i have just about had it completely 100%

I am just fed up today. I'm so totally not in the Christmas spirit, it doesn't feel like Christmas, yet we are celebrating on Sunday, which is less than two days from now. Then we move on to real Christmas. Then Katja''s birthday four days later.

So here's the to-do list

1. Get knitting finished:
- scarf for Nadine
- hat and scarf for Lisa
- socks for Max and Meredith (this is a big problem, due Sunday morning....might have to abandon as not started
and yarn not purchased
- scarf and hat for Dan (ideally)
-snowflake longies for Katja
- soaker for Aimee
-soakers for website

Christmas FO's
- Stacy's hat and scarf
- mom's hat and scarf
- Nadine's hat
- longies for Katja (not a Christmas FO per se...but she needed longies)
- Irene scarf (yippee)

2. Get baking finished.
- sugar cookies done
- butter tarts and mince tarts done
- cheese wafers chilling in mom's fridge
- gingersnaps, shortbread, spritz (if Max can fix the press in metal shop - this will be a post-Sunday treat)

3. find: camera charger, katja and Dan's stockings, one of Max's christmas presents

4. WORK telephone calls to about 10 clients. Letters on 3 files I can think of. Petition to draft, motion to draft and file, set up cross examinations, follow up on receivables, do trust accounting and RST return. Change name on trust account to Roch. Return emails to S.T. and M.H. Draft complex affidavit (x2), get sworn and arrange hearing dates. Follow up on sentencing date and presentence report. Follow up on drug treatment court. Just remembered letter to another client. Set up plan for young offender. Adjourn hearing set for Jan 3. I refuse to work Jan 3.

If I get these things done in the next 36 hours, I will be caught up by Christmas. I think I'm going to have to take a moment and try to find a way to pretend I'm getting stuff done while I eat cookies and feel sorry for myself.


Edited to add: On reading knitting blogs at Christmastime, and in particular the Yarn Harlot's, I've come to realize that what I experienced was entirely normal, and quite frankly, I don't think I took on enough this Christmas when I look at what everyone else is doing!

Photos!

Finally. The baptism was like two weeks ago, and I'm just now posting pics. Why? Because blogging is time-consuming, and I'm not exactly someone with a bunch of time on her hands. I had a major case of needy-client-itis this week too, that just sucked me dry.





Dress, booties, and bonnet - blocking at 10 p.m. the night before the baptism on cloth diapers. Hey, I'll never pass up an opportunity to plug cloth diapers ;)

Sleeve detail



Hallowe'en costume - sheepy pants pattern, with a tail I designed :) Little Devil




And a pic of the cutie with the dog.

Done!

Oh, it turned out beautifully.

The yarn was a bit heavy for the pattern, so I had to do a couple of little modifications. And the crochet edge was a royal pain in the arse with the yarn, it kept splitting and the size 2.5mm crochet hook was...well, there are no words. It's done, it wasn't perfect but at the end of it all, I had no time left and it was really, really sweet.

I tacked the front of the dress together, because it kept flopping over, again a sign to me the yarn was too heavy. I added ribbon to the garter stitching at the waist. I added ribbon to the wrists as well. It turned out absolutely gorgeous. Once Katja was wearing it for a while, though, she got hot and uncomfortable. Bummer.

Pictures tomorrow. They're on the camera but it's upstairs and I just don't want to get it!

So close....

The dress is 91% done, by my calculations. The second sleeve is finished, and the crochet edging around the sleeves and the bottom of the dress is complete. Today I started doing the scalloped crochet edging along the neckline and I'm finding it difficult. I realized I was doing my yo's backwards, no big deal on the edging, but doing it backwards on a dc makes the stitch impossible.

So once I figured that out, things started going ok, but K was impeding my progress. I'm finished the SC row, and am now doing the scalloped edges. I think it looks ok, but I'm so not a crocheter. It looks cute so hopefully no one will notice if it is totally screwed up.

K snuck in a micro-nap in the van on the way home from mom's (fooled me - I really thought she hadn't slept, increasing my frustration). So she was up until almost 10, and woke up again at 10:45, erg. By then I had to get to work, but was desperate to do some knitting, so I started a soaker. I realized yesterday that K is going to need a light-coloured soaker for under her baptism dress, and her existing soakers are colourful, and felted, and bulky - the sad soakers for overnight use that looks gross but are functional.

