Author Archives: Ali

39 Weeks.

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To tell you the truth, I never thought I would make it this far. Well, that’s not entirely true… but since about halfway into my pregnancy everyone has been telling me that I’ll go early. But 39 weeks, well, that is not really very early, is it? I’m not trying to complain about it, I am just genuinely surprised to not have a baby in my arms yet.

I’m definitely feeling ‘done’, although my body isn’t really showing any signs of impending labor.

But hey, I guess he’ll come when he’s good and ready. Or when we evict him… whichever comes first. I am hoping it’s the former, but  if he isn’t making any moves by the end of the week it’s likely that I’ll get induced… I’m just not entirely sure how much more my back can handle of this pregnancy thing. I know several women before me who have done it, but I’m not entirely sure how they did it and were still able to function. It feels like the rods are trying to separate from my spine, and let me tell you guys, it’s not a good feeling. But, in good news, he is no longer posterior, and that is HUGE, you guys, that should hopefully make for a much easier labor. Speaking of labor… if my baby comes a week from today then I will be in labor on Labor Day… which would be hilarious. I think if I went into labor on Labor Day I should get some kind of a prize, right? (I suppose I’d be getting a baby, which is a prize enough, right?)

I’ve got several crafts finished that I have got to show you later on this week… including a cute little something for my new niece, Iris, who was born last week, so stay tuned.

Baby Sophisticate

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I made another sweater for the Togglebuttons.


It’s called the Baby Sophisticate. Because, of course I want my baby to be sophisticated looking.

I (obviously) haven’t added buttons to it yet. But I was also thinking about adding elbow patches, because I think it would look awesome and scholarly.

Well, I’ve got to get ready to head off to work. Happy Friday, everyone. Have a good weekend!

Under The Weather

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So, I’m still not feeling great, so I am taking a “sick day” from the blog. Just wanted to update it, because whenever I am late with a post everyone seems to think I’m in labor. So, sorry there’s nothing new, but maybe check out some of the links to other blogs in my sidebar. There’s lots of fun crafty things to check out there!

38 Weeks

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So, on Sunday I hit the 38 week mark.


I’m glad that I’m working all week instead of sitting at home dwelling on the fact that I am still very much pregnant.

Baby is somewhere around the 7 pound mark, as far as they can estimate. This kid really knows how to send some mixed signals, and  over this past week has made it very clear that he’s perfectly comfortable just hanging out in-utero for a while longer.  But hey, if he wants to chill out for a few more weeks, I guess that’s ok with me. I’d prefer it if he came next week, next week looks good for me. But I’ll keep ya’ll posted.

Little Green Elephant

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I made another elephant for the nursery.

He’s a tiny little thing.


Wow. Sorry, these pictures really aren’t very good.


Well, no baby yet, guys. 38 weeks and two days, now. And he’s not doing anything to make me think he’s coming anytime soon, either. But, I’ve got dishes to do and the house to tidy up before I head off to work for the afternoon, so I should be off. Happy Monday, everyone.

Turtle

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I made another little friend for Togglebuttons!

I know I’ve made a lot of turtles, but I didn’t have any for my own baby, and it’s one of my favorite patterns, so I decided to make another one.

And the green matches his bedding.

And he’s getting to know the locals.

Nursery Update

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When my mom was here she hung the mobile above the crib! It looks so great.

Didn’t my cousin Sarah do such a great job making it? SO ADORABLE!

Also, my mom brought a painting that my sister Erika made for me to match the nursery!

I love how the baby’s little corner is coming together so nicely! I think it’s just adorable.

And if you wanna see how well Togglebuttons is growing these days, well here you go:


37 Weeks and 3 days. And my belly is getting pretty tight.

Oh, and whooaaa buddy. I thought I had some yucky stretch marks before, but this last week they have taken on a whole new (awful) look. They’re spreading like wildfire. Yikes, guys, yikes.  It’s a small price to pay for a big and healthy baby, but yuck. They are not doing great things for my self esteem. Also, sorry about the crappy/grainy pictures. I was too impatient to wait til it was light out again to take pictures… or have Paul take them for me. Also, last night I had my first honest-to-goodness pregnancy craving. I needed those crappy little powdered donuts in a bad way. I have been pretty good about pregnancy cravings, but Paul had just left to go run an errand and I called him (before he had even gotten out of our parking lot) and begged him to pick me up some. So, I sat on the couch eating those while writing this blog post.

