House Arrest

A Week of Firsts

It's been a milestone filled week here at chez House Arrest. Both Aden and Hunter have been keeping Mom and Dad on their toes with their latest accomplishments.

Where to begin? Well, Aden's gone from being a horizontal "desperately trying to crawl" chap to a vertical "look at me sit up by myself" baby. He first sat up on his own last Friday and Mark and I thought it was a fluke. Well it wasn't. Our little man quickly mastered the art of sitting up. In fact, when he's not trying to crawl, he's sitting and playing on his own.

The most amazing thing about this transformation was how little time it took. From the first time he sat up on his own until when he seemingly mastered the act took probably two days. No lie.

When Hunter's not trying to eat a cat she's practicing her vocalizations. Right now  "Ba Ba Ba Ba" is her favorite thing to say, along with blowing wet raspberries for hours.

Cute babbling aside, what I wanted to highlight was the fact that Hunter got her first tooth. I felt the little bugger last night when she playfully bit on my finger. Aden's already cut his two bottom teeth but his lis sis is quickly catching up to him.

Last, but not least, Aden surprised us with a huge one today. He was sitting happily in his crib, pulling up on the bars. As I was watching him, I saw him pull himself up slightly so I called Mark over to watch. Much to our surprise and delight, Aden pulled himself up to standing.

The look on Mark's face was priceless. He had totally not expected Aden to do that. Crawl, yes. Stand, no. It won't be long now...

Our babies are growing up... and quickly at that.

Knitting wise, mom has been doing a lot of work finishing up Sandy's soakers and Hunter's Pinwheel Sweater.

I'm also working on Aden's bunny blanket and once those are done I'm heading back into sweater-land. I want to finish up their Milan Jackets before tackling -- gasp -- a few adult projects. Mark needs a hand knit sweater -- BrooklynTweed's Smoking is in the Ravelry queue for him -- and I want to make the Mom version of the Pinwheel Sweater.

I get the bulk of my knitting done during my commute, but I also manage to get some in at night. After tucking in a couple of sleeply dreamy heads, I knit a few rows and look at them.

And I wonder, "What next, lil ones? What next?"

Another One Down

The crochet gussets will be finished shortly and then I will cast on for another new ribby. Two down, two to four to go.

And so to bed...

I was hoping to finish the second wrap today but after a too long and frustrating workday, I've decided to take advantage of my night off from baby duty and hit the hay a bit early.

Aside: Mark and I have started alternating who cares for the babies at night. Currently I'm "on duty" Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Alternating nights allows both of us to get a full night of sleep on a more regular basis.

As of 8:50 this morning, I had gotten about 65% through the pattern, so it's easy to see where I would think I might finish the whole shebang tonight. And, as of now, I'm about 80% done, which is frankly not shabby progress. I finished 75% of the crotch ribbing during my morning commute, worked on the remaining 25% during my trip home and worked on the first 9 rows of the back when I got home.

I almost got no knitting done as I was falling asleep while Mark did the dishes. But once he relieved me from keeping an eye on the kiddos, I had to prep my breakfast and lunch for tomorrow – I'm back on plan, baby! –  and then started fixing a glitch on my iPod.

Somehow, I lost an entire chapter of "The Fellowship of the Ring" and wanted to fix my playlist as it pissed me off to find myself transported from the well scene in the mines of Moria to Legolas singing in Lothlorien. I also wanted to rip "The Children of Hurin" audiobook that Mark gifted me with, so I had to force myself to stay up, sleepiness be damned, in order to do that.

So while iTunes took its sweet ass time getting my books into my playlists, I knit, updated my Ravelry profile and drank a glass of wine.

And now, iPod playlist fixed and at a good stopping point, I find that I'm suitably relaxed and ready to face another soul-sucking day at my job.

1:33

I'm ready to crash, having been up and about since 5:30 this morning, but I'm staying up so I can give the babies their next dose of Tylenol. Turns out that they did not avoid catching my cold -- which I'm actually not quite over. They've both been feverish and fussy today, and have made Mark's day a living hell. Unfortunately, Mark is also feeling under the weather, which is going to make for an interesting week as I REALLY can't take any time off this week. My majordomo important project is hitting Beta this week and I absolutely have to do the face-time thing at the office.

Oy.

If Mark winds up being too sick to care for the babies, I may have to beg a favor from one of my friends. It'd be a paid favor, as I would compensate him / her for looking after the babies, but still, it's a major one. I keep kicking myself for not finishing enrolling the babies in ELC, Inc's backup daycare, but I realize that I wouldn't be able to drop them off if they were sick so it's kinda moot.

To keep myself busy tonight, I made it about a third of the way through on the second of the newborn ribby wraps. This one is in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes:

The second one is going a lot faster than the first since I now understand how the pattern works a bit better. Being that the baby is due any day now,  I'm going to shoot for four - six wraps, half in the newborn sizes and half in the small. This is a pretty quick knit, although I AM dreading all the finishing work, but I'm pretty comfortable in thinking I can accomplish that. In addition to the initial grouping of Ribbies, I also want to make at least one Hybrid Rib Soaker since Sandy has expressed an interest in having some in that pattern later on down the line when the baby is a bit bigger.

In anticipation of the next ones, I dug out some Cascade 220 Superwash from my stash:

(The colors are actually nicer than they appear here...)

I also dug out this yummy treasure:

It's to make these:

Yup, they're the ubiquitous Transition Gloves. I fell in love with some of the finished ones on Ravelry and well you can guess the rest...

I may reorganize my queue a bit so that I can start these after I finish the soakers. I admit that knitting all the baby knits I have embarked on for the twins can get a bit monotonous so maybe having a little fun something something waiting for me at night will keep me motivated.