I make gorgeous longies, sweaters, etc, but soakers just defeat me. All three K wears overnight are misfits. One has gauge issues, and so I felted it to make it less massive, but it's huge in the width and normal rise, it looks weird. Boy is it absorbant though! The second soaker is actually a pair of shorties that I felted (DH put them in the wetbag and I chucked them in the diaper wash on hot. I caught them before they hit the dryer at least so they work as soaker. The last soaker is the one I knit in Minneapolis. It's a curly purly pattern and I don't know why I made 3 soakers with this pattern, I absolutely hate it. I think it would be awesome on a skinny baby or an older baby or over trim fitted diapers, but on my chunky baby it just didn't work. She needs a lowwwwwwww front rise, tons of short rows in the back, big thighs and a drawstring.

So I'm trying the punk knitters pattern this time, it looks trimmer than the other soakers I've made. I will use some of the modifications I've made to the picky pants, like extra short rows and lower rise, as well as doing ribbing only above the eyelets in the waistband. All of these things make them fit better.

It's strange casting on a new project though, after 3 weeks of knitting just the one pattern and yarn, using the one size (2.5 mm) of needle. Using a 3.5 mm needle with a worsted weight yarn is so strange now, though it used to be all I used. It feels bulky, and I'm kind of scoffing at the 80 stitch rounds (the dress had 240 at the skirt), and I found myself wondering if I could knit a nice trim soaker (almost interlock thin) using a wool fingering weight yarn. Then I thought about how many stitches I would be casting on for this little experiment and thought, "um, no, that would not be fun at all!)

Getting close.....

So close in fact, that I already bought my reward yarn for my reward scarf. But don't tell anyone, because I'm actually going to get myself some really extra nice yarn for a second reward scarf. This one's just practice. Shhhh.

The cap is done, the booties are done, and the dress is done except for the second sleeve (I'm about 1/4 done this, and the finishing. I've woven in a LOT Of ends so far. On the booties alone I had about 10 ends each. The hat had quite a few as well. And on the dress...OMG. Lots of work to do, and I understand the finishing involves crochet. English crochet. How hard can it be, right?

I got the stitch n bitch books from the library over the weekend, they're great! I learned how to do proper seaming, on bootie #2. There's a definite difference, and I'm really glad I got these books, they show the techniques really easily. I love the silly references - smily faces and umbrellas for garter stitch, for example. They really helped me figure out the technique quickly. I also learned how to correctly pick up stitches, I honestly had no idea I was doing it wrong - of course, I had never looked up how to do it RIGHT, so how could I?

The modified sleeve looks great - here it is (unblocked of course)

I did a gradual decrease, every 5 rows along with the eyelet pattern, two stitches per row skp at the start and k2tog at the end, then doing it every other row for the rest, once I realized I was 10 cm into the sleeve and still at 50 sts, trying to get to 24! When I got to 24 sts, I did K1, *k2, m1*, then two rows stockingette, then three rows seed stitch. I'm really pleased at the result.

It looks a bit wonky in the photo, but it's lovely on.

To reward myself for finishing the sleeve, I moved on to the cap. It's done too, except for a few stray ends and weaving a ribbon through the eyelets.

Next, the booties - here's a view from the side before seaming. Note the wicked number of ends. I can't even explain what a dumbass move I did in order to accomplish that. But I did improve on my technique for the second bootie, and thus only had about 6 ends to weave in. It still seemed like a lot of ends for such a wee thing.

The finished product, times two:

Now off to finish this stupid second sleeve.

Oh, before I go - a word to the wise. When modifying a pattern such that one will have to replicate one's modifications, such as on a second sleeve, it is best to write down the modified pattern as one goes. Lest one spend countless precious minutes counting rows and stitches on shiny white yarn in bad light. I'll never make that mistake again. Ugh.

oh crud

Another boo-boo detected in the baptism dress. I screwed up the chart on the skirt, making the eyelets on the dress 5 rows apart instead of 4 - I thought I was off, but by the team I'd realized it I was about 10 cm into the skirt. At 240 stitches per row, and 32 -ish rows at that point, I was

Let's see - frog and re-knit approx 7680 stitches of this pattern, plus finish the dress, sleeves, bonnet and socks. By October 21. Riiiiight. So I just went to the land of knitterly denial and kept on knitting. My denial is so deep (or I am so pooped) that I forgot all about my little self-deception until I was 89 stitches * 17 rows = 1513 stitches into the cap. After having already frogged once for a really dumb mistake.

I am leaving it. My knitterly mind tells me no one will notice the lace on the cap doesn't match the pattern on the skirt, or they will think the down-sizing is intentional.

The sleeve is completely modified - I knit from the shoulder down because I wanted to do a fancier cuff - I did this ruffled cuff for a more 'special occasion' kind of look. I might frog and re-knit after the baptism, or even before if I have enough knitting time left.

