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Insomnia sock pattern is available.
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
For the two people who asked for it…here is the sock pattern from a few days ago.
…and here is one for the worsted weight slipper socks from my dye experiment.
Posted in Uncategorized, Patterns | 1 Comment »
MagKnits patterns
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
ubernatural.pdf
paris-loop.pdf
coldshoulder_pattern.pdf
Well…MagKnits is no longer. I’m not here to post an opinion about the closing of the site, but just want to let you know that I’ve moved my patterns over to my house and you can still get them if you want them.
I’ll make it so that if you go to my “free stuff” page, you can just DL the patterns from there.
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Practice Saturday!
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
Woah…I started this on Saturday and am just getting a chance to post it! AND…Edited to ADD…my friend Marjorie ran a marathon and we got to see her cross the finish line!
She ran the Battan Memorial Death March Marathon and finished in the top 10% of her division! Go Marjorie!
So LAST weekend, we got together to wind yarn, and THIS weekend, my fearless Knitting Group is getting together to test out my FOUR Knitting in the Heartland classes. A brave bunch of ladies, no?
I want to make sure that all the questions are answered, and the handouts and examples are just perfect.
I’m really looking forward to next weekend! Mom and Mazie are both coming with me, and the Japel grandparents are meeting us there…so if you’re going, you’ll likely meet our whole posse at some point! (Except Nate, who’s going to be enjoying a quiet weekend in his painting studio!)
Miss Mazie has had a great last few nights. She’s starting to handle her farts better. For a while there, every time she farted, she would scream. Now she’s starting to realize that it’s just a part of life. Poor baby. She still has a hard time transitioning into the sleep zone, but we’re working on it.
We’ve also been trying to head the crying off at the pass by making sure we go for looooooong evening walks. Last night, we went out at 6:30 and stayed out until about 9. We stopped for dinner halfway, and just walked and walked and she forgot that she usually has a big fit right then. I was the same way. I guess I still am. I love to stay up late and sleep in. Or, I *used* to…now I’ll go to sleep any chance I get!
Oh Man, the other day Nate asked me, “Are you nervous about traveling with her?” At first I thought he meant Mom…then I realized…I’m taking a 2.5 month old baby on a plane. On FOUR planes. Eek.
Posted in Uncategorized, just chit chat | 2 Comments »
We had quite the evening with Miss Mazie.
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
She’s been really colicky some nights starting at around 6 and going to 10 or sometimes even 12. It’s not every night, but once in a while she’s SO TIRED but just won’t let go. She’s also having some pretty bad gas. Sometimes when she passes a bubble, she screams. Again, not every time, but often enough that it just must be really hard for her. She’s just so new that she’s still getting used to her body. It does some weird stuff!
We’re well on our way out of Mazie’s newborn days. She’s smiling, crossing her eyes as she tries to focus on farther and farther objects, she chatters and has
little bla-bla conversations with us, and is starting to be more alert during the day. She still takes a lot of naps, though. I think this colic stuff is on its way out. In the meantime, though, she has a couple of things that soothe her. One is a vibrating chair that she got from Olin’s mom and dad. Tonight she was crying and crying and Nate put her on that and she immediately stopped. Like someone flipped a switch. I bet Aaron and Margi are going to want this one back!
She also likes her swing. 
She didn’t like the chair or swing at first, because she really preferred to be held all the time. But now being held all the time is too boring…so she wants to go to one or the other. She laughs and chatters away in her swing. It’s really cute.
One other thing she really likes is her stretchy sling. 
It’s made out of the kind of fabric that you can buy in the fabric store to ring t-shirts or to use as cuffs on something made out of t-shirt material. It’s heavier than t-shirt. ANYWAY…it’s almost guaranteed that she’ll fall asleep if I put her in there and start a load of laundry. I’ve got several variations on this…pouches, ring sling, wraps, hybrids of those…it’s almost as addictive as sewing diapers. The different ones are good for different moods and situations. It’s easy to make your own and there are tons of web forums about it. My favorite is thebabywearer.com.