I'm trying real hard not to be shiny-nickled this year.

P.S. Expect a MAJOR update to the 365 galleries. I've all the pictures but haven't gotten around to picking, resizing, cropping, uploading, etc. I plan to get that all done by MLK day at the latest.

FO: Bunny Blanket #1

FO: Bunny Blanket #1
Pattern: Bunny Blanket Buddy (Knit Version) by Lion Brand (free pattern)
Yarn: Lion Brand Velvetspun, White
Needles: KnitPicks Harmony, sizes 8 & 10 1/2
Began: December 30, 2007
Knitting completed: December 30, 2007
Finished: January 4, 2008

My first FO of 2008, I actually started this little critter around noon on December 30th and managed to get it all knitted up by about 9 PM that day. I would have completely finished her on the 30th but the fiberfill stuffing that I had was behind the tree and there was no easy way to get to it.

I was home sick today, and since there'd been nothing much to do other than cough and sneeze, I got Mark to bring me a few of my projects, and more importantly, the fiberfill. I stuffed the bunny, threaded a ribbon through it to add some personality, wove in ends and called it a day. I decided against embroidering a face because it seemed like too many things could go wrong. (And, personally, I kinda like it better this way.) I do have to admit to being surprised as to how BIG this little bunny is -- it's about 14" long from head to bottom of blanket -- but that makes for all the better of a snuggly.

My one tip for knitting this with LB Velvetspun is to use wood needles. I originally started it with my Knit Picks Options fixed 10 1/2 16" circular needle. I realized I needed a longer needle and my Options 10 1/2 interchangeable tips were being used for another project. I broke out my Harmony set and used those with a 24" joining thread.  That made a world of difference in how smoothly the yarn flowed. I had been struggling a bit earlier and was able to knit a lot easier and avoid aggravating my carpal tunnel because of the switch.

All in all it's a fun little knit and I can't wait to get started on the second one of them. I'm hoping Aden will likes it as much as Hunter does.

A quick note: Oiyi posted a comment on one of her finished ones about not liking the way the head was written but I didn't understand the reason for her mods just from reading the pattern. She decided to convert the head to the round because she liked that way technically better. I decided to follow the pattern as written because I couldn't see what she was talking about at first blush.

After cruising the other finished versions on Ravelry for a bit, I read Gingerly4it's notes about the head cause I was wondering why mine was looking so different from the other ones out there. I've been doing p1, sl1 purlwise. It's giving me a different looking head but I like it well enough. I definitely won't have any problems with stuffing coming out either. I'll probably do p1, sl1 knitwise for the second bunny, though.

But the biggest thing I got out of her notes was how the head opened. With this information, Oiyi's comments on her mods (a departure from the double knitting method Lion Brand used) made sense to me.

P.S. My first Ribby Wrap is officially off the needles. I just need to weave in ends to call it complete. More about this project later...

Soaker

I'm working on a project for my friend Sandy, or more to the point Sandy's new baby. Sandy uses cloth diapers and wanted to make some knitted soakers for her fourth. We had a knitting lesson early last year but never followed up with another, which left Sandy with only half the skills she needs to make something and therefore unable to make the soakers she desired.

After seeing her in December, when she came to pick up the baby clothes I'd been saving for her, I shook out of my twins-induced fog and realized that, you know, maybe making some soakers for her would make her happy. So I planned to knit a few of them in secret and surprise her with them after her daughter's birth. I decided to make a few in the newborn and small sizes and then gift her with some larger sizes later down the road. I had it all planned out in my head but I couldn't keep the secret very long. I knew that Sandy loved a particular pattern, but for the life of me COULD NOT remember what it was. I trawled her blog looking for it, remembering that she had posted about it, but nada. So, I gave in and contacted her, telling her of my plan and asking for the name of the pattern. Turns out that she'd chosen the Ribby Wrap pattern by Little Turtle Knits, a pattern that I'd once wanted to make for the twins.

I got the pattern and set about creating a gauge swatch. Now, I don't always swatch but I wanted to make sure these would fit at the sizes I made them. I knew that her baby could of course grow into something too big but that somehow defeated the purpose of trying make them in key target sizes. I swatched with size 7s as recommended and got 5 1/2 stitches per inch. My target was 4 1/2 so I switched to 8s and continued the swatch. 8s gave me 5 stitches per inch which was still off target so I decided to venture onto size 9s. Finally I hit 4 1/2 stiches per inch but I didn't like the fabric at all. It was too drapey and that really didn't seem like the type of fabric a soaker should have. I liked the fabric the 7s made but I do admit that it was a bit, ahem, bulletproof.

So after all that swatching, I had to pull out a calculator and do some math. I decided that using 8s and making the small size would approximate the written newborn size pretty closely. I made it more than halfway through the wrap in a few hours, all the while doubting the fabric.

Now, I'm almost done with the first soaker but still wondering if the fabric is, well, cushy enough. The picture of the Ribby Wrap on LTK's site looks real cushy. But I'm using Cascade 220 as a lot of folks on Ravelry have done so mine should look (and be) as good as theirs are. Still, I keep thinking that maybe I got a thin ball of Cascade 220 (unlikely but possible) or that other people aren't taking gauge, etc. as seriously (also possible).

And, let's add that I'm clueless about knit soakers, or soakers in general. I have no idea how the fabric is supposed to be or whether or not they're supposed to be thick and cushy or bulletproof in order to keep dryness in or loose to let it air out. I have my own idea of what I might like in a soaker but how that translates to real world experience is anybody's guess.

So if you've any answers, let me know. In the meantime, I'm gonna finish this guy, then go swatch with two strands held together and see if that works for me. And if that doesn't pan out, I'll find a soft cushy yarn to try.

I want to make sure I get these doing the job they were intended to.