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16 and 17 weeks, and knitting

2009-04-29 16 wks 01a

Mommy with Henri at 16 weeks old.

This photo was actually taken a day before Henri turned 16 weeks.  Our cousins had their son (the one I knit the kangaroo and joey for) and we had the bris, and my mom took this photo of us.  It was great to see that side of the family again, and after being accustomed to Henri’s size, it was so strange to see a baby be “baby” sized!

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My “Anne’s slippers” are no more.*  I didn’t even realize there were holes in them until I stepped onto a cold tile the other day.  I peeked down and saw this mess.  Hmph.  I’m guessing it was from throwing them into the washer and dryer whenever necessary.  Still- I’m tired of saving my knits in pristine condition without any use so they don’t show wear.  What’s the point of spending all the time knitting if you’re not going to use the final result, right?  So while I’ll have to toss these slippers, I’ll at least always know that I made them, incorporating my grandmother’s vintage yarn (the pale purple) and some vintage buttons from my stash (that I’ll cut off and recoup).  This is my first knit to wear out, and I’m kinda proud to know that I got good use from something I made.  It feels good.

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Here’s a peek at the finished Log Cabin Squares blanket.  I’ll put together my “finished object” post soon. 

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Here are those two teeth I told you about!  2 teeth, both out before Henri “turned” 4 months old.

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This is the progress so far on Kayla’s lace cardigan.  This is the pattern that I translated from Norwegian so I could knit it.  The color is beautiful in real life, a smoky gray/teal.

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This was the progress on the Unbiased Purse I’m knitting.  I stopped working on it once I got the blanket squares from Robyn and Amy so I could concentrate on finishing the blanket in time for the shower.  I’ve since completed the second triangle.  The purse is knit by working 4 of these sections then seaming the outside edges and inside joins.  The unfortunate part is that the purse center is only as high as the narrow edge- which means if you want a deeper purse you need to keep going until the outside edge is practically huge.  I browsed some finished purses on Ravelry and found that a few people had worked up a cool solution- they knit an additional triangle to fit in between the purse sections, upside down.  I’m currently at that point now- I worked on it last night at the Montreal Knitting Guild meeting and am just about halfway done that triangle. 

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As a reward to myself for finishing my squares and the seaming of the Log Cabin Blanket, I restarted a sock yarn blanket for Henri.  At the hospital, waiting for my c-section, I had started a blanket for Henri.  I had decided to make octogons instead of mitered squares like Jakob’s blanket, and had finished the first one using the deep red yarn you can see in the blanket above.  After Henri was born, however, I found the octogons too “girly” and put the blanket aside waiting for another idea to strike.  Inspiration hit after working on the Log Cabin Blanket.  The garter ridges match those in the mitered square blanket, and I like the idea that both boys have blankets made of garter squares the same size, both will have the same stretch, and the cool thing is that I’m using the same yarn to make the squares.  So Jakob will have diamonds with angled stripes, and Henri’s will have rectangles (kinda like the difference between square and diamond Shreddies, lol) with straight stripes.  So now for every project I finish I’m going to work up a few squares until Henri’s blanket is as big as Jakob’s.  Then I’ll work on them both simultaniously, adding squares to each from the same sock yarn scraps.

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 Mommy with Henri at 17 weeks old.

Am I caught up?  I think so.  I took Henri’s monthly chair photos on the 8th so I’ll put that post up soon.

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I can’t believe that Jakob is going to be 2 this weekend.  He’s such a big boy already,  jumping and counting to 10 and trying to do everything for his brother.  I can’t wait to see what he learns next!

*I lie…I’m still wearing them.


