Viking Tea Party

Finished Bowls and Beanies

A lot can happen in 24 hours.  Matt's upstairs putting the second coat on the tree.  He deemed painting it "overrated" and suggested, instead of helping him, that I go in tomorrow with a small, not so fumy pot of paint and put on the final touches.  That's okay by me - I'll gladly use the time to add a few projects to Ravelry and write up a post!

I had to bring the outdoors in this afternoon to photograph my little Turtle Bowl since we ended up not going out after all. 

I'm not really sure what we'll put in this little bowl but it'll look really cute on his chest of drawers.  You're actually supposed to double the yarn but I didn't want it to turnout ginormous (and I don't follow directions very well) so I only used a single strand.  The bowl is a bit flimsy so I think I'm going to line it with a little felt.

I know I've already mentioned the Baby Beanies book a million times but it is so freaking cute!  My plan is to knit all of the hats in it that are suitable for a boy over the next couple of years (or, at this rate, months).  I started with the Bedtime Stocking Cap.

We went a little crazy with a line of baby clothes (onesie, hoodie, sweatpants and a blanket) that we found on sale at Target that featured helicopters in these colors so I figured they were perfect for a stripey hat.

And this is my second hat from the book - the Chocqua. 

I knitted both of these in the 0-6 month size but I feel like I should have made this one a little taller.  It's cute, regardless, and makes me wish I had some Thin Mints...or Junior Mints.  Mmm, Junior Mints....

I can't help but think these beanies would be SO much cuter if we had a little noggin to model them but even if our little acorn were already here, he still wouldn't be posing for any blog photos.  When I posted that first scan photo we decided that that would probably be the last photo of the baby that I would post.  That rule might temporarily be broken when the baby first arrives but after that it will probably just be glimpses of chubby baby fingers and baby toes.  I think there's just something a little...scary isn't the word I'm looking for but it's close...about putting photos of our little one out there on the world wide web.  But do note that I used the word "probably" twice.  :)

I can't wait to to take the tape off the wall in the morning and see what our tree looks like.  After the tree is finished, Matt just (easy for me to say) needs to paint the trim and the ceiling and we can start moving in furniture and hanging pictures (that all need frames - yet another thing to add to the list of things to do)!  My future is also FULL of leaf making....

The Nursery, Bumps and More (Almost) Finished Objects

Yesterday we started taping the stencil for the tree we're going to paint in our little acorn's room and will, hopefully, start painting tomorrow. I know pregnant women aren't supposed to be anywhere near a room while it's being painted but my mom pointed out that she and Dad painted every room in our first house while she was pregnant with my brother and he went on to join a special program in elementary school for super smart kids and also made his older sister look bad by constantly being a straight A student. 

That said,  Matt has agreed to let me help paint the tree as long as the window is open, both fans are in the room and turned on high...and that I wear a mask.   Not too keen on the mask, honestly, but I did get him to let me swap an actual painter's mask for a handkerchief tied around my face like an old fashioned bank robber.  I''m short, too, so I won't really be able to help paint too much but I really wanted to have something to do with painting the tree.  We came up with a couple of cute ideas to make it very personal that I'm really looking forward to as well. 

 

Hey look, I'm pregnant!  First off, this is not a very good photo but it was the only one where I didn't happen to be holding the tape in front of my bump.  Second, I have to tell you that I have been really bump-shy.  I'm a member of the November 2010 Parents group over on Ravelry and have been avoiding the "show your bump" thread like a pregnant woman avoids unpasteurized cheese.  I do not have a cute bump like the girls do over there and it's a little frustrating and, honestly, a bit disappointing. 

I actually have two bumps.  Bump A which is my belly bump and Bump B which is my uterus bump. Bump A has always been bigger than Bump B - even before my uterus got big enough to actually be part of Bump A - so I didn't look like I was pregnant, I looked like I had a pot belly.  Not cute.  About a week ago, though, it suddenly popped out and I look like I have a baby in there, not just a few pints and a very large lunch.  Thank goodness.

And even though I love the thought of getting the nursery painted and the furniture ordered so that I can start putting away all of the cute little things we've bought so far, I've yet to feel any real nesting instinct other than the one that's in my head when I first wake up.  This instinct thinks getting a long list of things done sounds not only very rewarding but also like loads of fun!  Fortunately, that voice has gone totally silent by the time I've had my All Bran and settled down with my knitting/crocheting at 10:20 a.m. to watch Gilmore Girls.  I do manage to get the basics done, though, and I figure the days of casually watching tv with some yarn in my hands is going to come to an abrupt end here in about three months so I'm going to cram in as much as I can while I can.    

