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…a little bit of that…

Hey, look- it’s a vest!
I finished it just in time. All the knitting was actually finished on Thursday night, but I was too tired to stay up and weave in all the ends. I had some time to kill in St-Laurent on Friday morning before meeting Debbie for lunch, so I parked Jakob’s stroller at a cafe and wove in all the ends there (ignoring the strange looks from passers-by). I think it is so cute! I keep calling it his Oxford vest…I can just picture him strolling along a college campus somewhere…you know, all 26 inches of him. With his thesis notes and a well-worn leather knapsack. Yes, I am overtired, how did you know?
The vest was knit in one piece up to the armpits (I think I said that in my last post). It was a really, really fast knit.
I had a bit of trouble with the V-neck in trying to get that nice, straight line down the center of the V. I think it worked in the end, although you can’t tell, but the ribbing on either side of it is a bit wonky.

I will be publishing the pattern as soon as I can get around to calculating a few other sizes and typing it up.

I know, I know, I forgot the most important part. How does Jakob LOOK in his vest?


Adorable, if I do say so myself. I had made it a bit big on purpose to get wear out of it during the winter. Ignore the striped socks, I changed him quickly before leaving just to make sure everything fit. The photos at the Bar Mitzvah itself weren’t clear enough to show off the vest properly.

While I did mention the Bar Mitzvah before, I hadn’t mentioned that it was in Toronto. So Jakob took his very first road-trip to Toronto this weekend. We left bright and early around 8am on Saturday and made it to one of my friend’s places around 3:30. We did have to stop twice though, once to feed Jakob and once to feed all 3 of us. Here’s a cute photo of Yannick and Jakob in a Harvey’s restaurant in Port Hope, Ontario.
Jakob is sporting his lovely pirate pyjamas and the Moss Block Cardigan I’d made.

It was a fun weekend, but a long drive to do in a car with a baby who wants. out. of. his. carseat. NOW. He did sleep most of the trip(s) but when he was awake…whoo boy. As a treat I’m not taking him ANYWHERE today so he doesn’t have to get strapped in for a change. As a treat for me, I’m going to do nothing but veg and maybe knit.


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…a bit of this…

I think I forgot to post a photo of Mommy with Jakob at 24 weeks, so here it is. I still haven’t figured out how to take good weekly shots, like Robyn does. If I use a flash we get stuff like this:
If I skip the flash, even in well lit areas, I get blurry photos. On November 1st when this was taken, no one was home to take the photo for me, so this flashy photo is what you get!
As I mentioned in the last post, I liked the idea of “whipping up” a vest for Jakob to wear to the Bar Mitzvah we had this past weekend. I know it meant putting off my other projects for a bit, and one of them does have a deadline, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt too much to squeeze in a quickie. I don’t remember if this yarn is considered a worsted or a bulky, but boy did it knit up fast! On Tuesday afternoon at Robyn’s I had only the ribbing done, remember? Well this photo was taken on Wednesday morning, when I had intended on posting.
Not bad huh? That’s all of the sweater to the armpits, then the front completed and waiting for a 3-Ndl BO on the shoulders. The back was done up to that spot you see on the right.
I would have liked to have finished the vest on Wednesday, but instead I spent part of the day making this:

That’s 3 Ziploc bags of baby food ready to pop into the freezer for when Jakob starts his fruits and veggies. From the left, there is banana, butternut squash, and zucchini. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to make! First I measured my ice cube trays and found out that each cube holds 2 tbsp of liquid. I know I could have just mashed the bananas fresh for him but it would be lumpy and I didn’t want to always have to have bananas on hand and hope they’d be ripe enough, so I took a few I had and pureed them up, and that was it. The squash took about 20 minutes in the microwave, sliced in half and cut-side-down in a baking dish with some water. It got so tender it practically fell out of the skin and into my food processor, although I did quite a bit more of the cooking water than the booklet I have said (about 2/3 of a cup v.s. 1/3 of a cup) because I found it very gloppy and thick and hard for even me to swallow, so I wanted it more liquid for Jakob. The zucchini was also super simple, just boil the peeled rounds for 5 min then puree without adding any extra water. I had all 3 batches done in about 2 hours, and that was WITH cleaning my supplies and food processor in between each batch! I put them in ice cube trays (covered in saran wrap) in the fridge to cool down, and a few hours later put those trays in the freezer for over night. The next morning I popped them out and into labelled Ziploc Freezer Bags and now I have food that will last for 6-8 months, with no chemicals or preservatives. Cool.

Here’s Mommy with Jakob at 25 weeks. He was being so snuggly at playgroup and I thought he was sleeping. Turns out he wasn’t, he was just enjoying resting on me. I had no idea what he looked like so when one of the other moms took this photo I couldn’t believe that look on his face!