Well, I’ve got my 37 1/2 week check tomorrow, and we will see if this guy has made any progress, or if he’ll be staying in there for a few more weeks! Luckily the weather has cooled down a bit this week, so it hasn’t been too miserable being hugely pregnant, although it looks like this weekend it’ll be pretty toasty again. Well, it stays nice and cool on my couch with the fan blowing on me, so if you need me, you’ll know where to find me…

Buttons Buttons

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I also spent time this weekend sewing buttons on completed projects. I’m so bad about actually finishing projects! I love actually finishing the knitting part of it, but then I put it aside and forget to do the little things like sew buttons on and weave in the ends.

But, I got these all completely finished. I was hoping to have a baby to put them on, but hey, you know, no biggie, right?

I got some wooden buttons on the Cabled Hoodie, it looks a lot better with buttons, I think.

And I also got buttons sewn on the Pebbles vest!


Other than that… pretty much just been sitting on the couch. How exciting!

What I’ve Been Doing Instead Of Having This Baby

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So, no, there is no baby yet. He tricked me on Saturday… he got me good. I started having contractions that were 4 minutes apart. I got excited. These were painful contractions, so, you know, naturally I thought this was the beginning of labor. That paired with horrific back pain really got me thinking that this was it. I was going to have this baby SOON. So, around 7:30 we called the hospital and they told us to come in. They monitored me for an hour and by that time my contractions were coming almost every minute, but they weren’t lasting long enough to be as productive as they needed to be. So, when they checked me after laboring for 4 hours and I was only a centimeter dilated. WHAT? I couldn’t believe it. I was so frustrated. The nurse was really optimistic and told me all kinds of things like “It may take a while, but I really think you’re going to have this baby today or tomorrow” and I filled my silly little head with all these thoughts of having a baby that night. They let me labor there for another two painful hours before she checked me again, around 10:30pm. And I had only dilated half a centimeter. Which, in other words means “Go home.” So much for that full moon Saturday night…

So…we went home. I was pretty much heartbroken, but was trying not to think too negatively, because I was still having tons of contractions and was still laboring really hard. There was no way I could sleep through these, and my back was still aching really badly. We tried to watch some tv, but the pain was bad enough that it was just annoying me more than anything. I told Paul to go get some sleep, because I wanted him to be somewhat awake and sane if he had to drive me back to the hospital. So I stayed up and tried to distract myself on the computer. Around 1:30am my mom pulled into town, having driven straight from Tacoma, and we went on a walk around campus to see if that might speed things up, but it didn’t… (boo) so I decided that I should probably at least TRY to sleep, so around 2:30 or 3:00 I laid down in bed, but couldn’t get comfortable and could NOT sleep, so I got up around 6:00am to try to eat something, but immediately threw it up. And then I kept throwing up and wasn’t able to keep anything down at all, so around 9:30am we called the hospital again and they told me to come in and they’d monitor me for a bit and give me some fluids. So, they gave me some IV fluids and some anti-nausea drugs, after that I felt much better, but was still contracting pretty regularly, so she checked me again and I hadn’t dilated at all since the LAST time they checked me 13 hours earlier. By this point I was starting to finally think that this baby is definitely not coming today and he’s just teasing me. Mean little boy. So, I got home around 12:30pm yesterday and took some Unisom and actually managed to fall asleep for 3 1/2 hours, and felt a whole lot better. And since then I’ve still been contracting regularly, but just not super painful contractions. So that’s where we’re at. No baby, but still lots of contractions… which means he could come tomorrow, or he could wait another few weeks.

BUT, on the bright side, I got another project finished! Actually, it’s two projects, but they go together so nicely, so I will show you them both today!

It’s a new little sweater for my baby Togglebuttons! Paul picked out the colors and the yarn.

I’m not thrilled with my button choice. I am wishing now that I had found some wooden buttons. I think it would have looked nicer… but I am not going to worry about that now. These will do for the meantime.

But… I also made some booties to go with it!

I thought about making a hat also, but I thought that might be a bit too matchy-matchy and end up looking silly.