I have been weaving in ends as I go, too, which I've never done before, but let's face it, my hardest pattern has been picky pants which have precisely 4 ends to weave in provided you have a big enough skien. Maybe 6 ends. This dress had 6 ends in the first 10 cm- Lots of knots in the yarn itself (disappointing considering skein length is 50y) and lots of balls of yarn (I've used 4 thus far), plus four seams for waist and collar, ugh, that's a lot of ends.

But so far so good. I got oohs and aahs from my family today, and my daughter when looking at it exclaimed, "wow, that looks just like the picture!" in true and utter amazement.

I have decided since I've been so single-minded on this task, and may even finish early, I get to knit my next project for myself. ME. I haven't knit myself a single thing! I think I would like to do a fun long skinny scarf, or something lacy to wrap a few times around my neck. Or my first socks. Or all three!

Max wants socks, so I'll probably do the first socks for him. He won't mind if they don't fit, the love.

Off to Ravelry to queue some projects!

xoxox

Moving right along....

The baby dress is really fun to knit, and I would say a good introduction to charts and a somewhat more complex pattern.

The entire body is now done, it took me about 3 hours in total to do the two front pieces (with a false start on the second piece, which I started knitting inside out....honestly, how long do I need to be knitting for before I stop making these idiotic mistakes?).

I did the seaming up today while playing dominoes with the kids after supper (bad mom moment, but the baptism is the 21st....of this month...and apparently it's already the 6th. Oops, the 7th). I did up the shoulders and the waist because of the way I want to do the sleeves.

I started the first sleeve, and I'll have to try it on baby to see if I like it. I decided to pick up stitches and knit it from the top down instead of the bottom up, because I hate seaming that much, especially sleeves. The last one I did was disastrous.

I just realized the pattern as written calls for a gusset type thingamajobby at the underarm, but I'm going to knit it up without (mainly because I couldn't visualize how the gusset would work, but of course NOW it's coming to me that I would just...well, no matter, I'm committed at this point).

I'm stalled now, just trying to figure out if I want to do the cuff that the pattern calls for, or if I want do so something a bit fancier and skip the crochet.

And I just realized yesterday the crochet finishing is kind of mandatory. The dress will really look ordinary if I don't do it. Oh well, what's a fourth trip to the yarn store for the one project really going to matter at this point?

Pics tomorrow. Yawn. Katja doesn't realize all the work mommy is doing on her dress late at night, and has decided to wake hourly recently. The joy of mother-daughter bonding at 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 am is beginning to wear off.

Catastrophe

Well, not so much a catastrophe as a major setback. Well, more of an annoyance, actually.

I made a totally dumbass mistake on the baptism dress. I read the instructions

Back piece: = 56-63-70 (77-84) sts. Knit in M.2 – sts not fitting into pattern are knitted in stocking sts. At the same time when the piece measures 22-27-31 (36-40) cm bind off for armhole each side on every other row: 3 sts 1 time, 2 sts 1 time and 1 st 2 times = 42-49-56 (63-70) sts

to mean I should be measuring from the waistband. This is totally counter-intuitive because the skirt is only 26 cm long, and the dress is actually a bit of an empire waist, so the back shouldn't be longer than the skirt. But thanks to knitterly denial, I kept on knitting - 70 stitches across for about 35 rows before I decided I had to start over. I ripped out about 25 cm of knitting. Thankfully the chart wasn't a difficult one. Then I started over, and now we have this (ignore the desperate need for a pedicure please):

The back is done. I have done two rows of the front right side, but that stuff underneath the dress is what some people call "work" that apparently needs to be "finished" before I can get paid. I know, I know, people are so unreasonable.

So the dress gets set aside while I finish a mediation brief and draft a response to the Labour Board on an application and so on and so forth.

I wonder what this nagging feeling I'm having is? Oh right. Impending doom.

Busy!

I've been dying to update, there just never seems to be the time. Katja's having a nap, but I should be doing about 30 things besides this. So this is a quickie.

Reason I'm busy #1 - I have a couple of upcoming trials, and they're both screwed up in some way. The first one should be resolved, but the Crown is in Thompson and hasn't gotten back to me. The second one is apparently scheduled for the wrong day, adn I don't know how to deal with that.

Knitting - I'm doing a baby dress for Katja - it's from Drops Design. I'm using Sirdar Baby Bamboo, and it's beautiful, but as I said on Ravelry, I'm intimidated. Basically I'm only allowing myself to knit this for the next 3 weeks.