I love my mommy.

I’ll leave you now with my favorite photo from last Thursday. I had done Jakob’s laundry and found an outfit that I didn’t realize before was for up to 3 months. He had never worn it, so he wore it to playgroup just to get some use out of it. The shirt might still fit him with jeans, but the pants are way too short for him. I liked what it said, though, “Junior Mechanic”, since Yannick does construction and renos for a living, and wanted to have a photo of him in the outfit in case he never wore it again. So I parked my little guy on the couch to practice his sitting, and I snapped a few quick photos. I did a bunch in a row because every so often the flash would make his eyes close, and when I checked the photos later I was stunned to find this one:

I love that face. I love this boy.


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lotsa fun stuff

There was a lot going on this weekend, here in our little neck of the woods. Saturday was a huge milestone for our family- we started Jakob on solid foods!

Here he is having NO idea what he’s about to get into.

…here comes the airplane…open the hangar…

…and the verdict is…

…he likes it! Ok, he really didn’t express any form of like or dislike over the strange mushy stuff we were repeatedly spooning into his mouth. He did, however, avoid crying or fussing, and kept breaking out in his usual grins, so we’re counting this as a success!

We’ve been giving him a sippy cup with some purified water after each meal to help wash down the cereal, and he has yet to refuse the cup. If he continues to take it we’ll see if we can get him to take breastmilk or formula in it, and since he’s still refusing bottles, this might be a way to be able to leave him for longer than 2-3 hours. (Of course, I’m not going to try to get him to take bottles any more, because there is no sense in getting him started on them just to have to wean him. I’d rather him go straight to the sippy cup).

Here’s another photo of him, just because. 🙂 I can’t stop taking photos of him and I can’t stop staring at them, so now you all get to see what I get to see every day. My gosh I love this boy!

Does anyone remember the Froggy Hat and Socks set? I finally found the bag of handknits I made while pregnant. Just in time too…the socks are too big still but the hat barely fits! I think he will have worn it just for this photo, and it is now going to go into the “grown out” bin.
Sunday was another exciting day- I attended an all-day Fiona Ellis workshop! She is so nice and warm, so genuine, and I am really, really happy I took the course and got to meet her. In the morning I took a class on short rows, and in the afternoon it was about slipped stitches. I felt bad because Yannick had to bring Jakob to me twice so I could feed him, but it was remarkably non-disruptive. The first time he brought him in was during the morning class, but they came in silently, I fed Jakob on my lap and then they left, all within about 10 minutes and all without causing any interruptions to the class. The second time we called a bit more attention to ourselves, but that was because it was during lunch hour and we played with him for a bit. It might also have had something to do with the fact that he wore his Superman costume. (I had been asked to bring it in).

This is my short row swatch. The pink section uses the “wrap and turn” method, which I usually tend to use in garments (like the bum area of the Superman costume). It works well, but if you look closely you can see the 3 turning points. The blue area uses a “yarn over, slip first stitch” method, which I enjoy. I find it shows less than the wrapped one, and I tend to use it a lot on short-rowed sock heels (and toes). The yellow sections use what I think she called the “Japanese or catch method” where you grab the back of the stitch in the row below to close the gap. I didn’t mind it, but it was fiddly. I was knitting fast on Sunday so I had enough time to make a second “catch” swatch and do the short row/3-ndl bind off shoulder method. I didn’t really need practice on that, however, as I almost always adapt patterns to enable that bind off on the shoulders. I really, really like the professional look it gives.

Before the short row class was over we were given the time to work on a creative swatch. The assignment was to work the short rows while interrupting a pattern, and the examples given were lace and cables. I decided to see what would happen if I worked short rows while working a striped pattern. This was the first time I used 2 different colors to cast on (I did the long tail method) and I was able to practice my Fair Isle. I tend to pull too tight when switching colors (probably because I do a lot of intarsia) so I was trying hard to keep things loose. I was also holding the green with my left hand and practicing the two-handed technique. I was able to knit pretty fast using both hands, but I had to remember to knit that color through the back loop on the following rows because the stitches I knit from my left hand wound up mounted the wrong way on the needle.

This is my swatch from the slipped stitch class. There are 6 different techniques shown, I did the first 4 twice each for practice. I never before realized how much fun slipped stitches are, and how much I enjoyed working them and how much I like the look of them. I think this is something I will definately have to play around with some more!

Two last things. First of all, I tried a new recipe tonight. I found this on Caroline’s blog not too long ago, and remembered that I had some apples in the fridge about to go bad, so I made it for dessert tonight. The only modification I made was to bake it in individual dishes instead of one larger pie plate.