Speaking of diapers, I just finished a batch of 4. It’s not a lot compared to what I had time to sew pre-Mazer, but I really like how these came out:
Some of the fabrics are directional the wrong way, but I got more cuts out of them this way.
They’re so soft inside!
They’re made using the Chloe Toes sewing pattern.
The outers are DIY (do-it-yourself)cotton woven PUL(polyurethane laminate), the inners are dyed velour, and I dyed the FOE(fold-over elastic). They all have 2 hidden layers of cotton sherpa and the soakers are 2 layers of microfiber towel.
I got some excellent advice from Chloe Toes owner/designer, Catharine Decker:
*make sure you use 100% polyester thread
*polyester pul wicks less than cotton, but many use
cotton with success
*keep the soaker layer out of contact with the edges
of the diaper and binding within the crotch area;
wicking occurs by contact, with wetness travelling
along the adjacent fibers, so your soaker should be
narrower than the full crotch width (the pattern is
designed this way) to minimize wicking contact
*make sure your inner layer wicks fast if you have a
wicking layer against baby’s skin
*consider using a very fast-absorbing fabric for the
layer of soaker closest to baby’s skin (so wetness
absorbs quickly and doesn’t have time to pool and soak
at the crotch) I like microfiber, but others prefer
other fabrics
*include at least one layer of something that really
distributes wetness well in your soaker (so that
wetness spreads out through the whole diaper instead
of being wet just in the “wet zones” and dry
elsewhere) Again I like microfiber for this
*include at least one layer of something that really
locks in wetness well and doesn’t tend to experience
“compression leaking” (where it holds a lot of wetness
but the wetness easily squeezes out when baby sits or
moves) I like hemp for this
*if you have a very heavy wetter or need a
long-holding diaper for overnights, etc, consider
using a waterproofing spray applied in several light
coats to the outside of the diaper (information on
this is included in the pattern)
Having all this spelled out for m was so helpful. Like when starting to knit, I knew there were certain things to do…like using wicking layers, don’t let the soaker touch the edge, etc., but understanding WHY is really helpful.
…and I love how my diapers came out!
Thanks to Joy’s suggestion, I’m trying to get some shots of Mazie’s sweaters as she wears them…
(click to see them)
Also…thanks to Ainsley for the note today!
Posted in Uncategorized, Book Talk, press | 7 Comments »
Mazie’s Home!
Monday, January 14th, 2008
Mazie surprised us early Friday morning, telling us she was ready to meet us a little early!
I had been feeling sort of crampy and not-quite-normal starting on Wednesday, but by the time Nathan’s alarm clock went off on Friday, my water had broken and we were on the way out the door to the hospital.
She weighed 7 lbs 8 oz at birth, and was 20 and 3/4 inches long.
Here we are in the hospital:
There are a few more pictures in the set, if you click on that one.
We’re home now, and everyone’s doing great!
Posted in Uncategorized | 54 Comments »
BABY SHOWER!
Thursday, December 13th, 2007
We had a great time at the baby shower on Saturday!!
Here’s a picture of my PINK cake!!
We don’t have all the pics posted yet, but there are a few on my Flickr. Click on this one and you’ll see the whole batch:
That’s me with my friends Charissa and Tracye, who organized the shower. Here’s Marjorie (the hostess) in her kitchen getting all set up:
And here’s a pic of the family:
I’ll post more pics as they come in…we had a LOT of cameras there!
Altogether, I think there were between 35 and 40 guests. It was a really awesome day. Awesome week, actually, with all of our out of town guests.
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
ack! Somehow behind again!
Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
I’ll be back in a few days…just trying to get some stuff finished up.
Still here, still knitting. Just BUSY.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Maybe next week will be different…
Monday, September 3rd, 2007
…but last week SUCKED.
So many things just spiraled out of control to STRESS OVBRLOAD.
