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no knitting

I did not stay home today. I did not knit today. Today I went to the doctor. Doctor says I have a virus. Know what’s fun about a virus? Nothing. Especially when you’re breastfeeding and can’t take the nice medicine that makes one extremely drowsy and takes the edge off of the extremely raw throat, the sore face, the runny nose, the cough and did I mention the raw throat? Since I can only take that nice medicine (Hycodan syrup, if you’re wondering) in very small amounts and only just before bed after feeding Jakob for the last feed of the night, my daytime hours are limited to a medicated gargle and saline nasal spray. And tea, ice cream, soup, yogurt, anything either cold or hot that I can slide down my throat.

So…no knitting. Maybe tomorrow. I think I’m going to hibernate this week.


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super sleeves

I have a secret project. I can’t talk about it when I’m listening because I promised myself I wouldn’t say anything. However, I didn’t promise myself not to show a quick photo of the secret yarn.

Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s from Fleece Artist’s finer line, HandMaiden. It is called Sea Silk, is 70% silk and 30% Sea Cell and is so soft! You can’t really tell from the photo but it is actually a very soft variation from a pale, almost buttery green to a color I can closest describe as “banana”. I love it!
My ball winder is still packed somewhere, so Yannick was very gracious and held his hands up in the football goalpost position for about a half hour while we watched a taped episode of CSI: Miami and I wound this ball by hand. Looks are deceiving- the wound ball is only about 3 or 4 inches high, but it is heavy!

Since we will be starting to introduce Jakob to solid foods in about 2 weeks, I wanted him to get used to sitting in a high chair. Our second hand one is still at my parents’ house, so we finally opened up the one we’d recieved at our baby shower. Yannick put it together and we let Jakob have a test run.

With Hallowe’en fast approaching, I know my time is running out on Jakob’s Superman Costume. I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked to this past weekend, but I did finish the sleeves.

I know they look short, it is because that is only the sleeves to the armpit. I will be joining them to the body and working the yoke with the sleeves as one piece. I also finally got around to charting the S (did I mention that already? I can’t remember…) and will be trying to knit like mad this week. I’m hoping to avoid leaving the house tomorrow so I can knit like crazy when Jakob naps. Wish me luck!


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autumn

Mommy with Jakob at 22 weeks.
I went to my LYS on Friday and did a little stash enhancing. I know, I know, sock yarn is the LAST thing I am running out of, but I couldn’t resist the colors! I had been at the mall on Wednesday when the LYS got in their latest shipment of Regia, and I loved the mix of black, gray and red in this colorway:

Unfortunately I had to wait until Thursday for them to enter the new yarn into their database, so that I could actually buy it. After playgroup I stopped in at the mall on my way home and snapped up a ball for myself and one for Maaike. I had already paid and was on my way out the door when I saw this little number:
I couldn’t resist those browns!

Later that day I went to the park with Maaike and Erika. The weather was perfect for Fall, breezy and cool with that slight smell of rain in the air. A lot of the leaves around had already turned orange and fallen off of their trees, and there were HUGE piles of leaves all around the park. We got some really great photos of the kids. I LOVE this one that Maaike took for me:

I couldn’t resist plopping Jakob into one of the great big piles and taking a few photos. I would have had some better ones but he kept moving, and once I finally got him to stop wiggling he kept trying to eat the leaves.

This is my absolute favorite season. Happy Autumn everyone!


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five months old

By five months, your baby

…should be able to:
-hold head steady when upright CHECK
-on stomach, raise chest, supported by arms CHECK
-pay attention to an object as small as a raisin CHECK
-squeal in delight CHECK
-reach for an object CHECK
-smile spontaneously CHECK
-smile back when you smile CHECK
-grasp a rattle held to backs or tips of fingers CHECK
-keep head level with body when pulled to sitting CHECK

…will probably be able to:
-roll over (one way) CHECK
-bear some weight on legs CHECK
-say “ah-goo” or similar vowel-consonant combination CHECK
-razz (make a wet razzing sound) CHECK
-turn in the direction of a voice CHECK

…may possibly be able to:
-sit without support FOR A SPLIT SECOND

…may even be able to:
-pull up to standing position from sitting WITH HELP
-stand holding on to someone or something CHECK
-object if you try to take a toy away DOES HOLDING ON TIGHT COUNT?
-work to get a toy out of reach CHECK
-pass a cube or other object from one hand to another CHECK
-look for dropped objects I DON’T KNOW
-rake with fingers a tiny object and pick it up in fist ONCE OR TWICE
-babble, combining vowels and consonants such as ga-ga-ga, ba-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma, da-da-da HE DOES THE BA-BA-BA ONE SOMETIMES

I wonder why the book doesn’t mention his newest favorite passtime- yelling! If we ignore him or leave him alone for a bit, he starts to yell or shriek, sometimes even “calling out” to try and get us to come back.
In knitting news, here’s the latest progress on the Superman Costume. I’ve stalled here because I now need to chart out the upper body with the big S logo on it. Once I get around to that I will be able to continue. I love how it is coming out so far!


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5 months down…

Jakob is 5 months old today. I look back at photos and video of the squishy little dark-haired infant I brought home from the hospital, and can’t even see the resemblance to the bright, alert, active, pale and fair-haired, solid little boy I get the pleasure of seeing every day.

