Sorry for the radio silence for the last several days. Still trying to get healthy over here. But I have been knitting and crocheting a lot. I made this sweater for new little Gemma Grace.
Initially I didn’t have the flower on there, but it looked a little boyish, so I added the flower pin. It’s removable, so if it doesn’t match the rest of her outfit or she just doesn’t want it on there it’s easily removable.
I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.
So I finally finished my OBEY Scarf. It seems like I’ve been working on this foreveeeer. In reality it’s only been since January, but it was the most complex pattern I’ve ever tackled. So I finished the really hard part January 10th… and in the meantime I’ve just been working on the 5 1/2 feet of stockinette stitch on itsy bitsy tiny needles with very thin yarn. Seriously, it took forever to get that part done. And then last night I finally decided to work on the “Obey” part of it.
It all kind of turns into a tangled mess and you can’t really tell if it will turn out ok until the very end. Kind of frustrating, but I think it turned out alright.
And in this light I know it looks pink, but it’s really dark red. For some reason the lighting outside (on my front porch) made it look really pinkish…
I am just so glad that this project is finally DONE.
Whew. It will probably be a long time before I try intarsia knitting again!
Ok, so here’s the thing. I got this super awesome deal on this Cascade SuperWash Quattro Yarn that was really cute and I thought I’d make something fun for my baby boy. So I cast on some stitches without any real idea of what I was making and it turned into this:
Which Paul immediately declared “Too girly.”
Darn.
I didn’t think it was too girly, but I can understand how he’d think so… the sleeves kind of flare out a bit, so I can see how it might seem a bit feminine. Here’s where I need your vote: Too girly or is it ok for a boy? It’s not like I don’t know any baby girlies who wouldn’t mind a little shirt.
So go cast your vote!
I love knitting baby sweaters. This bodes well for my little Togglebuttons, as I am sure he’ll get a whole host of knitted sweaters and outfits. At he’ll be born at the end of the hot season, so just in time to get to wear a lot of knitted hoodies, sweater vests, etc, etc. Anyway, I’ve got a few things in the works for little ToggleButtons, but there’s been a whole bunch of baby showers so I had to put those aside to make some cute things for other little babies who need knitted goodies.
This sweater is for our friends Chris and Abby’s brand new baby, Owen. He sure is a cutie. And since I don’t have a baby to model it for you, you get to see it laying on a chair in my kitchen!
I stole the buttons off an old pair of Paul’s pants.
And actually, Paul picked out the colors for the sweater, too! He’s a handy guy to have around.
So, on a whim I decided to pull out my trusty ol’ canister to see if it made the hood any more appealing to look at… I can’t ever get the hood to look right when I am trying to show you my knitted things… but it ended up just looking like a Jawa from Star Wars, but I’ll show it to you anyway because it makes me laugh.
I made another Hammerhead shark. I like this guy.
He’s a bit chubbier than the last hammerhead I made, which I think works for this guy since I couldn’t get his eyes quite right.
I actually ended up having to remake this guy 3 times just to figure out how to get his head on right. I couldn’t remember how I did it the first time I made him and of course I wasn’t smart enough to write down the pattern, naturally.
But all is well. He is with his new cute little owner now, who I hope will love him as much as I did.
In other knitting news, I am thinking of making some kind of a knitted mobile for the baby, and wanted your input. What sort of things should I knit for it? A sea-creature mobile? An animal mobile? Geometric-shape mobile? Birdie-mobile? Slugs, snails and puppy dog tails? Let me know in the comments what you think I should make! I like it when other people are creative for me!
So I have been knitting, I swear. I just finished two projects today, in fact! But today I am just going to show you one. You know, so I can have something to blog about tomorrow.
So, without further ado, here is Louella’s Birthday Dress, made in honor of her 1st Birthday, which is tomorrow!
I thought the dress needed a bit of girly-ness, so I added the flower buttons.
I love it. I may end up making a sweater version of it for myself, just because the pattern is so darn cute. (Um, definitely not while I am pregnant, though.)
And for those of you who were wondering, here is the pattern link. (Raverly Link)
My mom, sister Erika and nephew Ez were in town for the weekend and I found these on my camera after they left! How cute is my nephew?
What a ham!
And a parting shot for you: We’re narrowing in on 20 weeks, and strangely enough I feel smaller than I did last week, even though horizontal stripes are supposed to make you look bigger.
Alright, I am off to the grocery store to pick up a few items to make Tortilla Soup for dinner. Yum.
So, 40 some-people thought that little Togglebuttons was going to be a girl, but the 14 who guessed boy were right! We’re going to be having a little boy in September! We’re totally thrilled.
(TinyTong gave us a good profile shot! He looks like he’s got a big nose…)
The ultrasound tech saw pretty much right away that he was definitely a boy! We even got a picture to prove it, but I don’t think it’s really ‘internet appropriate’, so we’ll just keep that one for the baby book.
I have to admit, I was completely convinced that it was a girl! I even told the ultrasound tech when she asked what I thought it was going to be that I was fairly certain it was a girl. It only took about 45 seconds for her to prove me wrong, but I couldn’t be happier about having another man around the house.