It was delicious! Thanks Caroline! Next time I would probably try adding just a dash of lemon juice (I like how it brings out the flavor of the apples) and I would put less sugar, because I found it sweet. I would also probably make up for the less sugar by serving it warm, with vanilla ice cream. 🙂 What I also found cool was that I’d sprayed the dishes with Pam first and the resulting dessert was able to pop out and still hold its shape…so I would try making it in smaller ramekins next time I entertain and each person could get their own little one for dessert, maybe with some melted chocolate drizzled across the top…

The other last thing is my current knitting. I have been working on something but I can’t show photos of it here. I can tell you it’s a hat, but I can’t say much more because it is one of my Knitty.com submissions. My mom’s manicurist saw a photo of it and wants me to make her some to give as gifts, but before I can figure out how much to charge I need to make a second one and record how long it took, the exact yardage it took, etc. So I’ve been working on that for about a week now, but today I decided to put it aside temporarily.

We have a family event to attend this coming weekend and I wanted to dress Jakob up a little. I decided to knit him a little vest to wear with a white button-down shirt and dress pants. After rooting through what little of my stash is unpacked, I found some gray Patons yarn left over from the Glam Coat. I have two balls left, which I’m sure is more than enough for a baby’s vest. I didn’t feel like hunting down a pattern at the right gauge, so I spent today writing one up. I was able to knit the ribbing too, and hopefully I will have a vest in time for this weekend.

Here’s my swatch, before I unravelled it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use a garter or ribbed edging for the cuffs, so I swatched it with both. That’s regular garter on the bottom, sideways knit-on-as-you-go garter on the top left, and ribbing on the top right. I like the look of the regular garter the best but the swatch kept flipping up really badly along the first stocking stitch row, so traditional ribbing it is.

Tomorrow I get to go knitting with Robyn, Tara and the blogless Kate, so I hope to have some vest progress photos by night time.


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up up and away!

May I present…

SuperBaby!

SuperBaby’s special powers include drowning his adversaries in massive amounts of drool, and the ability to shove anything into his mouth. Foes are often foiled in their plots by his awesome cuteness which requires all who pass to stop, come closer, and kiss him.

SuperBaby also managed to stand by himself (leaning on the sofa) for the purposes of taking this photo.
His detatchable cape is this season’s “in” accessory. No SuperBaby would be caught dead without a cape this year, and we hear that shiny red is the new black.

The pattern is my own, for both the outfit and the cape. I had Yannick’s help in creating the baby, and the Superness is all his own. 🙂

By the way, these are the pumpkins that Yannick bought for outside our house. Should I be insulted that the “Daddy” and “Baby” pumpkins are perfect, and the “Mommy” pumpkin is all lumpy and deformed?


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some goodies

I forgot to show off some new yarn I got on Monday of this week. My Blue Moon order arrived, finally, after sitting at customs for about 3 weeks. See, when I’d placed the last order with Maaike, Yannick was really taken with how soft and luxuriuos the yarn felt. He offered to treat me to a skein if I’d knit a pair for him. How can I refuse an offer like that???

I chose the Fire on the Mountain colorway for my pair. I had a hard time deciding between this one and Sherbet, but in the end the darker colors prevailed. I still might order Sherbet in the future though…

Look at the colors!
I think this will look great on my feet! I might browse Ravelry to see which patterns others have used, but I’m thinking of either doing stockinette with a bit of a rib, or possibly a feather and fan leg. I’d like to see how this knits up before I decide officially.

After some further deliberation, Yannick chose Obsidian for himself.
I took a closeup of the yarn because you can’t really tell from the above photo, but it is actually a blend of black and brown.
I will try and get him to agree to a pair of Potomotopomotomoses, or Rpms or Cablenets but will (probably) wind up doing stocking stitch with something fancy added to relieve the boredom. I think I might do 2 tiny cables and maybe make a similar pair for myself with a row of eyelets between the cables. Hmm…

Now that Jakob is actually reaching for and grabbing for his toys, it is more fun to introduce new toys to him and see how fast they get yanked into his mouth. This week I introduced him to Sheldon for the first time. The boy and his turtle got along well, and Sheldon was only slightly sucked on before being discarded in favor of toes.

Oh, and one more thing…

It’s done.

Tons of photos and all the details in my next post. Happy Hallowe’en!


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where did last week go?

Whoops! I kept thinking I’d posted, but it looks like I missed a few days. Here’s the brief recap:

Mommy with Jakob at 23 weeks. I made a slight mistake in the last weekly photo, I’d accidentally labeled it 21 weeks, but it was 22. Not that any of you care, but I’ve fixed it. (No, I didn’t paint that picture, one of Yannick’s cousins did).

