Month: May 2009

Portrait of a Sunday Night

In the foreground: Mothers-to-be Day tulips from Kevin! 🙂

In the background: Total disarray. The furniture/rooms question was starting to weigh on us, so I measured all of our furniture and printed out a floor plan of our house and to-scale furniture so that we could start considering our options. We have a three bedroom house, and currently we each use one bedroom as an office. My office also has a twin/trundle bed in it for when guests visit. Once the baby comes, we’ll turn Kevin’s office into the baby room. But the third bedroom isn’t big enough for both desks and the guest bed, so some creativity is required.

We were doing a good job with the paper cutouts for a little bit, but before too long we thought we had a good option and just rolled up the rug and started moving furniture. Several couch, coffee table, and bookcase configurations later, we abandoned the effort in favour of dinner. I took the photo while Kevin cooked.

With a bit of a break, we thought of new possibilities to try which actually turned out pretty well. We’re still not quite there, but definitely getting closer, and we got the room put back together once we’d eaten.

They’ll let us leave the hospital

In a big step closer to baby-preparedness, we have a carseat! (A gift from Kevin’s parents!!)

For those who are interested in such things, it’s a Britax Diplomat. We decided to skip the infant seat in favour of a convertible, and then I found a great sale price with free shipping.

We had a good time trying it out in the car (with my 26-week shape quite evident). Rear-facing for the first year:

And then forward-facing up to forty pounds:

It’s now packed back into the box in the garage. We’re saving all of the LATCH and installation fun for July, which still feels very far away. People keep telling me that time is going to start to fly, but I’ve been feeling acutely aware of the fact that it isn’t and I’m struggling not to feel impatient.

Debbie Bliss Ribbed Jacket

Continuing the theme of baby knits on the rock wall in the back yard, here’s the finished Debbie Bliss Ribbed Jacket with some pretty white mystery flowers.

This sweater, knit in aran weight yarn, was a lightning-fast knit. I used Cascade 220 superwash, and I’m wondering if I should have gone down a needle size as it grew substantially when I blocked it. The fabric feels nice, with good stitch definition, and while the under-arm seams aren’t smooth, I think they’ll look fine when the sweater is actually being worn. (Ignore the raggedy hemline, here. The sky was starting to open again as I took the photo, and I didn’t take the extra second to straighten it. In real life, it’s even.)

I suspect that the buttons may not be in the best taste, but I’m leaving them anyway.

I bought them on Queen Anne in the first month or two after we moved to Seattle, and I’m quite pleased that they finally have a home.

Baby Surprise Jacket

After a long interlude without buttons, the baby surprise jacket is done!

I finished it early in the week but the rain and dark clouds were a constant this week and this yarn is had to photograph without real light. After so many days of downpour, the garden is vibrant, though, so it was clearly for a good cause. Here’s the finished jacket with the blooming violets, forget-me-nots and periwinkle (not to mention the ever-present moss and a few ivy starts that I missed while weeding. You can also see a stand of mint in the upper-left. The mint was simply delighted with all of the rain this week and has been flourishing. We’ll have to do mojitos or something similar soon to subdue it a bit).

A less leafy view of the front, but hard to see the purple and green accents in the yarn:

And here’s the back:

I probably won’t use this yarn again – it feels wonderful and was so pleasant to knit with, but the color variation looked prettier in the ball than knit up, I think. Nonetheless, I’m pleased with the sweater and it’s so nice to finally have the buttons sewn on and be able to cross it off the list.

Sunrise Circle Jacket

After four nights of work, including during a particularly unfortunate 0-13 Red Sox loss, I finally finished seaming the Sunrise Circle Jacket, and got the buttons all sewed on!

I’m reasonably pleased with the fit. The arms are a bit long (an inch or two shorter would probably be better), and the entire sweater is roomy, especially under the arms. The back fits very well, though, and the length is great. I’m still not wild about the color (probably the sweater’s biggest fault), but it’s cozy and I think I’ll wear it, especially in the evenings at home. I think the style should work for breastfeeding, and it’s machine-washable so that’s certainly a plus.

The button placement works well for my current body shape, but I’ll probably redo the bottom button or two at some point next fall. I love the way the button line looks with the overlapping hems and pretty curving rows of stitches.

The buttons were a find. I’ve been looking for quite a while without much luck (that purple is tough to work with), and then found these. I think the color and size are great, and I love the carved circles on the surface – they reinforce the lines of the sweater well, I think.

All in all, a long project, but a satisfying result.

Friday grilling

The weather on Thursday and Friday was gorgeous, and the forecast for the rest of the weekend looked discouraging, so we had Larry, Kelly, Shawn, Sanna and their dog William over for grilling on Friday after work. William treed his first raccoon (I wish they’d stop hanging out in our neighbourhood, but maybe we’ll just need to invite William over more often?), to everyone else’s bemusement. After we were done eating and the sun had set, we retired to the kitchen for brownies and chatter.

Kevin’s parents found a toddler backpack and sent it out to us a few months ago. We knew that Larry, especially, would be delighted.

He’s an avid hiker, and has already been scheming about introducing the baby to the great outdoors. (Lending new meaning to the phrase “baby hike”?) On the counter, you can see the gorgeous tulips he brought – wine for everyone else, and flowers for me! 🙂

While Larry played with the backpack, everyone else took a turn with the stroller (a gift from Kevin’s friend Sunil!). It’s quite the mean machine, with shocks, bright colors, and a great stroller/lifestyle instruction booklet. Here it is with the top down, facing backwards, with the back fully reclined:

William wasn’t too sure about it (his nerves were probably still on edge after the raccoon encounter), but luckily the humans in the room were much more appreciative — we’re quite enamoured of it and it was fun to show it off. 🙂