So now I am riffling through tons of knitting patterns, getting excited about making little boy hoodies, sweater vests (So he can be just like dad!), booties, hats and baby blankets… and my baby will be born in the late summer/fall, so it’ll be just in time for sweater season! Hooray
We (hopefully, if the baby isn’t feeling too shy) will be finding out the gender of our little Toggle-Buttons on Tuesday, and you should make your predictions for the gender in that little poll over there on the left side of the blog!
So go ahead in the poll and cast your votes on what you think it’ll be!
So I am not 19 weeks for two more days, technically, but I felt pretty good this afternoon and since I have to work tomorrow and then my mom, sister and nephew are coming into town later tomorrow I figured this would be my chance to get any blogging done before Tuesday.
So here’s what nearly-half-way looks like on me. It’s funny that I am just now starting to ‘feel’ pregnant. I mean, I’ve felt the nausea and morning sickness and tiredness, but they all just felt like symptoms and not pregnancy… does that make any sense? But now that I have a visible belly and can occasionally feel the baby bumping around in there it seems much more real. And then on Tuesday we find out what the sex is, and I can imagine being able to put a name to the baby will make things even more ‘real’.
So apparently this is how big our baby is this week:
Just ONE of those, not all three, obviously. This picture is from one of our Farmers Market trips last summer.
Um, there’s a picture of me smiling, because I just realized I look kind of grumpy in that last picture and trust me, I am nothing but happy today. My second to last day of work, the sun is shining, my mom and sister and nephew are coming tomorrow and it’s shaping up to be a real good week indeed.
Also, this was totally cracking me up… I wonder if my baby is actually doing the contortions that the baby on BabyCenter is doing… (picture from Babycenter.com)
I wouldn’t be surprised if TingTong was all cramped in there, being as big as an heirloom tomato already and squished into my belly! And I know TingTong is only going to get more squished as the days go by (which is happening at a rapid rate these days. I can’t BELIEVE I am almost halfway done with this pregnancy!) September 4th seems right around the corner, and I just can’t wait for summer to start and warm up around here. Mostly I just can’t wait for the pool to open so I can go float down the lazy river all summer!
Alright, alright, I gotta go fix some dinner and then get on with enjoying my Friday night!
P.S. to all of you moms out there (who constitute about 95% of the people reading my blog.. maybe more?) I want you to tell me what was totally essential during your newborn/baby stage. I am trying to get away with buying the least amount of stuff possible, (both to save on cost and also because we’re really limited on space) but I still want to be prepared so that when the baby comes home from the hospital we’ll be all ready for TingTong and not having to still run around to be picking things up. (P.S.S. I don’t know if this changes anything, but we’re planning on cloth diapering, too) So, in the comments you should let me know what you really, really loved having during the newborn stage, and what things you ended up buying that you didn’t really need. So far we’ve only got a carseat, a stroller and a sling and a bassinet, so I know we’ll still need a crib, but other than that what items would you, in your expert opinions, consider essential?
You know, Craigslist is an amazing thing, although sometimes it can let you down and when it does, it usually lets you down hard. But this is not one of those stories. Since I live in a pretty tiny town and good deals only come around so often I’ve been searching Craigslist for the last two months or so for the baby necessities that I really didn’t want to buy new, mostly because we’re poor, and secondly because the baby really isn’t going to care if he/she is looking fashionable in his brand-new designer crib. Anyhow, last night I saw a few great items at great prices and called on them to see if they were still available. And (surprise!) they were! Over the past few months I’ve called at least a dozen people asking if their product was still available, only to have my hopes dashed because it had already been sold. So I set up my times, made sure to have cash on hand in case I did, in fact, want to buy their supposedly ‘brand new carseat’ or the ‘fantastic shape, no stains! stroller’ and it turns out I wanted them both. So I got both. I got both for a combined price of $50. And they’re cute!
This carseat is pristine. The stickers aren’t rubbed off, there is not a crumb nor stain to be found, all of the parts are there, and while it may look a little boy-ish, if it’s a girl we’ll just throw a pink blanket over here and call it good, right?
The stroller is in great condition, too, just a few crumbs in the folds of the fabric, but nothing big. I am just so excited to have started to collect baby stuff, even though I know it’s kind of early, but deals like this, you just gotta jump on ’em!
I know I promised you guys a maternity picture, but you’re just going to have to wait for a couple more days. Sorry dudes. Tonight it was just not happening. After working all day, then running around town to pick up the stroller and carseat (at different ends of town, naturally) I got home and started feeling really crummy. After 1/4 a sandwich, a Phenergen (for nausea) , two Tylenol (for the splitting headache) and then a Zofran (because the Phenergen didn’t quite cut it, don’t worry, I talked to the on-call OB nurse and she said it was fine to take them both) I was just too tired and grossed out to do much of anything, so I took a bath and ate an entire bag of popcorn by myself. So there.
And that’s all I’ve got for you today, people. No craftiness or knitting to show (although I am working on a rather fun little present for one of my favorite babies first birthday present, but since her momma might see I can’t post pictures until after the birthday next weekend!) but hopefully one of these days I’ll get back to posting craft related stuff…
Knittybutton 