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coming up for air

Forget coherence.  I’m getting all this down on paper (?) because otherwise I’ll never get around to it and I’ll only end up posting “finished object” posts which are cool but not as fulfilling (to me) as the play-by-play stuff.  So here’s what’s on my plate these days:

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I’m using this recycled sari silk yarn to knit Unbiased (Knitty link, Ravelry link).  A friend of the family is getting married in India and I thought this would make a nice gift for his wife-to-be.  Yannick had told me the wedding was in June…only it turns out it is in May.  Clearly I didn’t have the gift ready for him to bring TO India for his wife…so she’ll get it once they come back to Montreal.  I went to Fabricville with Maaike last week and picked up some nice blue satiny stuff to use as a lining.  I’ve almost completed the first triangle/side, and have 3 more to go.  Then the strap, then the lining.

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As a bris gift, Henri received this beautiful blanket from Restoration Hardware.  His name was spelled correctly on the gift card and packing slip…but they made a little boo-boo on the gift, as you can see.  They took care of it for us by sending us a new, properly-spelled blanket, and told us not to bother sending the bad one back since they would have no use for it.  I thought it would be great to see what I could do, so this past weekend I sat down with my trusty stitch ripper and…

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Ta da!  Not bad, eh?  Except for 2 spots where I accidentally cut through the blanket, you can barely tell there was stitching there.  I’m going to try to find a place to do matching lettering on it, only put Jakob’s name instead.  Now the boys will have matching blankets, 2-for-the-price-of-1!  Anyone know of any Montreal sources for professional embroidered lettering?

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My cousin is getting married this summer, and her bridal shower is this coming weekend.  Amy, Robyn and I have been knitting squares to put together for a blanket for her, and I finished mine over the weekend. 

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Do you believe this?  I ran out of yarn 6 stitches away from binding off my last square!  Luckily I was able to salvage a few inches from a tail end from one of the other squares, joined invisibly and bound off.  Talk about using every last inch!

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Both girls have also finished their squares and dropped them off here today so I could finish the blanket.  I’ve woven in all the ends as invisibly as I could, since we decided against lining the blanket as it would counter the cool stretch inherent in garter stitch.  Now I’ve got to mattress-stitch the blocks together and then use up our leftover yarn to work a border around the edges.  I’d love to work a garter border but I really don’t think I’ll have time before Saturday’s shower, so I think I’m going to do a few rounds of crochet.  I’ll try out double crochet since it will give me more height faster, but if it looks too loose and sloppy then I’ll go back and just do single crochet around.

2009-04-23-15-wks-02a

Mommy with Henri at 15 weeks old.

I have to say, Yannick is much better at taking photos of me than I am of myself!  Now you can see the blonde-er version of my hair, plus the blue streak.  There is only one section of blue, kinda behind and below my right ear.  I’m getting used to it and think I might even keep it around for a while!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go wrap up a kangaroo and joey, as my other cousin had her baby and the bris is tomorrow morning.


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13 and 14 weeks

2009-04-09-13wks-02a

Mommy with Henri at 13 weeks old.

Don’t ask me to remember what I did in weeks 13 or 14.  I keep meaning to sit down at the computer, and I do get time to read emails, etc, but either I go to post but haven’t synced my camera yet, or I have the photos but no time to do the post.  Sigh.  Soon, I’ll get things back on track.

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I know it’s getting easier to get photos of the boys together, because all Jakob wants to do is play with his brother.  And kiss him.  And read him stories.  And kiss him.  Did I mention he wants to kiss him?  Thankfully I’m breastfeeding, or Henri would have had almost a cold a day from all the germs Jakob brings home and slobbers into his mouth. 

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Mommy with Henri at 14 weeks old.

Not the most flattering photo of either of us, eh?  For Henri- excuse the triple chins- it’s the angle of his head.  And the horizontal stripes.  Ugh, NOT a good look for him!  As for me, well that was the day I first came home with the bangs and the blue hair.   Unfortunately I left the salon with my hair still damp and didn’t realize until it had dried that instead of having blonde hair with high- and low-lights, my hair was pretty much brown.  I went back the next day and had it fixed, so you’ll see that look in next week’s photo.  MUCH better, if I do say so myself.  As for the bangs, loyal readers will remember them since I tend to grow them out then cut them again, over and over.  Most people think I look more like “me” with the bangs, I’m likely to agree although I’m not sure if I look too young with them.  I had my hair in a ponytail the other day when I went out with Henri, and between the jeans, bangs and blue streak I’m sure the people I saw wondered what kind of sitter this poor kid’s mom left him with!

