How Fast They Grow

Finished the Bee's new sweater last night. 300 yds of sportweight yarn, 5 miss-matched vintage glass buttons. Shown here with her first sweater (in sock weight yarn) for scale. Both are from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket pattern. I was sloppy about gauge, so I'll be needing to make another one soon. This one fits her perfectly right now, which we all know means it won't last long.



This pattern really is genius. The best part is that there is almost no sewing up at the end, which means this sweater is mostly knitting - not fiddling around. And after knitting it 4 times, it's finally sinking in how it works. I can see were I am, so I don't have to worry that a slipped post it note will result in being stalled for a week while I try to figure everything out again.

I wish the Bee had one of these for every day of the week. Wonder if my knitting stamina could hold out long enough to make that wish come true...

Back from the Dead Again

I love TV shows where death is not an obstacle to a character's return... anything from the old fashioned "I jumped out of the train before the bomb went off" to "I'm dead but you can talk to me anyway because the rules of time don't apply to you any more" to something truly excellent like "I'm a copy stuck in a robot's body" or "this part of me lives in your mind due to our shared consciousness." (Care to name those sources sci-fi buffs?)

I'm living a new life over here... life with a baby, but perhaps it won't be an obstacle to my return.

One thing I should mention is that Mr. M and I have decided to limit how much we put out there about baby Bee. For now, if you want to see pictures of her, the best ways will be facebook or flickr (you'll have to be a friend on flickr because baby content will be protected). So drop me a line if you want in on that. We want to share her with our friends and family far away, but we also want more privacy than the world wide web affords. I know other people who have followed a different path quite happily, but this is right for us right now.

For a while, this choice has had me stumped. My brain is 95% baby, 4% work and 1% crafts. So I felt like I didn't know what to say here if I couldn't just post 100 pictures a day of the cutest baby ever the Bee, but I do want to keep this space, and I guess we will have to see what it sort of blog it becomes.

I have been knitting a bit while the Bee nurses, so right now I have about 70% of a BSJ out of this lovely Hello Yarn Fat Sock, colorway "Valentine."



The Bee just outgrew her first mama made sweater (at about 3.5 months & 14lbs), so the rush is on to make another one!

Baby Dresses

Good thing all of these were sold out or I would have been explaining to my husband why our daughter needed a $40 dress for her first Christmas.




These dresses are Hug Me First brand and were spotted on Zulily. When I saw they were hand smocked I thought that explained the price, but after looking around (even on ebay) it seems $40-100 is the going price for smocked dresses. Can it really be?

Nest

It just hit me this week that I might only have a few weeks before the baby comes. Or I might have a month and a half. But there is no way to know. We don't have basic baby clothes, or the crib set up, or diapers (or a decision on cloth vs. disposables). And I don't want to fill the house up with junk OR be unprepared, which means I need to think about how this all will work.

At the same time I want to finish all the spinning and knitting and home decorating projects that I wanted to do in the next five years RIGHT NOW because I am afraid that I won't get to do any of these things for the foreseeable future. Silly I know... I know lots of people who've had kids and been able to continue doing things they love. Some have done those things with their children, and some have found that these things have returned after a season. But I've promised people some handmade knits, and there are a few things I want to make for myself... and there are cute babies coming that will need to be snuggled in knitted sweaters.

The physical changes make it difficult to sleep, which is making the physical and mental work of adjusting just that much harder.

So I'm a bit of a nesting loose cannon right now.

I might decide to buy 13lbs of apples at the grocery store for applesauce.



I might decide to make a pie, but make two when I cut up too many apples.



I might order a pile of gorgeous yarn that I won't have time to knit.



I might buy big heaps of fiber I don't have time to spin.

And photograph it.

#4 & The Nursery

Some of you may recall the 10 Shawls in 2010 challenge. Two of those shawls have to be over 546 yds. This is my first big one. Big enough in fact, to use as a baby blanket :) Although you can't tell from these pictures, the shawl is square in shape and about 36 inches on a side.



Alpaca Baby Shawl
in Rowan Purelife Organic Cotton DK, 778 yds.
US 6 needles

I love the softness of this yarn, but I'm reserving final judgement on its long term value. It is naturally dyed and is therefore supposed to be hand washed and stored out of direct sun. If I had checked into the care instructions before purchasing (duh) I might have chosen something more hearty. As it is, I plan to wash and tumble dry the blanket as needed and live with the consequences. The swatch I put through the wash only lightened slightly, although the water did show dye release.



My other boo boo was that I failed to plan on how to join the yarn. It is a fairly thick yarn, has no bounce and little grab. It is spun in multiple very small plies. I tried the knitting with two strands together... too lumpy. Russian join, very obvious. Weaving in didn't seem likely to stay put. I decided to tie knots and clip the ends, which I did. Then I chickened out at the thought of my lovely baby blanket unraveling and went back and dabbed superglue on the knots. Final result: lots of very pokey, hard spots on my soft, yummy baby blanket. So... maybe this will be a decor only / heirloom blanket? Or I could use it inside out? Or the scratchy parts aren't as bad as I imagine? Time will tell.



One thing that DOES thrill me about this yarn is how perfectly it matches my nursery color scheme. Maybe I should go back and mention where the idea came from... my mother-in-law made this amazing taupe wall quilt. She named it Taupe for Two and generously gave it to us :) When I found out we were expecting, I decided to use it as the focal point for the nursery. I think its gender neutral enough that if we have a boy it will still work. I also love the thought of quiet, warm colors for a snug little nursery. The shawl I knit coordinates with it and the artwork/frames/mats from earlier also pick up the tan color. I know the nursery is going to be full of all sorts of different colored things, but it is fun to put my stamp on some of it :)

One With The Yarn

My new lens lets me get closer to my yarn...



Much closer.



And it inspires me to try to capture these trees outside my window.



Some days they seem to float in the fog...

A Very Small Sweater

Minutes after I told my husband we were expecting, we had this conversation:

Him: "So, are you going to knit something for the baby?"
Me: "But we don't know if it is a boy or a girl."
Him: "You could knit a brown sweater."

How could I refuse a suggestion like that? I did almost immediately start a brown baby sweater, but with pregnancy fatigue and pregnancy brain, I didn't get around to sewing on the buttons and photographing it until this week. So, here it is, the baby's official first sweater...



Knitting details are here. My major advice is to be careful with superwash yarn. I didn't block
my swatch and the sweater developed an unexpectedly floppy texture after washing. But no harm done.