Update #1 - The skirt is now done, as well as the waistband, and I have about 10 centimetres of the back finished. This yarn is dreamy to knit with, it's so soft and springy, and doesn't fall apart like cotton does. The dress is quite hevy, it will probably weigh about a pound when it's finished, but the drape is lovely. I'm feeling better about the pattern now, too.

Max took the bus to school today, which is a pretty big milestone. It will save me about 45 minutes a day to have him do this, which is really nice.

New pics - Katja's getting so big, here she is in a pair of longies I made using a picky pants derived pattern, it's got a crotch gusset but beyond that everything is cobbled together from other patterns I've done, and here is the result - I've added extra short rows and reduced the rise in hopes these will stay up, and I've changed the waistband, eliminating ribbing below the eyelet row. I used a ruffle finish from the sheepy pants pattern, but I will modify it next time to reduce the ruffle's length, this is a big unweildy for a crawling baby.

And finally a photo of the outfit Memere made for Max almost 12 years ago. She would have been 85 at the time, and her eyesight was really starting to go, so I imagine knitting this in white with tiny needles and doing a fair isle yoke would have been a challenge to say the least. I really miss her, I wish I could tell her "I get it! I get how much you loved me!".

I'm so excited!!!!

I got my Ravelry invite! Holy sh*t, I am so excited it's ridiculous. Like I don't have enough UFO's (unfinished objects) lying around the house already? And my wool stash is getting big. I need to start finishing stuff and dealing with the glut of wool and my depleted bank account.

Right after I finish photographing my efforts at a new leg finish on the latest pair of longies. And find funds to justify my new sigg bottle and 50 bucks of purewool on the way.

The Court of Appeal will just have to damn well wait for their documents, and I can start looking for those missing documents tomorrow.

zenstrong longies

Ta-dah! Here they are. Unblocked, of course. I never block anything until I wash it, and I had to photograph these the instant they came off the needles. I lurrrveeee them!

I finished them about 10 days ago, even uploaded the pics, then completely forgot to blog. Not that anyone's reading this thing, but you never know, someone could stumble on this page and think, 'what the heck happened to those longies she was going to make? I bet she made herself a scarf instead'. In fact, maybe even more than one person might read this. Dare to dream, I always say.

Anyway, these babies are so gorgeous. Heavy, beautiful drape, softer than you can believe, with a beautiful sheen. They are breathtaking.

And they are too big.

Sob. Maybe she can wear them once she's walking, and I can roll them up. But that probably won't be til Christmas. Oh well, they were fun to knit.

Another FO here - Paton's Wool - just some green picky pants with the eyelet garter cuff.

And a fish - that's the Blue Sky Cotton. So nice to work with.

I'm hating the Patons though. It's so pilly and their colours are starting to suck a lot.

Cute model though, eh?

I have 100% purewool coming though, I ordered 8 skeins in a co-op and paid Sept 11th so I'm hoping by the end of the month I'll have yummy wool to play with.

Quickie

I'm totally cheating - I should be working but instead am reading knitting blogs. I will totally tell DH tonight that I worked as much as I could today. But dammit, I just ripped my toenail off (not on purpose and &*$#)( did it hurt), and I'm taking a break. I have a factum to finish, including page numbering, copying, binding, etc. Plus a mediation brief on a file where I lost the documents. All of them. Yep.

So I did finish a project -

LTK picky pants in navy blue 100% wool from the sale bin. Gauge was a bit small so these are a snugger fit but they make baby happy. I also washed and lanolized my other wool today - that should definitely be done more than quarterly with a crawling kid. Man, they hide dirt well, the water was black! But I only had one real pair of longies, so I had to wait until I finished the blue ones.





The wool is just a worsted weight, I think I should stick to aran for dark colours, you can see her diaper underneath.

BUT I did the extended short rows option and they tuck nicely under her big belly so I guess I will stick with this version of the pattern, even though it means more stitches.



DD is definitely getting busier these days. Here she is demonstrating why I shouldn't assume all is well when she is quiet.





That's mud from the plant she was trying to eat.










And here's a pic Meredith took at Build a Bear Workshop on her highly commercial but totally delightful birthday party. It is included only because I look skinny in this photo LOL

Men.

OMG. I had to work this morning, and DH was home with baby for 5 hours. Not 15 hours, FIVE. Needless to say, as I was finishing up a bail hearing, I got a panicked phone call. "She wants her mom" says Mr. I Can Handle Anything Except a Crying Baby. "It's not fair to her that you're gone". I tell him to bring her to court, I can run out and nurse her (thank God the Crown and JP are moms too). He is freaking out to the point that he can't even process this information. Sweet baby Jesus how am I supposed to earn a living when I can't go to work without the man having an anxiety attack?