Yesterday I crocheted up a cute little addition to the nursery but still need to take photos of it. It's the kind of project that would really benefit from an outdoor shoot, though, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.  And today I knitted up a bit of stripey goodness...

...but with stripes come lots and lots of ends to sew in so that and attaching the tassel are my two jobs for the evening.  After I wash the dishes, hang up one more load of laundry and vacuum the floor...which I should get started on now....

A Sunday Sweater

I've finally finished a sweater for the little acorn!  Okay, it's not a sweater exactly - it's a vest - but it's finished.  I have one sweater needing buttons and two that need sleeves and buttons so finishing is a pretty big deal. 

I have a lot of love for this pattern - the Pebble Vest by Nikol Lohr - and am resisting the urge to cast on another in a different color.  I found one skein of a beautiful blue wool on sale today and stumbled across some really cute little buttons with anchors on them while looking for these red buttons in my stash today so I might give the similar but completely different Baby T-Shirt Vest pattern a try instead.

This would make a great little gift for a mother-to-be.  I was able to knit it in a day - granted I spent a couple of hours working on it at my knit group and happily spent most of the evening on it as well - and blocked and sewed on the buttons today. 

It's just the teeny, tiniest little thing, though, so he won't get too much wear out of it.  Unfortunately, I didn't check the yarn label of this Knit Picks City Tweed DK until after I'd finished knitting it so I didn't know that I was knitting up a hand wash only baby garment.  That said, in this case not getting a lot of wear out if it is not exactly a bad thing.  Thankfully, the wool I bought today is machine washable.  I made sure to check before I bought it. 

A Whole Lotta Bibs and the Yarny Mojo Returns

Our little boy has so many bibs already that it's silly.  It seems to me, though, that they're the kind of thing you really can't get enough and they're such a quick knit that I made some more!

I actually made these Baby Bandana Bibs last month.  Can't say that I'm a huge fan on applied i-cord but it's a really cute pattern.

And I made these Owl Bibs on Saturday while Matt was at work.  Crazy cute and it only took about an hour and half to crochet each one. 

I seem to have finally gotten my knitting/crochet mojo back.  Yesterday I knitted an adorable little baby sweater vest that I'm hoping to post later tonight or tomorrow.  It's blocking and I need to get some thread to match the buttons (as I, again, curse the fact that I've never been able to unpack my craft boxes).  I need to at least drag out some necessities.  It's ridiculous to keep buying things I know I already have but can't get to. 

Next up - the Bedtime Stocking Cap!

My parents had just Skyped with my brother and his fiance when we talked to them yesterday.  They're getting married on April Fools Day next year and not only was is fun to hear about their plans to get married at Audubon Park and the crawfish boil rehearsal dinner they're going to have in their backyard but it was weird and wonderful to think that we'll be toting around a five month old by then!   

Caught Up On a Little Correspondence Today

...and drank a little hot chocolate...which promptly gave me heartburn.

C-U-T-E!

Little baby things with skulls on them are so cute!

A Quick Link

For those of you who already have little ones or are expecting, Alicia of Posie Gets Cosy put together a fantastic Summer Reading List of books for children.  Just skimming it brought back lots of great memories.   

My brother and sister in law are coming over in a bit with their two kids so I'd better hustle to get cleaned up.  They're bringing over some baby stuff and also,Tilly, my niece, has been wondering where Uncle Matt lives.  Up until now she's kind of thought that he lives at the Build A Bear Workshop because they met up there a few times.  I think she's going to be a little disappointed.  If our cats weren't getting a little cranky and antisocial in their old age, she might at least get to pet a cat but they make themselves pretty scarce when someone knocks on the door. 

Stress Relief Through Stitching

I mentioned in my next to last post that I didn't really like being pregnant.  Honestly, that was barely scratching the surface.  I'm having a really rough time.  Bad days, big tears.  All of my issues don't have to do with actually being physically pregnant but I'm sure the hormones aren't helping. 

I needed a stress reliever - something to take my mind off things - so I finally pulled out the Forest Friends embroidery patterns I purchased from Sublime Stitching last month.  I'd forgotten how much I loved pulling a needle and thread through fabric and spent nearly the entire day stitching away except for the quick trip I took into town to buy a few more colors.  I've got to go through my unpacked craft boxes soon because I already have a pretty good stash of thread and really can't afford to pay a crazy 85p/$1.35 per skein to build up a new stash.  Plus I've got several other pattern sets from Sublime Stitching that I'd love to play around with again.

This owl was the first thing I limbered up on yesterday.  

