For Babies

I've spent the last couple of months immersing myself in lots of fun knitting and sewing projects for the many (ok, three) babies in my life who are due in March and April. My brother and sister-in-law, plus two sets of good friends, are expecting, and it's been such fun to put together little bundles of baby gifts for them.

For my niece/nephew, another Pebble vest, and Saartje's booties (These are now up on my Ravelry account). I used the same heathery wool that I used for my first Pebble this spring, and made both the vest and booties a biggish size. They also got some blankets, flannel pants, and burp cloths.

These didn't all go to the same baby, but the colors looked nice together for a photo! The pants are from the same pattern as these, in the 0-3 months size. 

I love love love this wool, and the buttons too- and the stem. If only I had read the pattern more closely and not decreased too soon...it turned into a beanie. But that didn't stop Joel & Heather's 2-year-old daughter from wearing it, and hopefully it will fit the new baby somewhere down the line.

Another Pebble, this one for Laurel & Robert's due-in-April daughter, green like the spring. This one is teeny for a brand new baby. 

The assortment that went to Heather and Joel. We had a good laugh because the burp cloths (one of my go-to baby gifts) I made were actually the same flannel I had used for a blanket for their 2-year-old when she was a newborn....but I had forgotten that I used the same fabric two years ago. Their little girl recognized it and said they matched! ...She also put on the new bibs as a cape and wore them around for awhile.

I'll write about the bibs in the next post. They are my favorite thing that I have sewn to date.

Whales in Wood

I'm quite behind the times in posting these photos, but other things got in the way. BUT: two weeks ago, Bill became a featured artist at a store in downtown Portland, and we spent a Sunday afternoon at the open house for the show, which went great. His five humpback whales are all made without any metal or glue; they are held together entirely by notching, pegging and lashing (with artificial sinew). He used the same steam-bending techniques he learned when building his Greenland skin-on-frame kayak, and I have to say the results are pretty amazing. The whales attract a lot of attention, and each one is in a slightly different part of the swimming motion--so they are a pod swimming together. I'm pretty proud of Bill. Boy, is he talented!

(Also, these whales are for sale. $1995 each [80 hours of labor for each one!]. Contact me or Boy's Fort if you are in the area and happen to be interested!)

Snow and Ice

We had an unexpectedly long weekend here, as Portland got hit with cold temperatures, then high winds, then snow, and then ice. Schools were closed, the city ground to a halt, all of my weekend plans were postponed, and I cabin fever pretty badly after the fun of the first day or two. I did a lot of knitting, drank a lot of hot cocoa, and watched a lot of PBS Nature documentaries.

On Saturday night, the freezing rain hit, and the entire city became coated with ice. We woke up to emergency alert text messages telling us not to go anywhere or attempt to drive. Venturing out on Sunday morning with my camera, I managed not to slip and fall, and got these photos:

Those are ice droplets.

Bill's car with its icy coating.

I had only just gotten back on my bike a few days before the storm hit, and after being cooped up inside and unable to go anywhere for a couple days (Portland simply can't handle snow--too few plows, few people have snow tires-- so even those of us who know how to drive in it rarely venture out) I am more than ready to be active again. Bill is finally off crutches but still has to baby his foot a bit, but hopefully soon we will be back in shape to get in some good hikes.

Homey Dreams

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always have those future dreams, of the kind of house and garden I want someday, permanently. I'm pretty content with what I have now, knowing it is very affordable and comfortable and pretty great for the point I am at in my life. But still, those dreams pop into the front of my mind once in awhile...usually in the winter when I am getting restless for the options and comfort of summer. Here are a few, mostly things I have had a taste of at some point and found how well they suited me.

A sewing/craft project room

One of my biggest roadblocks to tackling larger sewing projects is the lack of space to spread out, and to always have my sewing machine set up and ready to go. How I would love, someday, to have a room (or half a room) that can simply be a dedicated sewing/crafting area. A nice broad table with my sewing machine set up on it, and shelves where my fabric, yarn and notions can be stored in plain view and easy reach. Thread stored on a thread rack (preferably handmade), and with a bit of luck a nice big window right over the table for lots of light.

