4 Months Tomorrow

(photos: our only warmish day so far this year my hat is knit by Gabriel and Oliver's is knit by me, book time in CA with my mom, out to brunch with my grandparents in CA)

Wowza! The little guy will be four months old tomorrow. Mostly during the last four months my sense of time has been way off. When Oliver turned one month old I couldn't believe it because it all still felt so new, and well, like I still didn't know what I was doing. Some days (or nights) feel oh so long and yet weeks and months zoom by. But this time I have to say that four months feels just about right. I feel like he is still a new little guy that we are getting to know and at the same time I feel like we are really getting the hang of things and I do know him and my new self better and better all the time. Four months, I feel kind of proud of us.

We are up in Celo right now and it snows at least a few flurries every day. So much snow on the ground and bellow freezing temperatures. A winter like I have never had in North Carolina but one that is closer to the winters of Gabriel's youth. Gabriel is away this month at wilderness medicine camp (a wilderness medicine rotation) in eastern Tennessee. We are apart this month except for 2 weekends that he is visiting us in Celo. Marilyn stayed with Oliver and I in Chapel Hill for a few days and then my mom came to Chapel Hill for a week and then we are up in Celo together with Bruce for the final two weeks that Gabriel and I are apart. Tough to be apart. It feels so cliche to say but it really is true that Oliver does something new pretty much every single day.

Two days ago Oliver started rolling over from his back onto his belly. He is so funny about it because he seems so determined to get onto his belly until he gets there and then he is like "oh crap! All that work and I ended up in my least favorite position ever." But when he squawks for me to flip him over and I oblige, he just flips himself right back onto his belly again.

Today his new trick is that during bath time he coughed a couple of times and I coughed back to him and then he coughed back at me and we repeated this back and forth exchange several more times. Other than smiling this is his first real imitation. Amazing.

Outfitting Mr. Oliver

We are getting really close now! 37 weeks and 2 days down and who knows how many left to go. Tired the last few days. Necessary naps but still managing to walk my 2 miles a day and go to prenatal yoga. Feet hurt and often swell at night. I guess it is all par for the course.

We are getting very excited now. Gabriel has been super cute getting all excited. He has been the one with the patience to go through the novel of a manual for installing the car seat and he has been very busy with many little things all over the house.

There has been so much knitting for gifts lately but here are a few of the little things that I have made for little Oliver.

Pattern: Pebble (Henry's Manly Cobblestone-Inspired Baby Vest)
Source: The Thrifty Knitter Blog
Yarn: Left over Queensland Kathmandu Aran
Colorways: Color 121 (oatmeal), Color 115 (green)
Needles: size 6?



Pattern: Legwarmies
Source: Never Not Knitting Blog
Yarn: Knitpicks Shine Sport
Colorway: Caution and Leapfrog
Yardage: Less than one ball of each. Probably enough of each left to make a stripped hat or something
Needles: size 3 dpns





Pattern: Christine's Baby Booties
Yarn: Lorna's Lace Shepard Sock
Colorway: Gold Hill #64
Yardage: left overs from other socks
Needles: size 1

Baby Sweater for Eliza Bell

This sweater and booties were made for sweet Eliza Bell who was born at the beginning of this week to good friends of ours up in Celo. This is a rascally baby that showed soooo very many signs that she was going to arrive early and then 3 weeks later showed up almost a week after her due date. Just when you think you think you have things all figured out right?

Sweater took me longer than I thought it would. Beautiful pattern was slow going keeping track. Love that it is knit all in one piece so cleverly as Elizabeth Zimmerman always provides. The booties too were knit all in one piece making for a fun puzzle.

Pattern: February Baby Sweater
Source: The Knitter's Almanac by Elizabeth Zimmerman
Size: 6-12 months maybe? The sleeves are very forgiving to be 3/4 length and still cute as she grows
Yarn: Knitpicks Shine Sport
Colorway: Harbor and Silver Sage
Yardage: 2 balls Harbor, less than one ball Silver Sage
Needles: size 5




Pattern: Baby Slippers
Source: Adorable Knits for Tots: 25 Stylish Designs
Size: 6-12 months maybe? The sleeves are very forgiving to be 3/4 length and still cute as she grows
Yarn: Knitpicks Shine Sport
Colorway: Harbor and Silver Sage
Yardage: much less than one ball
Needles: size 2

Knitted things for new babes

With lots of little ones popping up here and there there has been a lot of small sized knitting going on. Best part is that again Gabriel is doing his part as well. He has really been the baby hat pro. The pink and purple hats went to my cousin's twins. Gabriel made one and I made the other. This is a super cute pattern and I can hardly think of a pattern where the yarn that they suggest for it couldn't be more appropriate and really added to the final product. The rugged nubbiness of this yarn is so cute and it comes in great soft colors for baby stuff.