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This might not be chronologically accurate, but sometime in the last few weeks I finished the first Toasted Almond Toe-Up sock (TATU sock).  These are my “keep in my purse for found knitting time” socks, the ones I was complaining about not finding the repeat on.  I finally found it!  Do you see it?

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If you look near the toe of the sock you can see two blue stripes with cream and brown in between.  You can see that same pattern at the heel, and then again for the cuff.  That means everything from end of the toe increases to the beginning of the heel is ONE REPEAT of the colorway.  Can you believe it?  I’ve never seen a repeat this long before! 

I tried to find the matching repeat for the other ball for the other sock, but I have a feeling the sock might have been wound inside out, as I found a similar blue-cream-blue section, but the following colors didn’t quite match up.  I did the best I could to mark a starting point that was similar, and now I’m just going to let the yarn do its thing.  I haven’t cast on yet but it still lives in my purse waiting for the next long wait at the doctor or somewhere.

2009-04-13-02a

I’ll leave you with this last photo of Jakob because I couldn’t resist posting it.  I love this kid!  I can’t believe he will be 2 next month!!  He’s accomplished so much in the last few weeks- no more bottles (although he still gets 2 fingers of milk in a sippy cup before bed), he can officially jump, and he’s developped a HUGE appetite for books.  I have to put him down for a nap with a book so he can wake up and start “reading” it.  I’ve even caught him “reading” to Henri!  Oh, and today (not part of weeks 13 or 14, but whatever…) he rode a real tricycle for the first time and pedalled forwards by himself!  Yay Jakob!


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at last

I finally had enough yarn to finish!  Woot!  Of course, it meant going out in the lovely little (ha!) snowstorm we had today, but it gave me a chance to do some other errands in that mall, so that was ok.

Don’t let me be misleading- the KNITTING is all done.  I still have the seaming to do, and for a dinosaur toy that has about 15 or so parts that all need to be seamed and assembled…that is as far as I will be going tonight.  I like to finish my projects in one sitting and think it would be creepy to walk into my office tomorrow and see a half-stuffed dinosaur sitting on my desk.

Once the seaming is done I predict I will have used half of the 5th ball of yarn.  450m to knit a 326m project.  Oh well.  It’ll be soon, now!

(p.s. Mackenzie is too young to read this blog, but his mommy isn’t…so I won’t be showing final photos of the finished dinosaur until after it has been given to its new owner.  Need to have some kind of surprise!)


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so confused

I’m really confused.  I thought tonight would be simple- plop onto the couch with my knitting, my notions bag, a bag of stuffing, and a bottle of water.  Turn on the TV, watch some junk food and don’t get up until I have a stuffed dinosaur in my hands.

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I ran out of yarn again!  I don’t get it!

In the book it says clearly “Astra by Patons, 50g skein, each approx 178 y/163 m” then “2 skeins MC”.

Ok, so if we work in meters here, that would mean that for the main color I need 163 x 2 meters which would be 326 meters.

If the information in the book was already wrong for Astra, and the yardage was actually meant to be the current yardage, then that is 161 y/147 m.  Needing 2 balls, that would mean 147 x 2 meters, which would be 294 m.  Now, I know this isn’t the case- Astra shrunk their balls AFTER this pattern was printed.

Ok, fine.  So I need 326 meters of yarn.

The yardage for Smart Superwash, as per the ballband in my hand says “50 g = 100 meter“.  That’s why when I first ordered the yarn, believing Ravelry’s Astra yardage to be correct, I ordered 3 balls.  3 x 100 = 300 m…so I should have had enough.  Of course as we all know I soon realized that I should have checked the yardage listed in the pattern.