 

Then I put the colors away and stitched this little hedgehog,

 

Now I'm working on the squirrel.  I'm taking my time and really making sure my stitches are even and feeling a little less stressed with each one of those little stitches.  And, Catherine, I had to go through French knot lessons again!  

 

I'm going to dig through my fabric stash, too, and back each of these with a matching fabric to make little stuffed animals for the baby's room or maybe a little mobile.

Speaking of the little acorn, I'm 25 weeks along and had a checkup today and got to experience one of the really great things about being pregnant: hearing the heartbeat for the first time.  At my only other midwife appointment she couldn't find the heartbeat so I actually ended up having a scan instead.  And regardless of how I feel on the inside, she told me that I looked great and that pregnancy really suited me which was really nice to hear. 

Another thing that makes me feel better is looking at baby clothes and we did a little of that this afternoon.  I know everyone oohs and ahs over cute clothing for girls but boy's clothes are pretty darn cute, too!   Picturing the little man who will fit into them also does a pretty good job of pushing aside a few of my problems - we can't wait to meet him.  

A Different Kind of New Member of the Family

Remember Buddy? 

When we left for Ohio last month I think I was almost more excited about seeing Buddy than I was about seeing my parents.  Heck, I'd seen them in March.  Just kidding.   And Matt had never even met him even though, after the long and frequent Skype chats we had while I was living with Mom and Dad and waiting for my visa, it seemed like he had.  Buddy was so excited to see us, too, and showed it by running out to greet us and peeing all over the drive way! 

My brother and his fiance brought their dogs up from New Orleans that first weekend and it was doggy paradise for Buddy.  He loves being around other dogs and just about wore himself out running around the yard with his friends.  My parents had been talking about getting another schnauzer pretty much since they got Buddy last summer but it wasn't until this spring that they went to see a litter born to a local breeder and fell in love with a little liver colored lump of love.  A couple of weeks ago, Buddy's new friend was finally old enough to settle into his new home.

This is Kidd, the newest miniature schnauzer member of the family!

And this is THE cutest picture I've seen of him yet.  Eep, so adorable! 

Cria Love

Two new alpacas were born last Wednesday!

Believe it or not, the little guy on the left was actually premature and had a rough time in the beginning.  My other-in-law said he couldn't hold his head up on his own and was having trouble breathing.  He's now runs all over and is almost the same size as the female on the left who was born, on time, earlier the same morning.  

I think his name is, ironically, Hercules and her name is Pandora.

Pandora is now my favorite -isn't she gorgeous?

This is Pandora's mum.  Doesn't she look like a mum?  She's the matriarch of the whole herd. 

Here's Hercules having a little roll in the dust with his mum.  I'm glad he pulled through as there as already been enough tragedy on the farm this year.  Just a few days before the sheep were to be sheared, one of them fell into the stream that runs alongside the land and drowned.  Sadly, it was one my mother-in-law was particularly close to because he wouldn't feed from his mother and had to be bottle fed last spring.  And just a few weeks ago an alpaca was killed by two wild dogs.  The last time we really talked to them about it, the police were not being very cooperative even though it's suspected that these were the same dogs that attacked and killed a Jack Russell a week or so earlier.  

Thank goodness these little ones finally came along or I might not have ever had anything to blog about.  Things have been slow around here.  I've got a little bit of mindless knitting to post but the two baby sweaters I've started are either hibernating or sitting in the naughty corner due to gaping holes under the arms that I cannot tolerate.  

I've also come to the sad conclusion that I'm just not one of those women who relish and really enjoy being pregnant.  While I love feeling our little acorn kick (and so does Matt - he finally got to feel him, too, a week or so ago) and can't wait until he gets here, I'm not in love with actually being pregnant.  Not only do I feel like what a balloon must feel like (if balloons had feelings, of course), painfully expanded (with a lot more expanding to go), but I'm ridiculously emotional, crying over every little thing (like, yesterday, discovering that we were out of eggs), and the homesickness is, to put it simply, really difficult.  

But I know it'll be over here in a few months and the wait will be more than worth it.  We've started on the baby's room which is something fun and positive to focus on.  We went on a little picnic to Stourhead yesterday and bought a fantastic piece of wood to cut in half and make into shelves.  It's actually from one of the trees on the Stourhead estate and still has bark running along one edge.  It'll look great hanging above the chest of drawers (which we finally picked out last week), packed full of cute little woodland creatures.  

In other news, I think I'm going to play around with my blog layout this weekend.  I've already changed the banner - a year of flowers and a teapot is more than enough - and am happy with it but there have got to be a few other things I can do to liven things up around here....