold out a few days longer.  It will be nice when I don't have to worry as much about bumping into things, and bending at the waist will not be something I will take for granted for a long time.

I have also been working on a few knitting projects, but they are originals and I am considering submitting them places, so I'll hold off posting photos of them, at least for a while.  One is in lace weight, one in bulky.  And I've got another idea floating around my head, but I need to do lots of calculations before I get started with it, especially since it will probably take forever with the gauge I am thinking about using.

The summer has been crazy hot this year, and I've spent most of my time in the air conditioning, trying to keep my feet up and the swelling due to pregnancy down.  The petunias sure are loving the heat and humidity though (and I am a rather inattentive gardener).

Big changes are coming up for us starting Monday, and I really hope that I will be able to continue working on knitting and designing things.  I'll certainly not have a lot of brainpower for a little while, so I will be working on our little one's felted stocking...hoorah for stockinette.  She'll get a Christmas tree needle felted onto hers, and hopefully it will be done in plenty of time before Christmas day.  If her stocking gets done soon enough, and I'm not ready for making my own patterns yet, I'll probably start working on Anne Hanson's Sproessling.  I've got my Georgia Peach yarn that I'm probably going to use for it...and I may even finish by Spring so I can wear it before it gets too hot.  We'll see how it goes!

Baby Knitting

I have finally gotten the buttons on the Presto Chango sweater for baby girl.  I think it looks adorable, particularly the owl panel, and I hope that she will be the right size to wear it this winter.  That is especially questionable since she is behind now (only 14%tile).  This means another trip to the specialist and keeping a very close eye on her, which for me means two doctor's appointments a week with non-stress tests.  It looks like she will come out early rather than late, so we may need to make another trip to Babies 'R' Us to get some preemie clothes.  See what I mean about wondering if she'll be able to wear it or not?  She'll probably be the perfect size once summer rolls around and it is way too hot for wool.

I also have the Baby Surprise Jacket done (in approximately the same size, of course), minus the buttons which I'm not sure I will put on.  I have found I hate sewing the buttons on when I have to create a shank.  The problem is, I really like the look of shankless buttons.  There must be a shortcut...I can't be the only one that dislikes it.  Either that or I will find a set of buttons with shanks that I love.  I may go looking for some next week.

When I was in Seattle, I got some Lamb's Pride yarn for making baby girl's Christmas stocking.  I have started work on that, and it will be my baseline project when I'm not swatching for my next potential design.  I think I'd like to make a shawl, and since gauge doesn't much matter, all I have to do is find a few motifs I really like that fit together and figure out how to make a triangle out of them.  The only think is I can really only swatch one motif a day with the RSI, which makes for some slow going as I am trying to decide what will work with the laceweight yarn.  I've discovered that too many yarnovers don't typically look too good at such a large gauge, so lesson learned.  I'd also really like to make a sweater, but I'm going to need to do a lot more research and figure out what type of sweater to make.  

I've also decided that I need a haircut.  It is almost all the same length now, and just past my shoulders.  It doesn't really get any longer than that because it is either the end of the growth cycle for the hair or the ends get so brittle they break once they get to that point.  It doesn't really matter which it is, because it is not very flattering at this length.  So I'll probably go get a haircut pick me up sometime next week, too.  Since I usually only cut my hair about once every 4-6 months, this is about normal schedule for me.  I'm always happy to have chopped it all off, so I hope that follows for this one as well.  As you can see below, it looks kind of blah.

On a whim to I got some tinted lipgloss because I didn't have a single tube of lipstick in a wearable color (I usually pick outrageously saturated shades, which are beautiful in the tube but not good for my coloring).  I finally picked a color that is super close to my lip color and looks very natural...something for when your lips look more washed out than normal.  Maybe I am finally figuring out what colors look good on me...it has only taken 27 years.  At least I can wear clothing that is color saturated, even if the makeup colors make me look like a clown.

Based on my average posting frequency, I guess we'll have to see if the next post will have a picture of baby girl or not.  We'll have to see how much longer the doctors think she should be in utero.  I do believe we could fill a photo album with her ultrasound pictures, but I am looking forward to seeing her with my own eyes.

Rejoining the World of the Knitting

The house has sold, the move is done (goodbye St Louis, hello Knoxville), and I am officially a stay at home wife, or at least until I become a stay at home mom. I'm just not sure it would be worth finding a job when I think we might be moving in a year or two, with an unknown period of time before the move. So, while I haven't been blogging, I have been knitting:

So
here we have a baby hat loosely based on the umbilical cord hat and matching magic slippers pattern, another hedgehog for our little girl, a gorgeous Aeolian shawl, and the Stella cable cardigan from French Girl Knits.  I think I need to reblock the sweater, since it is a little pointy on the sides, but it should do nicely this winter, especially if the baby belly doesn't recede as quickly as I would like.


Blogger also seems to be doing some odd things with the formatting here, so it is not intentionally odd.


I'm currently working on a BSJ for baby girl, and I need to get buttons on the Presto Chango sweater I made for her with leftovers from the Stella sweater.  I'm also working on a hat concept that I've had in mind for at least a year, and trying to decide what I will do with it once I get a pattern written up.  Should I submit it to a free pattern e-zine, like Knitty?  To a pay-per-pattern e-zine like Twist Collective?  To a traditional magazine like Interweave Knits or Vogue Knitting?  Or should it just be offered on Ravelry as either a free pattern or for sale?  I guess I figure it out after I've got it done.


We had a trip planned to visit Seattle at the end of the May, and it is likely some stash enhancement occured, even though we don't really have the room for it in our townhouse.  (We'll need all the room we can spare for Baby Girl's things.)  The food is really great there as well.  Sometimes I miss living there, but there have been good and bad things about all the places I've lived so far.  We definitely had fun revisiting some old haunts and visiting with a friend still in the area.  It's likely our last big hurrah before Baby Girl is born.


I'll have to write another post including my new stash yarn and hopefully a few baby sweaters with buttons.  We'll see how much more I can finish before the next few weeks!