Month: July 2009

From Generation to Generation

Marie Haigh10 Comments

My MIL sent me a wonderful package in the mail filled with hand-crocheted and hand-knit baby clothes.

What makes these clothes so special, outside of the obvious fact that they were made by hand, is that they were worn by Dan when he was a baby. Plus several of the items were made by Dan’s Great Aunt Kathleen, who is no longer with us.

Aunt Kathleen crocheted the cardigan with its matching bonnet, booties and mittens as well as the afghan.

My MIL had saved these clothes for years – waiting.

Receiving these clothes only punctuates the fact that I need to stop knitting for a while and get cracking on the nursery. For the meantime, I have added the clothes to the growing pile of baby goodies in the basement.

One of the items that has distracted me from the nursery is the shawl that I am knitting. I just graduated from 4 metal double pointed needles to an Addi Turbo needle. What an improvement! I should fly now.

Baby Notes:
I met with a midwife at The Birth Center yesterday for my 15-week appointment. I’m healthy. The baby is healthy.
The joy of the appointment was hearing the baby kick inside of me. It sounded like a whoosh on the fetal doppler. Hopefully, in a few weeks I’ll be able to feel the wee kicks.

Yarn Arrived for the Bump

Marie Haigh15 Comments

After failing twice to use yarn from my stash for the baby’s baseball blanket, I caved and ordered yarn from Webs. It arrived today!

The yarn is Schachenmayr Nomotta’s Extra Merino Big. It is 100% washable Merino wool in Ruby Red. The stitching will be done in bright white. Thus, Dan has dubbed the blanket a “Reverse Baseball”.

During the baseball game tonight, I plan to cast on for the swatch. I can’t wait to get started!

Baby Notes:
B6 vitamins are my friend. They are taking the morning sickness away and returning my energy level to me. For the first time in weeks, I’m starting to feel like a real person again.

Since I was a little dismayed for not looking exactly pregnant yet but no longer looking like my normal size, I bought myself a “Walking for Two” t-shirt to wear on the morning walks with Jake.

[Yes, that is my walking partner rolling around on the grass behind me. Silly dog].

As comfy and as cute as the shirt is, it hides the bump. The outfit I wore today showed it off a bit more.

Yarn Crisis and Tag Blanket

Marie Haigh6 Comments

I visit my neighbor at least once a week. I love to chat with her about knitting and the neighborhood gossip; she always has the best stories.

Yesterday, she casually mentioned how awful it would be to run out of the gorgeous handspun wool I was starting to knit the baseball blanket out of. The more I thought about what she said, the more I realized just how right she was; it would be awful. I can’t buy more of it. So, I opted to run the numbers. Ever am I glad I did. Not only would I have run out early, I wouldn’t even have completed half the blanket!

Last night I searched through my entire Ravelry stash and didn’t find a lot of back-up options. I have tons of wool, but very little is soft enough for a baby. If the Decadent Fibers Cookie Dough doesn’t prove to be enough yarn (I’m knitting a swatch now to test it out), then I’ll have to go yarn shopping.

This is the Decadent Fibers (80% merino wool and 20% mohair). The red wool will be for the baseball stitches.

To cheer myself up from the yarn dilemma, I whipped up a tag blanket for baby.

Cost = $0.
The cotton dragon fabric on the front of the blanket was leftover from a quilt I made for my friend’s daughter. The ribbons were a gift from Tamsie during the swap we were both in last year. Dan kindly donated the fabric on the back of the blanket. It used to be one of his favorite shirts because of how soft it is.

Appliques for Baby

Marie Haigh10 Comments

On Wednesday of last week, after feeling miserable all day long, I decided to reward myself. I bought 2 new work shirts for Dan and 5 new Kimono shirts for Baby. It hardly seems like a reward when I didn’t buy anything for myself, but that is deceiving.

Digging through my fabric stash is always rewarding. It didn’t take me long to locate 5 different fabrics to adorn the Kimono shirts. Afterwards, I quickly assembled my supplies:

  • Iron-on adhesive
  • Cookie cutters
  • Shot glass
  • Scissors

In a few hours time, the shirts were decorated in fine fashion. No Plain Jane shirts for our baby.

My favorite and the reason for the shot glass:

The heart, shamrock, and bird were cut out using cookie cutters. The monster’s fabric was ‘fussy-cut’. Of course, the shot glass was used to trace out the five sections of the caterpillar’s body.

Using the iron-on adhesive, I attached the fabric shapes to the shirts. Afterwards, I used the satin stitch on my sewing machine to gussy up the shape’s outline. The eyes and the antennas were added by hand using embroidery floss.

It was so much fun!