Ok, fine.  I’m only about 30 m short of what I need.  My LYS has 17 balls left in stock.  I buy 1 ball, I have 100 m, I have plenty.

You’d think so. 

I have no yarn left.  I still need enough MC yarn to knit the bases for the horns and for seaming.  Granted, it’s only a few yards, not even close to a full or even half ball- probably less than 1/4 of a ball.  But still- look at that photo up there.  I don’t have any excessively long tail ends except for the green of which I have plenty.  I’ve already used 400 m and NOT HAD ENOUGH to knit what should only require 326 m.

True, I didn’t run these balls through the meter counter.  I figured “why bother?” and trusted the ball bands.  Now I’m regretting that, as I have a strong feeling that the balls were all wound short.  How else can I explain this?

RRR.  Back to the LYS tomorrow!


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an explanation

I checked the book itself (Family Circle Easy Baby Knits) and the yardage they list for Astra is 178 y (not 161 y like Ravelry) and 163 m (not 147).

Which means I needed 356 y/326 m of the main color.  By purchasing 3 balls of the Smart, I only have 324 y/297 m.  Luckily, now that I know this, I can be reassured that I only need to buy one more ball and will have enough.  (I wasn’t sure how much more I’d need).


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discovery stalled

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I was looking forwards to having big news to share with you.  It appears that most of the dinosaur’s carcass has been discovered, and it was looking quite good that the remains of its dismembered corpse would have been discovered, if not by nightfall, then at least by sundown tomorrow.  All that remains to locate is the head, horns and arms of the beast…

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Unfortunately, this is all that remains of my trusty supplies.  Don’t ask me how this happened.

Honestly, I’m confused.  The pattern called for 2 balls of Patons Astra in the main color.  According to Ravelry, Astra is 161 y/147 m per 50g ball.  So that’s 322 y/294 m needed.  I’m using Smart Superwash, which according to Ravelry has 108 y/99 m per ball.  My ball band says 100m.  I deliberately ordered 3 50g balls – which should give me 324 y/297 m, or just enough to finish.  There is no way I can squeeze out a head and two arms from what I have left- the photo isn’t very clear but there is maybe 1/5 or 1/6 of the ball left, maximum. 

The only thing I can guess is that Astra has changed its yardage since the pattern was written.  In any case, I’d ordered the yarn from my LYS and I have to wait until tomorrow or Monday to see if they’d ordered in only what I’d asked for, or if they have any other balls in this color in stock.  Either way I can’t keep working on the dino until I get more yarn.  That means both my remaining gift knits are stalled until further notice.  I hope this isn’t a portent of things to come for this year!

I think to try and counteract this luck I am going to revisit an old project instead of starting a new one.  Almost exactly a year ago I finished the first Sidewinder sock (my Ravely project) and I only need to knit one more to have a completed new pair of socks for myself.  I have the yarn, and I have the needles, and I have the pattern.  Hopefully nothing will come up to stall this project too!


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amazing discovery

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Well folks, you heard it here first.  Despite rumors to the contrary, dinosaurs DID once roam the earth, and even here in Montreal, of all places.  I was onhand at the unearthing of these two dinosaur “parts”, and have it on good authority that what we are looking at is the sole of a left foot, and the upper half of the foot leading towards a thigh.  It’s remarkable, people, simply remarkable.

I’m told that the skin has lasted so long and yet remained in such pristine condition due to a combination of two factors- a) the skin is composed of something called “Smart Superwash”, and b) it is freaking cold in Montreal most of the year, so decomposition rarely had a chance to set in.

In my dedication to you, my readers, I will continue to update my website as more of these parts are found.  After speaking with officials I’m pretty sure that the plan is to locate all of the dinosaur’s parts then put it all together so that we may see how this dinosaur once looked.  There might even be stuffing involved, and the ability to declassify this find from “rare and hopeless parts” to “proper child’s stuffed toy”.  We have the technology.


