the wonder weeks… November 19, 2010

Just as I was allowing myself to think that I had this whole parenting business down, I was introduced to wonder week 19.

Wonder weeks, if you are unfamiliar with them, are weeks in the life of a baby where, alongside making significant developmental leaps, they become a right pain in the behind for the duration.

Right on time, a 19-week-old Phoebe learned to grab a toy and shake it, pick things up and put them in her mouth, sit supported and roll from her back onto her front. She also cried about nothing in particular, didn’t want to be put down, slept in chunks no longer than 2 hours at night, and totally refused to nap.

Yesterday she hit 20 weeks, and has begun to allow me the luxury of a morning nap again. A nap for her, that is. I’ve been knitting.

I finally found the perfect project for a couple of skeins of Rico Creative Poems Aran that I’ve had stashed. I saw a couple of great looking Baktuses (Bakti?) using it striped with a plain grey. So that’s what I did. Dead easy project, but I love love it! It’s so soft and squooshy and warm.

It’s going to look just the ticket with my new grey wool winter coat.

Yum.

Hopefully it won’t be so long before my next update. I have a few projects which aren’t a million miles from completion, so all we need is for the elusive afternoon nap to click back into place, and I should have a whole bunch of stuff to show you!

Think sleepy thoughts for us…

hat’s the spirit… October 17, 2010

This week, autumn has brought me 3 things:

1. Light so bad I have had to take my photos with the flash on (boo).

2. A three-and-a-half month old baby.

3. An obsession with crafting for the aforementioned baby. I’m on hats just now. After the disastrously small earflap hat from a few weeks ago (turns out it wasn’t me and my terrible gauge-measuring, it was me and my awful pattern-following!), I decided that actually a cheery little fair-isle hat was just what the knitdoctor ordered. I based it on the same pattern, with a fair amount of winging in there. Those elephants were based on the ones from the Ella Funt pattern, and the hearts, well, they’re just hearts.

Because old BigHead is on the 75th centile for head size (bang on 50th for height and weight now), I decided to make a toddler size, knowing my gauge is always a little tight, and other than being a bit long, it fits her well. And the little purple elephants go SO WELL with her little purple elephant t-shirt!

Don’t mind her expression, she does actually like it! She’s just the least photogenic baby in the history of the world. She can be all smiles and giggles, but the second you point a camera her way, the sullen face comes out. We’re going to have to change that, I think!

Before I go, I’d just like to thank people who comment on these entries. I’d like to take the time to reply to you all individually, but my spare time is kind of precious at the moment! I appreciate that you read, and I appreciate when you take the time to comment.

THANKS EVERYONE <3

the craft has got his hat on… September 6, 2010

Crafting with a baby around takes a little getting used to. Gone are the days of hours devoted to yarn or fabric or words. Crafting with a baby is quick and dirty. You get your kicks where you can.

A stripe here, an earflap there. A two hour project stretches to fill four days. But I’m getting there!

An unprecedented decision on Phoebe’s part to actually try sleeping at bedtime has got me off to a flying start, and last night I wove in the final end on her very first hat. Unfortunately, poor gauge-measuring on my part means it’ll probably fit her for all of about ten seconds, but just for now I think she’s looking very dapper indeed!

Pattern is the Children’s Earflap Hat by SweetP Knits, knit in the round. 4.5mm needles, remnant of Rowan Pure Wool from Baby Granny Blanket.

Project Projects reaches 10!

things I have learned about motherhood… July 22, 2010

Thus far, I have learned that new motherhood involves the following:

Gifts. Flowers (see above), clothes, blankets with tiny zoo animals on, food! Very welcome.

Unsolicited advice regarding newborn care circa 1948/1979/1981/1992, generally followed by shock that laying your baby to sleep on their front/drinking a pint of stout a day while breastfeeding/utilising lead-based paints in your nursery is generally discouraged by healthcare professionals these days.

Poo. Lots and lots of poo. Ditto pee, sick, drool and milk (oh god, milk is EVERYWHERE).

Sleepless nights (obviously).

A great deal of one-handed 1am, 4am and 6.30am internetting.

An intense urge to craft for the baby, but a severe lack of time in which to do so. P.S. Ooh, finished sunburst blanket!

Pride at very simple actions on the part of your infant. She sneezed! Clever girl! The confidence that your child is supremely advanced. Obviously, as she was born with hair and can already fart AND hiccup AT THE SAME TIME. Wonder if Mensa has a minimum age?

Fear. Sometimes bordering on blind panic that the most simple of your actions, or inactions, will damage your child in some horrific way. The baby hasn’t slept all night, is she poorly? Or scared? Panic. The baby has slept soundly for 5 hours straight, is she dead? Panic. She is feeding too much, she is not feeding enough, is that a spot or a rash? Etc.

Did I already say sleepless nights?

Joy in simple pleasures. Such as breakfast. Or taking a shower.

Love.

completion… July 9, 2010

But only just…

I finished the blanket in the very early stages of labour. Some 44 hours later (!) on 1st July, baby Phoebe was born by emergency c-section. She weighed 5lb 12oz and immediately set about wooing midwives with her eyelashes. Apparently they’re pretty long.

We’re home. We’re fine. But we may be absent from blogland for a little bit while we get to grips with this whole parenting business.

And by me, I obviously mean me. Phoebe’s already excellent at being a baby.

decisions… June 26, 2010

63 completed sunburst squares. 6 piles of carefully organised colourways. 5 days til baby p&p is due. It’s becoming a race against time.