 Something in this vein...but maybe more colorful.

Photo credit home-designing.com

A pantry

I grew up with one, and there's just no way around how awesome it is to have a room, however small, that is dedicated solely to food and other kitchen-related storage. Get those canned goods and spare jars out of my kitchen cupboards, and the less-frequently-used kitchenware out of the way. I would love to re-create my parents' sunny yellow pantry; they have their fridge in there to open up space in the kitchen, and last time I was home, my mom had added another set of shelves, custom built to fit the Adams peanut butter jars that they use to store dehydrated herbs and veggies.

Yes, please. 

Photo credit New England Home Magazine

A proper garden

And by proper, I mean big. Big enough to grow plenty of food, plus herbs and flowers. How nice it will be, one day, to just be able to pop out the back door to pick veggies for dinner, or to weed for a few minutes, rather than plan a trip to my community garden. When I own a place, I can plant more long-term things, like strawberries and asparagus and maybe fruit trees. To build a garden from scratch, of my own design, not the previous owners'....well, a gardener can dream, right?

(Have you ever searched for images of gardens on the internet? The possibilities are endless and amazing. And a bit overwhelming.)

Photo credit Garden Diggings

Chickens (again)

Maybe just three next time, but I miss their beautiful and delicious eggs, their hilarious and exasperating chicken-ness, the way you can feed them all the weeds and slugs from the garden. Someday.

(Photo credit Me!)

The list goes on, of course, but these are the ones that stay constant. Dreaming about them is such fun; sometimes the anticipation of something is just as enjoyable as the thing itself.

Impending Auntiehood

My niece/nephew is expected to arrive in about six weeks. I'm very very excited, and while I've been Auntie Liz to a few different amazing kiddos for a number of years, it took me quite awhile to grasp the fact that I am in fact going to be related to this one. The reality of this particular version of auntiehood finally got hit home in the past couple weeks by the following thoughts:

A) My big brother is going to be a DAD. This is a very good thing, and he'll be an amazing one, but it's just...bizarre.

B) My parents are going to be grandparents. Someone will call them Grandma and Grandpa (or Gram and Grandad, or whatever). This too is very good, but also exceedingly weird.

and then the other day this thought popped into my head, as I was wondering what the baby will look like:

C) It could look like me. Family resemblances run strong in my family. S/he is not my child, but s/he will share enough of my DNA that this is, in fact, a possibility.

Whoa.

Some New Year's Organizing

I just had a four-day weekend, because of the holiday on Monday, and I spent most of it at home, catching up on cleaning and organizing and dealing with everything that had piled up (literally) during the past month or so. The last two weeks of December and the first two weeks of January were very trying, with way too much time spent in hospitals and doctors' offices and stuck in bed, as well as a lot of time spent away from my apartment while Bill recovered from his surgery at his place. During that time, my brain had to recalibrate in terms of what tasks and errands around the house were really necessary, and what I could let slide so as to not overextend myself. Now that I'm feeling much better and more energetic, it was time to tackle all of the little things that had been let go.

First priority of the weekend, though, was to get out of town for a change of scenery. Portland had been having some very strange foggy weather, but the weather report for the coast was excellent on Friday. Bill and I headed west on Friday morning, and spent the day soaking up the sunshine and fresh salty breeze at the coast, admiring the incredible views from Ecola State Park, and taking in a gorgeous sunset at Cannon Beach.

Back in town, I felt very energized and spent Saturday working away on a variety of chores to get my apartment shipshape again. There was dishwashing and laundry and the usual chores, and in between those I tackled some other jobs. First, I cleaned out my desk. For the past month, my desk had been sitting open, and I had just been stuffing all manner of things into it, and leaving them there: medical bills, pay stubs, books, Christmas cards, etc. I cleared it all out, sorted through, filed away the things that were necessary to keep, recycled or shredded the rest, and organized what was left. Now I can actually close it, and it makes the front room look much tidier.