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shoot

I’ve been on a roll on Kayla’s Lace Cardigan but I just found a mistake in the pattern.  Unfortunately it’s not a translation thing, there is an actual problem in the numbers that I can’t seem to work out.  I’ve emailed the company for help/errata, but I don’t expect an answer back so soon…it IS New Year’s Eve, after all.

Looks like I need to put this aside temporarily and work on something else until I get an answer.  *grumble grumble*


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holiday wrapup part 1

Sorry for the little absence there!  Nope, no baby yet.  Just the fun surprise of getting home from work on Christmas Eve to find out that our internet was down, and Bell had no plans on sending someone out until Friday at the earliest.  By the time the internet was back up, I was down, having caught a cold from Jakob.  I spent Saturday taking care of him instead of going to work (Yannick went in my place) and Sunday (yesterday) was a blur of sinus pressure, headaches and attempted naps.  And yet- there was knitting!

Of course, before I get to the knitting, I have a bigger and better completed item to share:

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Technically the kids’ rooms aren’t decorated, but I did go through and move absolutely everything of Jakob’s into his new room and set everything up and it is DONE.  He has been sleeping in his “big boy” room (although, still in a crib) since last week and doesn’t seem to notice any difference.  The spare bedroom furniture has been moved into the baby’s room, and all “baby” items and unisex clothes, etc, have been unpacked, put away and organized.  Any final decorating will be done once we know the sex of the baby.

It feels so good to have all this accomplished!  My boxes of office and craft supplies are stacked in the new office, waiting for me to be off work and/or have time to unpack them.  They can wait.  In the meantime at least I know that should I go into labour early, everything else is set for the baby.  I’m going to try and cook stuff to freeze, but even if I don’t get around to that, I don’t care.  As far as I’m concerned- we’re ready!

As for the knitting…I’ll begin with a little spoiler: all holiday gifts were completed in time to be given as gifts.  I’m going to post the photos in the order I finished them, however, so I don’t miss something.  I’m also going to spread them out between posts because otherwise this would be one really long, photo-heavy post.

After finishing Sheldon I tackled my mother-in-law’s remaining sock, and as I mentioned last week, I finished it with plenty of time to spare.

Pattern:  Queen of Cups by Nathania Apple (Ravelry link and Non-Ravelry link). 

Size:  I knit the narrower size.

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It is really hard to photograph black socks.  Pretend you can see the lace, m’kay?

Yarn:  Regia 4ply sock yarn in Black

Needles: 2.25mm

Dates:  November 13 – December 18 2008

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Modifications:  None. 

As usual you can find my finished (and unfinished!) projects in my “projects” page by clicking the tab up at the top of every page on my blog, and I also have this project in my Ravelry notebook here.

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Here are the socks all wrapped and ready to give away.  For each handknit gift this year I made a label on the computer with the yarn content info and care instructions, and also gave each recipient a little bag with a few yards of spare yarn “in case of emergency”.

More gift knits coming over the next few days…in the meantime I’ve got 2 projects on the go.  Once the deadline knits were completed I finally started Kayla’s Lace Cardigan for my friends’ daughter.  I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before…it was supposed to be her “birth” gift, and now Kayla has just celebrated her first birthday.  [Insert guilty conscience here!]  This is the project that I had to purchase the pattern for in Norwegian, and between some online resources and a nice woman from Sweden who volunteered to double-check my work, I managed to translate the pattern.  I’ve been working on it since Christmas Day and it is coming along nicely. 

Yesterday my mother-in-law called and requested a chemo cap for someone she knows.  She’d seen the furry black one I’d knit for my cousin, and asked if I could fit in one more before the baby comes.  She requested a gray color so it would look kind of like real hair as the recipient is in her late 60s I believe.  One of my car’s coil springs broke somehow over the weekend so thanks to a lift from my cousin Robyn I picked up the yarn for it this morning and I’m hoping to get the hat done today so I can a) get back to the cardigan, and b) give it to my mother-in-law when I see her on New Year’s Day.

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