I know this post should have photos, but my camera is downstairs and truthfully I’m too tired and lazy to go get it. I am planning on getting up early to go meet up with a stroller walking group in the morning, which means I need to go to bed earlier than my usual 1:00am or later.

So I will be going to bed as soon as I search the internet for a Cliff-Notes version of Beowulf so I can summarize the story for Yannick (who looked intrigued by the upcoming movie so I made the mistake of telling him I’d read it in university, which I did…but that was almost 8 years ago).

Check back here tomorrow for my usual monthly summary, along with some cute photos and the latest on the Superman Costume.

p.s. Happy Anniversary Julie & Rich!


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halfway super

Today I took Jakob on some errands, and he looked so cute in his little black hoodie that I just had to share this photo.
We went to the post office because I was hoping my Blue Moon order was in, but it turned out just to be Jakob’s passport. Something about his little baby face in a passport really cracks me up!

In the evening Maaike and Erika came over for a knit-night. Robyn was supposed to come too but Sean was sick so they stayed home. I regret to inform you that not a stitch was knit all night. However, much playing was done and yummy supper was made and enjoyed by all.

Hopefully, once Jakob goes to bed, I will get a chance to keep working on his costume. In the meantime, here’s a progress shot:

We’re halfway there!


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success!

I tried the costume on Jakob and with the increased leg length, it fit great! Yay! The short row shaping in the tushie area worked great to add room for the diaper too. I’m going to fix the other leg, then add another 3 or so rows of short rows in the back, and 3 in the front (also for the diaper bulk) before continuing.

I think this costume thing just might work out!


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just a typical saturday night

Any major knitterly repairs had to wait until tonight, since we had a birthday party this afternoon. One of my best friends’ son turns 2 this week, and our little family was invited to his party. I’m not going to post photos of them since I forgot to ask permission, but I am going to post a different photo (hi Debbie!) to my friend Debbie who is one of the very few non-knitters who reads my blog.

Jakob’s friend Taylor was at the party too, since we’ve known her father since high school, and her mom for the last few years. Taylor is exactly one day older than Jakob.
Hey baby…come here often?
After supper tonight I decided to brave the Superman repairs. I took photos and will break down what I did, step-by-step. It turns out that while I’ve councelled others to do this same repair, I don’t think I’ve actually done it myself before. It was much easier than I’d thought!
First I took a circular needle and wove it through the stitches, making sure to pick up the left bar of every stitch, and verifying that I had the correct number of stitches on the needle. You can also pick up the right bar, it doesn’t matter as long as you consistently pick up the same side of each stitch.
Next, I grabbed a dpn and “picked up” stitches 2 rows below the one on the needles. I only picked up 6 sts at a time so the fabric wouldn’t pull too tightly. Once I had the first 6 sts on the needle, I CUT one stitch on the middle row…the one in between the two rows on needles. I used a spare needle to unpick the yarn from those 6 sts, then took another needle and picked up the next 6 sts, unpicked the middle row, etc… (Yes, I left the scissors in the photo on purpose. Looks ominous, huh? LOL).

Once I’d done that all the way around the row I had the two parts of the leg separate. I was then able to add another 12 rows (1.5″) in length to the foot part of the leg.
With the knitting done, I “tidied” up the two parts by arranging them on 2 dpns each, making sure that I had the front and back aligned properly (wouldn’t want to sew the foot on crooked!). I left a really long tail for grafting, then cut the yarn.
Finally, I Kitchenered (grafted) the foot part to the leg. You can kinda see here how much length was added. I’m breastfeeding (and don’t drink anyways) so I had a cup of Earl Gray as my fortification instead of the typical glass of wine. 😉 I was about to do the second leg when Yannick suggested that I wait until after Jakob wakes up tomorrow so that I can try it on him first and be sure that I didn’t add too much…or need to add more.
So there you have it. One leg lengthened by an inch and a half, with my first not-too-sucky graft. One more leg to go.

You can use this type of repair for any knitting that’s too short and you want to add length, OR you can use it for knitting that is too long.  Follow the same steps to separate the work into two pieces and then unravel the side that goes in the opposite direction of your knitting for the required length, plus one row.  If using my costume leg as an example, I wouldn’t be able to unravel the top piece without picking out each stitch one by one, as I’d be unravelling in the same direction as I’d knit and it would be very time consuming.  I would unravel down the lower (leg) piece as that would be going opposite the knitting and would frog easily.

So if I had a leg that was 10 rows too long, I would separate the work onto two sets of needles and then unravel until I’d removed 11 rows.  The grafting row will account for the difference, “putting back” one row as it joins the two halves together.


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bad bum

😦 One of the perils of designing your own knits, is that you don’t have the (implied) guarantee of the knits working out. You could be whizzing along, thinking you’ve got this great piece of fabric goin’ on, when all of a sudden- wham! Knitting speedbump.

I tried the costume on Jakob last night, and while it fits…I’m not super happy with it (no pun intended!). The legs don’t seem to be long enough so the “underwear” line falls in the wrong spot. It also appeared to be pulling a bit around the waist.

I added some short row shaping for the tushie area to take the excess bulk of a diaper, and have decided that there is no alternative for me but to lengthen the legs by about an inch and a half each. I refuse to rip back so I will be taking the other way out- cutting, reknitting, grafting.

Photos to come…once I get up the desire to actually take scissors to it…