Note to self: Leave DH home with baby more often. Sheesh.

Here's a pic of DD wearing her cabled hat I made. Now if only she would keep the damned thing on her head. She's stretching the crap out of it. She is incredibly persistent, though, she'll take it off 100 times in a row. I checked. She actually lifts her hands up to her head to take it off before I've even put it back on. Smarty-pants.

I finished the Zenstring longies as well as another hat, must post pics soon. I haven't even tried the longies on her, they're so nice. I always have a part skein of wool left after longies, so she gets a matching hat, too.

I am going to make a sweater and another cable hat for her fall ensemble, as well as a hat for my sweet niece. Oh, and a baptism outfit.

Obviously I need to practice less law and knit more. I wonder how DH will feel about that.

I'm opting out of my regularly scheduled life this weekend...

...so we have FO's. I've been feeling just kind of off - first really resentful and feeling like I'm doing it all, and not wanting to work. Then getting an opportunity to work and feeling productive and inspired. Then going to the YMCA and getting completely pissed off at the fact that the kids in "day camp" are in the gymnasium (where Dan and I work out with baby) WATCHING A MOVIE!!!!

When in hell did kids start watching movies at camp? Seriously, I'm writing a letter this time. I mean it. I just look around sometimes at how we're killing our kids - TV, internet, fast food, processed wheat and pasteurized, homogenized dairy, stress, being bombarded with commercial crap from infancy....did you know there's a new TV channel specifically marked to kids under 3?

Did you know the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends NO TV for kids under 2, as it detrimentally affects speech development, is tied to ADHD and obesity? Check HERE for more information.

Dan's doing a post-graduate diplomate in neurology, targeting autism and ADHD, which are at epidemic proportions. TV is a huge problem, video games too. We've cut the big kids down to 1/2 hour of "screen time" weekly. They can earn more, but rarely ask for it now, other than the odd movie as a treat. Baby is not allowed to watch. Period.

Now look at the newborn longies. Aren't they the sweetest?

Unblocked so the leg looks a wee bit wonky, but I assure you, the knitting is impeccable. These are a gift for a fellow chiropractor's wife in Australia. Here's hoping the boat arrives before the baby.

Patons 100% wool, these are Picky Pants, knit addi turbo size 4.00 mm with extra long waistband and a seed stitch cuff. These are just so teeny tiny it makes me want a newborn boy.

But here's the best birth control there is:

Baby taking an unorthodox approach to the exersaucer. Note the amber teething necklace I repaired - I'm so crafty! They work though, we had no red cheeks, drooling, or wailing baby and now we have 2 teeth. She did wake up a lot at night though.

Speaking of night waking, she's just woken up for the fourth time in 5 hours. Dan wonders why I stay up late..well...it's not like there's any point in going to bed, right?

Oh, my first cabled project. It's starting to get cooler already, especially in the evenings (though I truly believe global warming is a problem, I have my doubts when I'm contemplating turning on the furnace in August). Baby needs a hat and longies, stat. So I whipped this up:

Un petit chapeau for the little one. It's Rowan yarn 70/30 cotton/wool but I don't know the colorway, I tossed the little holder thingy. I mucked it up in one spot when Dan was talking to me about something. I guess I'm human after all, I can't do cables for the first time ever while watching TV and chatting. Isn't the cable pretty thought? It's really cool to trust the pattern and watch them form. I thought cables would be hard, but they're really fun.

Ahh, there's more to talk about, but baby calls, actually she doesn't call but I know she will soon so I need to do a few more rows on the new longies, that I have to knit in size large *sob* - that is a LOT of legwork. I'm rewarding myself with embroidery at the end, I'm going to make them in a nice deep gree with lots of girly embellishments. I can't wait to finish them.

Still hating the blanket!

But some FO's - I decided to make more shorties for DD as the ones I made her are loose, which is great for a non-crawler, but not working for super-action-baby. So I sized down my needles and made these:

LTK Picky pants, in a lighter worsted wool I got from a yarn store I just discovered at the end of my block (!!!). I did the eyelet garter finish, and used very small needles (3 mm) for the waistband, and added a few extra rows to the waistband. I also changed the eyelet row in the waistband from *K2tog, YO*, repeat to *k2, YO, P2tog* repeat - it makes less eyelets, and I think it's tidier hugs her waist better. The body of these is done with size 7 addi turbo needles. Don't ask me why for some projects I give the metric size and some I use the US size. It's just whatever side of the size gauge I happen to be looking at.