Pattern: Children's Cotton Hats
Source: Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 Cotton
Colorways: Foxglove 408 (pink), Phlox (405) purple
Needles: US 7 dpns

This blanket is for a very special little bean due at the beginning of April. Honestly this will be the first baby of a close peer of mine. Gabriel and I lived with Mimi and Jon in the year before we got married and it was Mimi and Jon's first year of marriage. So, for a very special baby, a warm and snuggley blanket to be wrapped up in. The little hat was improvised by Gabriel so I won't put any of the stats on it.

I totally loved this yarn fyi. It is super soft and spongy. You could just squish it in your hands for ever. Plus it is 100% merino and machine washable (dry flat). I also did a modification that many on Ravelry had done of a garter stitch eyelet border. The border alone took an entire ball of yarn!

Pattern: Pinwheel Blanket
Source: Knitalong: Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Rialto Aran
Colorways: Natural (201), Moss (210)
Needles: size 8 dpns to start and then increasing sizes of size 8 circulars

Christmas Mitts

Pattern: Endpaper Mitts
Source: See Eunny Knit!
Yarn: Knitpicks Palette
Colorways: Twig and Tide pool Heather for blueish ones. Iris Heather and Merlot Heather for the brownish ones.
Needles: Ribbing in size 0 dpns, body in size 1 dpns

More Christmas presents revealed. Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts which are available for free here on her long abandoned blog. I sure miss her blog. These were presents for my sister in-law and my sister in-law in-law. What the heck do you call that person that your brother in-law marries anyway? I guess I should just call her my sister. Luckily these girlies are both little like me. Even littler in fact so it was easy to get the sizing right. I did modify a bit from the pattern. I made them shorter then they are meant to be down the wrist by only doing chart A one time instead of the three (?) that it suggests. They are like precious little gems and fun to make too. I will have to make myself a pair.

Hats for the boys

Still got to fill you all in on the Christmas Knitting. I feel like I was fairly good this year about starting early. I started way back in September and still I was knitting right up until the end. Luckily everything made it on time. My grandmother had to wait one extra day to receive her scarf and there was one major freak out I had on the airplane when the last thumb on my sister's mitts just would not behave.

One of the big treats though with the Christmas knitting this year was that my sweet husband wanted to get involved as well. A few Christmas' ago he wanted to join in with the knitting of gifts because it made him uncomfortable that we were giving gifts from the both of us that only I had slaved over.

Gabriel has never been shy about what hobbies or tasks he takes on and is never afraid of what is usually classified as feminine work. I will never forget the time that we were in a parking lot one hot summer day and Gabriel was wearing a sarong around his waist and a car of teenage girls drove by and yelled "nice skirt" and giggled away.

When Gabriel was little his family spent a year living in Ireland. While there, with no television and with the long cold damp winter, all of the family picked up knitting, even the little ones. I don't think he has knit a stitch since he was 5 but the stigma of knitting was long gone and his brilliant Cade fearlessness at trying something new has turned him into a wonderful knitter.

For this year we picked out Brooklyntweed's Turn a Square Hat to work on together for a number of the men in our lives. Gabriel has always been really funny about Brooklyntweed, looking over my shoulder and saying "ohhh are you looking at that Brooklyntweed again?" as if I have some secret internet lover. What can I say, don't we all wish we had Jared Flood living in a room of our houses cranking out his gorgeous rumpelstiltskinian knits for only us? Or that he at least was documenting our own hobbies for us with his luscious photography?

So, anyway, the Turn a Square hat turned out to be a very perfect project for Gabriel. Great for his skill level and fun for him to work with self striping yarn which we all know as the thing that keeps us going as the mystery unfolds through endless stockinette stitches. In the end Gabe made three and I made three. Only five got gifted though because I just had to keep one of the ones that Gabe made. How could I pass up the opportunity that when anyone compliments me on my hat I get to say "my husband made it" while beaming with pride.

Pattern: Turn A Square Hat
Source: Brooklyntweed
Yarn: different shades of Noro Silk Garden for stripes. Different shades of Cascade 220, Patons Classic Wool, and Galway Highland Heather for the main colors.
Needles: size 6 circular needles for ribbing and size 7 circulars and dpns for body

Around home and Christmas Knitting

This was a crazy find on the top of my compost tumbler the other morning. Ice in the form of a hollow looking spear.