The week was spent sick, recovering, knitting, wash, rinse, repeat. Yannick was around all weekend, which was nice because it gave me a bit of a break from all the hands-on mothering. Jakob isn’t sick but he is a bit congested and has been coughing once in a while, although it is hard to tell the real coughs from the fake ones he does for fun. Still, we’ve been home all week and he’s been very clingy, so it was really nice to have Yannick around.

Next weekend will be interesting. I have an all-day Fiona Ellis workshop on Sunday, and Yannick will be watching Jakob all day. Since he doesn’t take bottles any more, and I’ll only be a 5 minute drive from home, Yannick is going to bring him to me each time he needs a feeding. I think I’ll be gone for 2 or 3 feeds. It’s a strange set-up, but the only other alternative that doesn’t involve Jakob screaming for 8 hours and going the entire day without eating is me bringing him with me, and call me selfish but I don’t see the point in paying for a class when I can’t properly learn because my hands are full with my son. I love him to pieces but I don’t think one 8 hour workshop is too much to ask to have my hands to myself.

To prepare Yannick for the day when I’m really not around (and to give me a day of relaxation) I’ve decided to spend next Saturday pretending I’m not home. My goal is to lounge in bed all day with my knitting and our laptop and to catch up on blogs and rest. Yannick will take care of Jakob and only bring him to me for feeds. That might sound like a wierd thing to do, but I think it will be good for Yannick to practice having Jakob for an entire day while I’m there if he has any questions, plus it will give Jakob a chance to bond with Yannick more but still know I’m around, and it will give me a chance to take a mini-vacation in my own home. This mommy job is 24/7, I’m the one who can soothe Jakob to sleep, I’m the one who has to feed him, so I’m ALWAYS the one to get up, regardless of the time of night. Yannick sleeps like the dead so he doesn’t even wake up if Jakob’s death alarm goes off (the mattress sensor that goes off if he stops breathing…it has always been a false alarm but worth it to me to have) so I’m literally “on call” 24 hours a day, without a break. I know I can’t even relax in my sleep because Yannick won’t hear the alarm or wake up if something is wrong, so even my sleep isn’t really a full sleep because I’m always “alert” in case something happens. So yeah, I’m going to take some time for myself, while still being here for both of my boys.

This past weekend we took Jakob to a Montreal landmark. I was hoping for an outdoor picnic lunch, but it was POURING and Jakob was asleep, so Yannick and I ate in our car.

I haven’t been to the Orange Julep in about 14 years, and now that we had our rediculously overpriced hot dogs, fries and famous orange julep, I’m good for another 14 years or so.

Tonight we went to a knit-out that Robyn organized. I think I met everyone quickly, but to be honest I was a little overwhelmed with how few people I knew and was too embarassed to ask for everyone’s names. I was admiring everyones projects though, even if you thought I wasn’t looking! (By the way, if you were there and have a blog and happen to be reading this, please send me a link!) Quite a number of cafe patrons came over to exclaim about our “knitting class”, and a special shout-out goes to the woman who asked if Jakob was my son, and then commented on how young I was to have a child. I said I wasn’t that young, and she said I looked about 18. I was very happy to tell her that I am, in fact, 30. 🙂 THAT made my night!

And finally…it’s almost done.

Just have a hemmed neckline to sew down, and snaps to sew onto the back.


And a cape to make. Every superhero deserves a cape, no matter how young or inexperienced at flying.


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superprogress

Up…up…and away!

This is where we were at with Jakob’s costume as of last night. I didn’t realize the sleeves were too short, so today I’m going to add at least another inch to each sleeve, then I will be joining the body to knit the yoke in the round. Timing will be the deciding factor on whether or not I knit him a cape.


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omg- you HAVE to watch this!

My brother sent me this link…you have to watch this, it’s hysterical!

http://www.ffk-wilkinson.com/

The link is for a short trailer, followed by the option to download a game. You will need the sound on, but it is safe for work…if your work doesn’t mind you watching movie-esque trailers at work.

Thanks Aaron!


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um…ok

A little while ago I was at CNN’s website looking at photos of the LA fires. I have a friend who lives in LA and I wanted to see what has been happening there. In the sidebar of CNN’s page was this anti-wrinkle ad. They did their best, I’ll give them that…but seriously, are we really expected to believe this? Come on! Hold your hand over one side, then over the other. I’m guessing it is one woman, with some serious photoshopping done on the “old” side of her face. Oy.

In other news, still sick. Still feeling crappy. Still haven’t knit yet. Jakob fell asleep so I’m going to try, just as soon as I make a big pot of tea.