I really like this pattern for booties, (I didn’t like it the first time I made it, because it was a complicatedly written and not very clear) but now I think it’s the best. Also because it’s nice and stretchy around the ankle so they can’t slip off little baby feet.

And so there you go. That’s what I’ve been up to instead of popping out a baby. BUT it’s been blissfully cool today, and we even got a bit of rain yesterday, so if this is an indication that the hot weather is gone and fall is on its way, that is OK by me! I also don’t mind having my mom come out early because if the baby was here, she’d just want to play with him, but instead right now right now she’s mopping my floors (they’ve been sadly neglected during the pregnancy…) and cooking and cleaning and organizing my cabinets, so, you know, that’s awesome. She’s nesting for me, I guess! I pretty much just sat on a chair as she went through my cabinets and sorted items, and we got rid of a ton of things I never use anymore. I just had to sit there and say “keep” or “toss” and she took care of the rest. And now I have a clean and well organized house. And I didn’t have to do a thing (except for go into false labor).

So here we are. Still waiting for baby. If anyone wants to come hang out with me or distract me that is totally welcome, since my mom is leaving tomorrow morning (unless the baby decides to make an exit tonight? Not likely, but who knows!) And all of you who have offered your distraction services so far, I am definitely going to take you up on that this week. And don’t worry, I’ll let all of you out there in blog-land know when Togglebuttons decides to make his grand entrance!

Plush Football

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So, for those of you who don’t know (which would have included me, before I got married to Paul) college football season is just around the corner. My husband loves college football. So, he thought I should make a nice, manly toy for our son who will be born right in the start of football season. So, here it is:

It’s actually pretty fun to throw around the room. Paul and I have been practicing.


And I’m even going to give you the pattern for free today. Yep- because I am nice like that.

Yeah. Free pattern is a good pattern, right?

And if you were wondering how big the football is, here is my very large belly for comparison.

Yep, I’ll be 37 weeks on Sunday, so we’re getting pretty close.

Ok- here is the pattern:

Plush Football
Size 7 DPN’s
Stuffing
Yarn Needle
Worsted weight yarn, brown and white (Not sure on exact measurements here, since I just used up yarn I already had, but you don’t need much white yarn at all)

With brown yarn cast on 6 stitches. Divide among 3 DPN’s.

Row 1: Join in the round and knit once around
Row 2: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should now have 9 stitches)
Row 3: Knit once around
Row 4: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit 1, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should now have 15 stitches)
Row 5: Knit once around
Row 6: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit 3, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should have have 21 stitches)
Row 7: Knit once around
Row  8: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit 5, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should now have 27 stitches)
Row 9: Knit once around (On ALL ODD numbered rows, knit once around- so I am just going to omit the ODD rows from here on out in the pattern)
Row 10: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit until last stitch, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should now have 33 stitches)
Row 12: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit until last stitch, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should now have 39 stitches)
Row 14: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit until last stitch, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should now have 45 stitches)
*SWITCH TO WHITE YARN*
Row 16: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit until last stitch, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should now have 51 stitches)
Row 18: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit until last stitch, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should now have 57 stitches)
Row 20: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit until last stitch, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should now have 63 stitches)
*SWITCH BACK TO BROWN YARN*
Row 22: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit until last stitch, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should now have 69 stitches)
Row 24: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit until last stitch, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should now have 75 stitches)
Row 26: Knit 1, Make 1, Knit until last stitch, Make 1, Knit 1 (Repeat on all 3 needles, you should now have 81 stitches)
Rows 27-37: Knit all the way around
Row 38: Knit 1, K2T, Knit to last 3 stitches, K2t, Knit 1  (Repeat on all 3 needles)
Row 39: Knit all the way around
*Repeat rows 38 and 39 until you have one 9 stitches left (3 stitches on each needle)*
(But remember to switch back to your white yarn when you only have 63 stitches left and then back to your brown yarn when it gets to 45 stitches)

 Cut your yarn leaving a 6 inch tail, stuff your plush football, using yarn needle pull the tail through remaining stitches and pull tight to close. Then, using white yarn create the ‘laces’ on the top of the football. I did two strands of yarn going lengthwise of the football, and six going width wise. Use the picture as a guide if you need help. Or do what I did and Google a picture of a football to make sure I had it somewhat close to being right!

Enjoy!