Gabriel was pretty sick last week. Many who read this blog know that he is a third year medical student. Right now he doing a rotation in Internal Medicine. When you are on rotations, you don't take time off for pretty much anything. No dentist appointments, no DMV, and you have to be pretty darn sick to get sent home. Gabriel was the sickest he has been in a few years but I guess he still wasn't sick enough to go home. So this is what he looked like at the end of the day most days last week. This may or may not be better than another friend in med school who has no heat in her apartment and she needs to be there to let a worker in to fix it which is impossible with her rotation so she is just coming home to a freezing apartment each day. I can't tell you how many other stories there are like this. Med school is every bit as brutal as you could possibly imagine. At least Gabriel is safe and sound at this point. Another classmate recently fell asleep behind the wheel while driving home from the hospital after working 30 hours. He broke his pelvis and is lucky to be alive.

Sorry for the heavy tone.

Pattern: Drops 86-10 Heanband in Alaska
Source: Garnstudio website
Yarn: Sublime Cashmere merino silk aran
Colorway: #8 Sage
Needles: size 7 straight needles

One of the many Christmas presents being knitted. I am not sure what is safe to post or not around here in the way of Christmas knitting. Not sure how much my in-laws and certain friends look at my blog so I am proceeding with a little caution and I am sure that a whole lot more will be posted after the holidays. Believe me though, lot's of knitting is being done. What is even more fun is that Gabriel has also knit three hats as presents. I am stealing one of them though, it is just so cute and come on, my husband made it.

Slippers for Carolyn

Pattern: Aran Isle Slippers
Source: Interweave Knits Holiday 2008
Yarn: Plymouth Earth Oceanside Organic
Colorway: #4
Needles: size 6 straight and circular
Modifications: Did a different aran pattern for tops. Adapted aran pattern from the Lattice Cable on page 182 of the Cables & Arans Harmony Guide.

These were really fun, they are a great basic pattern that could be adapted to have lots of different patterns incorporated in the tops of them. These were a gift for my stepmother who helped me out with a wedding present for friends and generously gave me one of her amazing quilts to give to them. I have been looking for the right thing to knit for her as a thank you but it is hard A) because she is also a very crafty knitter, and B) because she is allergic to all animal fibers. The nice thing though about knitting with cotton is that these are very machine washable which is great seeing as they are worn on the feet. Thanks again Carolyn!

Knitting Together

My trip to Tanzania was one of the bigger steps that I have made toward starting my business to import crafts from Tanzania to the United States. Other big steps have included quitting preschool teaching, getting a business license, getting all registered with the government, picking a name, building a website (ongoing), and accepting poverty with no end in sight. Ah, the sacrifices for the things we love.

So for two weeks I was traveling with my mom meeting with various artisan groups, most of which were all women. The main group that I am launching the business with is a group of basket weavers from the really remote center of Tanzania. I also am doing some product research and development with a few other groups who do batik, embroidery, jewelery and other kinds of basket weaving.

On the very first day of the trip we met with a women's group that is weaving banana leaves into baskets and purses. While I was meeting with the group one of the women stood off to the side knitting while she listened. At the end of the meeting I went to the car and pulled out my knitting which was currently Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts (perfect traveling project). Little did I know how interesting my knitting would be! The other woman had never seen knitting in the round, or double pointed needles, OR fair isle/stranded knitting (working two colors at once to make a pattern). She was really eager to try my project so I let her give it a go as the whole rest of the group looked on giggling. The poor woman was knitting a hat flat like a square! I could see the gears turning in her head as she worked my mitten in the round. It was one of those fun things that happens when you travel and you end up connecting with people in ways that you never would even imagine.

I Heart My New Camera

Did I mention that I love my new camera? I have to make a public big smooshy THANK YOU to my grandmother Millie who contributed along with my parents to making this camera possible for my birthday. It will be a huge help to me in my new business and it has been really fun and gotten me very excited about photography again in a way that I haven't been since high school.

All of the above photographs were taken with the old 50mm Nikon lens from my old manual camera strapped on it. It looks very funny to have this spiffy new digital SLR with an old lens on it. BUT it takes beautiful pictures. Small depth of field, great in low light. These were all taken late in the day yesterday, all inside with natural light except the one that is obviously outside. This lens only works on the camera manually so it has been a joy to control aperture and shutter speeds again and manually focus after handing all control over to digital for the last couple of years.
"B is for bone" is for Analisa. Heart you boo!

New Hat, New Camera

Pattern: Inga
Source: Ewenique Fiber- The Blog
Yarn: Knitpicks Merino Style
Colorway: Storm and Nutmeg
Needles: size 3 and 5 circular needles

Two new things to be mentioned here on this post. First off is that these are the first shots taken with my brand new SLR! I am very pleased. This hat is also my first fair isle project so that is also very exciting. It was really fun. I am a tight knitter so this was a good lesson in loosening up a bit. The hat is really big which has been a problem for other knitters that have tried this one. I even already started the pattern a few rows in but I would have to do it even more for the hat to fit me or most people. Luckily I have a large headed brother in-law-in-law and his birthday is in a few weeks.