Since these pictures were taken, I have begun sewing them up. This is my first time sewing granny squares. I used the join-as-you-go method with Baby Granny Blanket, but Sunburst doesn’t have the granny holes, so that was never going to look right. I’ve crocheted squares together before, too, but I don’t like the ridges along the back, particularly with smaller squares. So I did some googling and decided to go with a mattress stitch. I’m liking it, so far. It’s flat, and feels pretty secure. And I’m even quite enjoying the process of stitching.

There they are – all my squares, in their final layout. I took some time with this, making sure the pinks and deep purples were pretty evenly distributed, and that no two adjacent squares had the same colour in the same place. I also made sure, as I was hooking them up, that no two squares were identical. This is the most controlled of anything I’ve made. Maybe this is my version of nesting? Cause I know my house is not looking any amount of cleaner!

See? All my little piles, laid out in order, labelled by row, ready to be sewn up. I even tied them together so there was no possibility of them getting all messed up.

As of this morning, rows 1-5 are sewn up. 6 is by my side, about to be added, and 7, 8 and 9 are sitting on top of my yarn chest, waiting patiently. What do you reckon will come first? Completion or baby?

baby’s first monsters… June 5, 2010

Carrying on my productivity, yesterday (while hiding from the heat!) I finished knitting Daphne and Delilah from Danger Crafts. I opted for felt/embroidered faces so they’d be baby-safe. Made from Kool Kotton in Aqua and Tomato – a bit copied off the original pattern, but I’m ok with it.

They’ll live on a shelf in little one’s nursery for the minute. The nursery, incidentally, which is coming together well! We’ve painted, we’ve acquired most of the furniture. Just need a few bits and some finishing touches and will be good to go.

That said, we went for our antenatal class/hospital tour today, and touches of the faintly terrified are beginning to edge in.

I shall distract myself with craft.

on being productive… May 28, 2010

So, Project Projects is up to seven!

Apparently me and maternity leave make excellent bedfellows. I’m sure my bliss will soon be shattered by the piercing cries of a newborn, but until then, my craft has got his hat on and he is totally coming out to play.

This is the little cotton carseat blanket I made for the little one. She is extremely blanketed already, but being due in summer, I thought she could probably do with a light, cool blanket to put her on until I rock out the Rowan in the autumn. I think this will do the trick.

This yarn is so lovely. It’s more Rico – Cotton Blend, which is a really nice cotton/acrylic with contrasty shiny threads running through (somewhere between soft cotton and mercerised). I picked the colours to be a little bit girly, but not insipid, and I think they totally work. If Rico know one thing about yarn, it’s colour.

I winged the pattern – just simple, chunky stripes, and finished the edges off with a little splash of that green.

Carseat – check. Carseat blanket – check. Now all I need is a baby.

generations… May 25, 2010

So, all of a sudden it seems that baby girl is due in five weeks. Of course, this realisation has hit me like a ton of bricks (or a teeny foot in the ribcage in the middle of the night?). Obviously I already realised I was having a baby. But then one day last week, I woke up and it dawned on me: I’m HAVING A BABY! SOON!

Yikes.

I have found my head spinning with new, unanswerable questions. Who will she look like? How will she sound when she cries? Will she like me? What if she’s not a she? What if I’m the worst mother in the history of the world?

I have found my solace, this week, in crochet.

I have also been acquiring hand-me-downs. Generations of hand-me-downs.

This is the blanket my great-grandma crocheted for my brother when he was born. He was her first great-grandchild. I remember her, vaguely. She died when I was three. She was ninety-one. I remember we crashed the car on the way to her funeral.

This is the blanket my grandma knitted for me when I was born. I was her first granddaughter. She’s still with us, and very much looking forward to meeting her first great-granddaughter, although she can’t knit any more because her hands shake too much and she has arthritis in her knuckles.

This is the tiny baby poncho my (thoroughly uncrafty) mum bought my brother when he was born. Hello seventies!

And finally, this is the start of the blanket I am making for my daughter when she is born:

It’s the sunburst pattern again, after finally working out my hooky issues, in my favourite ever baby yarn – Rico Baby Classic DK. I even managed to incorporate my little stash from waybackwhen, along with a few new colours. I’m trying to get enough pink in there to make it girly, without passing over the boundary with sickly. I think it’s working, so far.

issues… May 11, 2010

First, some happy news. Teeny cardigan is all blocked and buttoned and hanging in a teeny wardrobe.

So, fuelled with completion success and facing a free weekend, I started thinking about my next project. 9 colours of Rico Baby – the softest synthetic I’ve ever had the pleasure of squishing. Junior p&p is probaby already the most blanketed child ever, and she hasn’t even been born yet, so she really doesn’t need another one. But need has never really been a factor in my projects before, so blanket it was!

A bit of thinking and experimenting led me back to the Sunburst granny pattern, and I cranked a few out to see. Then, mid-way into the third square, disaster struck:

RIP, my favourite 4mm crochet hook

After an emergency run into town to pick up a new hook, I soldiered on, only to run into double disaster!

The two squares on the left are pre-disaster, with the old 4mm hook. The one on the right was made with the new 4mm hook. Clearly, they are not the same size. How can this be?!?

Cue another emergency run for a 3.5mm hook. This seems to have almost done the trick. Although they are still not the same size, they’re a whole lot closer.

I think I’m going to have to get yet another hook, though. I can’t get on with the metal hooks. I think it’s the shape of the handles clashing wildly with my unorthodox method of holding them!

A little treat just for me. Maybe that will make up for my disastrous weekend