And an action shot:

Man, how stinkin' cute is that?? They fit like a dream. So sweet. Oh, I made the legs super short - I only did two rows then did the finish. Love how it turned out.

Loved it so much, I made another pair! These were

made from Paton's wool, dyed by me with

kool-aid, witih a cream trim. You can really see the eyelet cuff in this, they are so sweet.

I used size 6's on these. They're nice and snug on. These were so much fun to knit, they're pretty quick and the cuff is interesting, so it was enjoyable. I even enjoyed weaving in the ends. I know, I'm going nuts. I don't get much time to myself.

And she's off!

This was going to be a post about my littlest child, who is learning to crawl and quite frankly is the cutest thing you've ever seen. But I had to get something off my chest.

At left is a lovely waterfall. Unfortunately it is in my basement. It is not supposed to be there.

The good news: I got a dehumidifier for $25.00, and it works great!

The bad news: My basement stinks. That funky musty damp basement smell. I'm so pissed off. When we looked at this house, it was perfectly dry, and there had been a few downpours already this season. Idiot vendor had neglected to clean the eaves, so this downspout got clogged (it goes right into our basement drain).

Fortunately your intrepid blogger found the perfect tool (took the swiffer apart) and used great skill and dexterity (rammed the pointy end into the downspout in a panicked attempt to de-clog) and voila. Problem solved.

Other than the stink.

Fortunately I have my knitting to help me relax.

Ah yes. The baby blanket for my nephew, due imminently. The infernal baby blanket is still in progress. If by "in progress" you mean "baby is due in 3 days, there's probably 20 hours of work left to do on it and I haven't touched it in 2 days". I think these blankets are supposed to be special because they are threaded with love and prayers and hope. This one is threaded with curse words at the moment. Better get on the sweetness and prayers thing.

I hate this project. I don't know why. I think it would look nicer all in blue, but I'm too far gone to rip it out and re-start. And did I mention that that border is 12 rows of stitches of seed stitch. 171 stitches across. I am so screwed.

And I just deleted the photo I uploaded. Here it is again. Cuz I've got nothing but time. Oh my god, I deleted it again. Screw it.

But I did finish a soaker for a trade on mamabarter. I made this in about 2 hours of knitting, and am also making a size small. This is a size newborn, and it's impossibly tiny and sweet. She provided the yarn, and I got a diva cup too in exchange. Not a bad deal! I'm pleased with the knitting, it was a cheap yarn and not very soft, but it turned out beautifully.

And I got me some zen string. I thought the whole hoopla with zenstring (http://www.zenstring.com/) was just a bunch of, well, hooey - I mean, how special can yarn be?

Pretty damned special, as it turns out. Just taking it from the skein and winding it into a ball (without a swift and winder, mind - note to self: request same for birthday) was a near-religious experience. This stuff is so soft and slippery I cannot wait to knit it up. But alas, I must, as it is for longies for baby for the fall, and I'm afraid to start now lest she grow and force me to frog. Zenstring shall not be frogged. This is a skein of bliss aran BFL in the "sakura" colourway. I'm trying to think of a reason why baby deserves $50 longies when I could have a $50 scarf.

Some FO's, some in progress

Big month, June was - and July's been nuts too.

Random parenting comment (because I was going through photos, and found this one)

Babies love being held. Even fat little breastfed babies. I can barely lift my 19 lb hulker of a 6 month old, so I wear her in a sling. This is a peanut shell sling, it's just a ring of fabric that I slip on, and pop DD into it. Here we are at IKEA in Minneapolis. She loves her sling. Dads: you get lots of cute 'awww' looks when you wear your baby.

I also found a great store in St. Paul - http://www.peapods.com/ - I haven't found a bricks and mortar natural kid/baby store anywhere, and I was in heaven here. Between this place, and the yarn shop I found, let's just say the bank account was a wee bit lighter when we got back to Canada.

Here's that pic of the soaker I was talking about. Cute baby, eh? Crappy soaker, I cannot make the curly purly pattern work for my DD and it's really pissing me off. Back to the drawing board.

My son had his grade 6 graduation in June. Here's a pic of my handsome boy - he also won the math award. That's right, he's adorable, loving, AND smart. I'm a bit proud.

Hoo, boy, there's lots more, so maybe I'll post again tomorrow. I'm pooped. And I have to pee, adn I'm afraid I'll lose this post if I don't publish now!

I just have this sinking feeling....