In the kitchen, I tackled something I think everyone has to face at some point: the dreaded tupperware cupboard. I had gotten a new set of good sturdy containers (mostly for freezing food in) with one of my Christmas gift cards, but there was no room left in the cupboard, which was also a total disaster zone, completely disorganized. One problem was that, having eaten through a lot of the food I canned this summer, there was a glut of empty mason jars filling up the shelves, and more taking up space on the counter. I shifted things around, and stowed away most of the empty jars behind the remaining canned goods in other cupboards. That freed up enough space to fit the rest of the jars and containers neatly into the cupboard. I got rid of all the odd containers and lonely lids too, and it all looks spick and span now. Hopefully I can make it stay that way for awhile.

The next issue was mold. My apartment gets a lot of condensation on the windows in the winter, but what with one thing and another, I had not been running my dehumidifier as much this winter as I did last year, and thus ended up with a horrifying amount of black mold on the windowsills. Ugh. So I tackled it with soap and water, scrubbed off as much as I could, wiped all the surfaces with vinegar, and then dried them and wiped on a coating of tea tree oil. Hopefully that will do the trick, and I will be much more vigilant about running the dehumidifier for the rest of the winter.

I didn't get the knitting done that I wanted to, but I did get the loose ends woven in on a baby sweater that's been sitting in my knitting basket for months, and then blocked it. I'm going to try and put snaps on this one (with a ribbon backing) instead of buttons.

 Someday I'll make myself a proper blocking board. Until then, a piece of a cardboard box, a dishtowel and sewing pins it is...

My final organizing job yesterday was to deal with my garden box. The majority of the seeds in there were packed for 2010, so they all got culled, and the remainder were organized and sorted back into the box. Then some garden planning, lists of seeds to order for this year, and a timeline for planting was made. I'm not going to be hugely ambitious with the garden this year, I have less space for doing so since a good quarter of my garden is currently taken up with garlic.

Last night, I dusted and scrubbed and swept, and got my apartment feeling sparkly clean for the beginning of the week. It's such a good feeling, especially for a neat freak like me.

Christmas Knits

I've been on a knitting binge recently, and actually managed a couple hand knitted Christmas gifts. There was some very very last-minute knitting (I finished my mom's gift approximately an hour before my parents pulled into town) but I am happy with the results (and, importantly, so were the recipients).

1) Bill's Antler Hat

The combination of this awesome pattern and some gorgeous soft heathery blue wool from the new yarn shop down the street = Bill's Christmas present. His favorite color is blue, and this yarn is lovely to knit with. Having only ever knitted one other item in the round, it was perhaps a bit ambitious, and I cast on wrong and had to re-start after doing about ten rows (I'm slow to notice my mistakes), but I had a great time knitting it. Cabling is fun, and I really really like the look of the horn cables!

I'm not the most attentive knitter, which means that I didn't pay close enough attention to what I was doing in a few places, and the result was a couple of errant cables. Whatever, it has character this way. While I attempted to measure the height of the hat against another of Bill's hats, I didn't get it quite tall enough, but he says he really likes the watch cap nature of it, not quite covering the ears. Practice will make perfect, and I am quite proud of this, my first non-baby hat. Ravelry notes here.

[Bill realized I was making, and not buying, his gift, when he turned up at my apartment ahead of schedule one day and heard me yell "No! Don't come in!" and then had the door swiftly shut in his face while I scurried away to hide all evidence of the hat-in-progress before he was allowed to enter.]

2) Mom's ridged cowl scarf

I grabbed this pattern from Down to Earth awhile back, but I can't for the life of me find the post it was in. Anyway, credit for it goes to Rhonda. I worked it with size 6 needles and 100% Peruvian wool, for a woman who loves "deep greens and blues." In fact, on Christmas when my mom opened her present, she was wearing a shirt that perfectly matched the scarf!

I did commit the knitting sin of buying two skeins from different dye lots. Whoops. Luckily, for a scarf like this the difference in color hides pretty well. I'm learning, slowly but surely.

Easy and fast to knit...maybe I'll make one for myself next time. I put this one on Ravelry too.

Now, on to finish the knitting for all of these early spring babies that are on their way!