The main thing was that I was told I’d have my 20-week ultrasound on Friday, but it was canceled due to the planning of a level-2 for THIS Friday. But nobody told us and Nate had taken the afternoon off work (in the middle of a HUGE install at the museum) and I was looking really forward to knowing the baby’s ok. All of our family was calling us all day to find out “how’s the baby” and we didn’t KNOW.
OK, so one week might not seem like a big deal, but I’ve literally been LIVING for that day. I can’t sleep at night, so I lie there thinking about the baby and wondering about it, and I’ve been getting through those long nights by counting down the days till I get to see the little one and find 2 arms, 2 legs, little organs, etc. And NOW…it’s postponed. The real shock was that nobody called us to tell us. SO disappointing and makes me really question the care there.
We did hear the heartbeat and bloodflow and LOTS of movement. She said that lots of movement = healthy happy baby…so that’s good. I’ve only gained 3 lbs, rather than the 4-10 they like to see by 20 weeks, but she said since I lost so much at the beginning, it’s not a worry. (I’m having food aversion issues, since I”m basically morning sick all day.)
Lots of other drama went on, too…that I just don’t want to go into. Not really bloggable or really worth it. Some of it’s my own fault for being so hormonal and sleep-deprived.
Maybe today I’ll take some photos of a few things I’ve been knitting. This IS a knitting blog. But when everything I’m knitting is Top Secret…the photos are few and far between. It seems like two of the people who agreed to test knit the Petal pattern are actually close to finishing their sweaters…so hopefully that’ll be ready in a little while. A community college class is knitting it as an assignment…so that should be GREAT feedback! 
On a sewing note: I’ve turned into a diaper-making factory.
Doing repetitive yet constructive things like knitting and sewing seems to be my method of burning off angst. I’m looking at fabrics now the way I was looking at yarns a few months ago. Colors, prints, various absorbing, water-repelling or wicking properties, price per yard versus by the bolt…velcro, snaps, buttons, thread…it’s so easy to get really sucked into all these crafts.
These are made from the free “Rita’s Rump Pocket” diaper pattern. They’re supposed to be “one size fits all” so I’m not sure they’ll work on a newborn…the gals at SnB on Wednesday thought they looked too big.
Sewn using:
Outer = woven cotton
Inner = flannel or cotton loop terry
Soaker/stuffer = folded cotton prefold diaper
The fabrics are “space/planets,” “Vans-style checkerboard,” “sharks,” and “dinosaurs.”
(There are more of my newly sewn diapers in that flickr set if you’re interested.)
So anyway, this weekend has been nice in terms of getting to do baby-prep stuff, sleeping, not working, and just calming down some after the suckfest of last week…but I still feel overwhelmed and pulled in too many directions.
Posted in Uncategorized, just chit chat, baby | 10 Comments »
First day of school!
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007
(wish me luck, I’m teaching today!)
Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »
A few FO shots
Thursday, August 2nd, 2007
SO…here are a few FO shots (click on one and it goes to the set). I’m pretty happy with how it came out. It needs a good blocking and buttons…but on the mannequin you can get an idea of where the buttons will be.
That’s our incredibly fancy backyard, complete with lots of random wires doing who-knows-what on the side of the house. AND…that’s my BELLY! I’m 16 weeks, almost halfway there!
It looks a LOT different on the mannequin with no curvy belly underneath!
Like I said, it’s pretty plain, but that’s part of what I like about it. I won’t have to think about it or work to put an outfit together around it. Believe it or not…purple actually does go with most of my wardrobe! I might do a wool one with long sleeves for winter. I think this will be great for nursing, too…what do you nursing moms think?
I’m feeling better today, and I’m SO GLAD. I don’t want to see another flu bug again! My appetite is back, and it’s so nice to be hungry again!
We have another midwife appointment tomorrow, and we’ll start scheduling the 20-week tests. I’m looking forward to getting all of that out of the way. We don’t get an ultrasound this time, it’s hard to wait to see the baby again!
In general, feeling really good but tired. I’m not as nervous about everything as I was in the beginning. If I lie or sit still, I can feel the baby move around. That’s so reassuring!!