Ever feel that way? Like the world's about to crash in on you, but there's no real reason for that sense of malaise? I guess it's just generalized stress, I've got work, baby, two older kids, house, mortgage issues, marriage, etc. etc. There's just not enough time to do half the things I plan on doing, let alone write to this blog.

I'm so worried with work - I've got lots of work to do, but no time to do it in. And when I do have time to work, I don't FEEL like it, because from the minute I get up in the morning until I go back to bed at night (usually the wee hours of the morning), I'm doing all the non-work stuff that keeps the household running. My husband god love him tries to help, but reading downstairs when I need to work and baby is being a night owl isn't helping.

And I don't have time to knit. It's killing me, I have a blankie for my brother's new son in progress. This is as far as I've gotten. Of course I'm a moron and decided to increase the border and do seed stitch instead of garter stitch, which is way nicer, but takes twice as long. And I get to pick up about 200 stitches on each side once the blanket and do seed stitch to match the end I've done. OMG. OMG. I'm having an anxiety attack just thinking about it.

The baby is due in 5 weeks, I am a quick knitter, but I need to be spending an hour a day on this thing if it's going to get done, and I'm not. It is Not. Going. To. Get. Finished.

But I got a fun new pattern for a cotton fish! You can kind of see it here, though DD is attempting to eat the pattern. I got some Blue Sky Cotton to knit it with, I was wary because it was cotton, but it's knitting up so soft and squishy and easy. I'm super-impressed.

I'm thinking of making one for DD and one for my niece (and big sister to be). And pack, work, move, and take holidays with my kids at the lake. Keep on dreamin', lady.

Oh and I got some gorgeous sock yarn - aren't those

#1 needles adorable?

Minor detail: I've never knit a sock. This yarn was only $6 USD. It's not superwash, though, but I loved the colourway so much I had to have it regardless. Hey, I can handwash socks, right?

I did finish one project while we were in

Minneapolis, though - just a soaker made with

wool that DS and I dyed together using kool aid. The pic only has one cuff done, but I did the second one as well. And I couldn't weave in the ends, because my needle mysteriously disappeared. Crud. And I uploaded a pic, but it's disappared. Screw it, I've gotta get back to work.

I just remembered...I have a blog!!!!

This was supposed to be a more frequent thing. Here's hoping, at least I'm not giving up entirely and slinking away, that counts for something right?





I've been doing some kool-aid dyeing with awesome results Here's a pic of DD2 in a pair of picky pants capris (supposed to be longies but I got really tired of doing the legs). I used cherry, strawberry kiwi, orange, and blue raspberry kool-aid.

I used the short row technique for the butt shaping, and seed stitch for the cuffs. I also extended the waistband for about 5 extra rows, I find the waistband on this pattern doesn't fit snugly enough for my liking - this was an improvement.

Also on the needles is Katja - in Bernat cottontots baby blue, a pair of longies (stuck on leg #2, go figure) in Noro Kuryeon #153 - ok that these are on pause since the wool is totally inappropriate for anything but winter - it was just so beautiful I had to start knitting it the second I got it! What else...oh, I'm just weaving in the ends on a cutie blue (kool-aid dyed) soaker with white trim and my first crocheted cuffs, it turned out so sweet, but BIG - when am I going to learn to do a damned gauge swatch - especially on soakers, they always seem to be ok for size until it's time to graft, then I'm all, "oh crap, this thing is huge!". Anyway, I'm going to felt it and pretend I meant all along for it to be an overnight soaker. I'm using the little turtle knits pattern for this one,

And I'm sewing an opk strip for DH. Total pain in the ass. It's like 72 panels alternating red and white and what I'm making looks like total poop compared to the pic in the panel. I'm going to try and finish it tomorrow and post pics.

Gotta go - time to do DH's taxes. Wheeahhaaaa.

My van...

I used to drive the coolest car a mom could drive - a Jetta TDI wagon in reflex silver. It was dreamy. Since DD2's birth, DS (11) and DD1 (8.5 - and we were somehow assigned the 'extra obnoxious version of little sister 1.0 - but I digress) were crammed in the backseat of this little car, and God only knows where the dog (Jury, our loyal-not-to-mention-severely-ADHD-chocolate lab) would have gone on trips to the lake. We'd have needed a trailer.

So I decided it was time for a van. I'd known this since before Christmas, when I was still pregnant. So I did the research and got the least gas-guzzling version out there, the Toyota Sienna. I'm pretty happy about it. What makes me happiest is how far away the kids are from the driver's seat now. Just kidding. Ok I'm actually really not kidding, it's great how the screaming is kind of muffled now. Plus there's about 300 cup holders, and the middle row is too far back from the front for DD1 to kick the back of Dan's seat, reducing the disputes on the average car ride to under 50, which I can live with.

Here's Jury the wonder-dog (as we call him). My mom has a cottage in the Interlake, and Jury lives for the water. He loves to swim, and in true lab fashion, will chase a ball into the water until your arm wears out from throwing it. He's a machine. One day he went for 5 swims, and was begging for more. Freaking lunatic dog.






Anyway, back to the van - I dropped off my Jetta at the dealeship and kissed my cheap as borscht car days goodbye - while the payment was steep, the insurance was next to nothing, and I was literally spending $80/month on diesel.

Imagine my surprise when a few days ago I filler-up'd the van and the total was $78. SEVENTY-EIGHT FREAKING DOLLARS to fill up a vehicle that (a) I didn't want anyway; and (b) drinks gas the way Britney Spears drinks cosmopolitans. *SOB*

Speaking of vans, here's a great link to another blog - it's an ad for "mom my ride"

Heh.

http://www.thecowgoddess.com/?p=574

knitting redux

Oh right...the other knitting disaster...I'm making a poncho for Meredith, and I couldn't find any good free patterns online (not knowing at the time about the HUGE variety of free patterns at www.lionbrand.com), so I picked up a Patons pattern. Finished the knitting, and blocked it and one side came out different from the other. I think my knitting loosened up as I got faster at it. I've only been knitting for about 9 months and am self-taught so God only knows...

After blocking, I seamed up the front and back, and it looks great, then onto the hood. The directions for the hood are I swear the worst I've ever seen. I've stitched it once, it looked like crap, so I ripped it apart. I re-did it, and it still looked wrong, so now I've taken it apart again, except in doing so I started pulling apart the wrong stitches, and now I have a big gaping hole in the hood that needs to be repaired. Sob.

So this project is sitting in time-out for a day or two. I promised Meredith it would be done by Friday so I guess I'll pull it out on Wednesday and give it another chance. In the meantime, I've found some fun cotton patterns online to try for summer, so it's off to the wool store tomorrow to pick colours, my favourite thing!

knitting

In other news, the knitting projects hit a bit of a hiccup (ok brick wall) this week. I made a LTK soaker, checked my gauge, it ended up about the right size for a pretty big two year old. I couldn't believe it when I held it up....and why can't I seem to see this coming? I even felted it before realizing it was a lost cause, good thing it was pretty cheap wool, and only took half a skien. Here's a pic of the second version, which I had to rip out halfway through because I messed up splitting for the leg holes (argh).

It actually turned out nice, and was a very quick knit. I'll definitely make more with this one.

Oh, and we've discovered babylegs. Katja is wearing a pair of babylegs I made - these are about 20 bucks a pair online, and they're really just cut off and hemmed knee socks, as far as I can tell. One of the women from the Pin (www.diaperpin.com) said you just take knee socks and cut them off, don't even bother hemming them, and voila - babylegs.

Being inherently lazy (and cheap) I tried it, and they turned out great. K wore a dress later in the day with her "babylegs" and they were perfect.

It occurs to me that 90% of my decisions these days come from being cheap (cloth diapers, breastfeeding, knitting my own soakers/longies) or lazy (breastfeeding, cosleeping).

Winnipeg sucks for natural parenting

.....there's only one store in this city selling cloth diapers, and they are charging $3.25CAD per prefold. Only one size available. No fitteds, all-in-ones, nothing.

Oh, and don't get me started on toys. The only place I've found non-plastic, non-talking, beeping, music playing, light flashing toys is at Chapters, of all places. And their selection sucked. So unless I want Katja playing with stuffed animals her entire life, I have to go online to find some wooden SIMPLE toys.

I'm seriously considering opening up a natural baby store in this godforsaken city. I wonder if any of the suburbanite SUV driving starbucks drinking trophy mommies would consider cloth diapers?

Greetings....

I just wrote that and thought, "how many damned blogs start with the heading, "Greetings".

This is my first post, so I'll keep it short and sweet....I'm going to blog on the things I find fascinating, which means the theme of this blog will change constantly. Right now I'm all about knitting, cloth diapering, and breastfeeding my teeny tiny newborn baby....ok she's actually chunky and has, as Weird Al puts it, "more chins than Chinatown", but she's still tiny to me, especially compared to my big kids, Max and Meredith, who are 11 and 8.5.

What else are we going to talk about...oh, The Secret DVD which we're watching right now ("we" is me and my partner-slash-baby daddy Dan), organics, natural living, chiropractic...all that good stuff. Music, too. Love music.