Size Does Matter

One of the problems with having a baby that weighs only 6lbs (at 2 weeks old) is that none of her clothes fit. At all. She looks so silly in just about everything we have (except for 2 kimono shirts), including all the soakers I knit for her that I thought were going to be "too small". She would fit into preemie clothes, but at ~$30 for a single preemie outfit... Everything she has is huge on her teeny little body. Except for one thing.

FunSize First made and gave me a cute little pair of baby socks for her, and tonight I was finally able to get them on her wiggly feet. Surprisingly (or maybe not so much) it was infinitely easier to get the socks on her feet than it was to actually take pictures of said socks on her feet.

These socks are the only thing we have for her that fit perfectly. And they are so cute!!

So thank you, funsize for gifting something we can use now. :o)

We Goofed

So yesterday Mr Kiwi and I decided we needed to wash baby laundry. We have a bin dedicated to burp cloths, clothes, receiving blankets, etc that is separate from the cloth diapers. Pretty self explanatory, right? Well, through some miscommunication between Mr Kiwi and I as to what is a "soaker" (things I knit) and what is a "diaper cover" (non-knit things), the little white soaker managed to make it into this laundry bin. I knew it had been placed in there (I think I asked 10 times where it was before doing the laundry) but for some reason it kept escaping me to take it out before washing the clothes. I didn't remember it was in there until everything was thrown in the dryer. Of course this wasn't helped by the fact that almost all baby clothes we have are white. Why do they do that? Babies are messy; why is white, the color that just about every stain will show up on, the most prevalent in baby outfits? So of course, the white soaker blended in with all the other white clothing.

All knitters should be cringing about now. Soakers are made from 100% wool to give them the high absorbency that they are used for. 100% wool when stuck in a washer which has heat + agitation and then in a dryer that also has heat + agitation, and yes, even in a front loading HE washer... will felt. I figured the damage was done, and I might as well fish it out at the end of the cycle.
Sure enough, it had felted. Not nearly as bad as I had expected it to, but the fabric was denser and it was a bit smaller than it had been before going in. I brought it into the house to show Mr Kiwi what had happened and to explain the difference in terminology and where things belong. Covers get washed with the diapers. Soakers are knit and get washed by hand. They don't go in the bin with clothes or diapers, and must have a designated area somewhere else. This is what happens to machine washed soakers.

We looked at the soaker for a minute, and looked at the 6lb baby, then back at the soaker. One of us got the bright idea to see if it still fits, since everything we have is huge on her. We pick her up, go to the changing table, and stuff her (gently of course) into the newly felted soaker. Surprise, surprise, it fits better now than it did before. Previously, it was huge and bulky, but now it fits like it should. This of course won't last long, but it is nice to know that A. we now have at least 1 thing that fits her properly, and B. the soaker is not a complete loss.

Sewing Project!

So it was really easy. All I had to do was a little cutting, a little hemming, and a little measuring and stitching. And here we have Mr Kiwi modeling the sling with the sleeping Juniper curled up inside.



I have enough different fabrics to make at least 3 more, and possibly add some pockets to the tails.

I Have A Good Excuse!!

Like anyone still reads this because of my more and more infrequent posting, but this time, I have a really good excuse for not posting in over a week. Really, I do!

That excuse is little Juniper.


She was born on July 21st (16 days before due date) at 12:04am (or 00:04), and weighed 6lbs 1oz. The morning of the 20th if you had told me that the next time I went to sleep it would be with a baby in my arms, I would have laughed at you. Actually, you could have told me at 9:30pm that night and I still would have laughed. It was a very fast labor (1hr 45mins!!) and we made it to the birth center just in time. Any later, and she would have been born in the car.
She is a trooper little baby and I am so proud to have her. We are all doing fine, although my knitting time has suffered a bit. I did however get one crafty project in yesterday, and that was to make our own sling! I had previously (in April, even, I think) purchased fabric I would need as well as the rings, and had anticipated working on them a little later. Well, schedules change, and I made my first sling yesterday. It's a big hit with the baby who loves to be carried and cries when the carrier stops walking... even if it is 3am... and it's just as much a hit to the Mr. who is now glad to be able to carry the baby while still having the ability to use his hands for other things. He's much happier taking her for a walk around the neighborhood this way instead of full in his arms.
We'll be taking pictures tonight and they will be posted shortly.

New Knitting

Once again it seems I have fallen victim to the empty blog. I need to stop starting posts out with some such variation of a guilty admittance of not having written often enough.
Well! The Icarus ended up being very nice, and was fun to wear at the wedding. Unfortunately, only moments before I left the house one of the peaks snagged on a door and pulled about 3 inches of yarn, creating this nice floppy loop. I can't figure out in what direction to pull or where it came from in order to get it back into place. It may take some really good looking into, or maybe something as simple as a reblocking (which it needs anyway since it spent about weeks crumpled up after the wedding). It's not too big of a deal though; someone would only notice if 1. They were a knitter, and 2. They were specifically looking for it because I mentioned it. Which means I have to be careful around all of you ;o)
Since finishing the Icarus, I decided I needed some quick projects. I needed to work on baby things. Soakers!! One can never have too many of those, and they burn up stash wool, like all of the Cascade220 I have managed through felted bags. I made 3 soakers, 2 being the same pattern, and one being a different one. They all ended up being slightly different sizes since I still don't know how big babies are when they're born adn how long they stay at certain sizes. Of course I don't have pictures, but I'll try to remedy that quickly.
Fearing I'd get burnt out on soakers, I decided to start a baby sweater with more stash yarn (are we sensing a theme here?). I misunderstood one of the directions in the pattern, and although I thought it looked strane and that things were just not right, I kept going anyway. It wasn't until I was 3/4 finished with the back of the sweater (and at KIP Day!!) that I looked at it and said "something really is just not right". I had to rip back to the first inch of 1x1 ribbing border, but no big deal! It's a mini-sweater, so frogging went quickly, and now I am already back to the point of where I had ripped. Much less painful than frogging a full sized swweater, and much easier to recover from.
As I slipped in above, I did get a chance to go back to MFA and hang out with some of the regulars for Knit in Public Day. It was very fun and good to see people again. My only complaint was that my sciatica was acting up so bad that it was very painful to walk even though I was only walking about 2 blocks at a time. And even then, it was very infrequent. I'm not used to walking so slow, but I sure was being forced to or I'd probably fall over. The weather was excellent and very cooperative. No more 90° heat, just some nice sun, cool breeze, and thanks to the scaffolding we had some shade too! A nice start to a very relaxing weekend.

Knitters' Baby Shower

Last night was my last Thursday night knitnight group for a few months. My birthing classes have been so (in)conveniently scheduled for 7pm on Thursday nights in San Francisco, which is the same time as the knit group meets. The wonderful knitters threw me a baby shower since I won't been seeing them much before the baby is born. On the MFA group on Ravelry they kept a post going communicating with each other planning last night, and I was forbidden to look at it. I behaved and didn't click it until I got home last night.
It was a wonderful event with some delicious cake, fruits, and drinks. I received a beautiful blanket of 16 knit squares that the knit nighters each made. It was beautifully peiced together, and each sqaure was very pretty and interesting. With some of the left over yarn RevKnits made a cute little hat. AuntieJojo gave me a set of 5 cute onsies, VSkiver gave me a little washcloth square that matches the blanket, Ms.Crafty knit a beautiful little sweater for the baby, Suzanne gave me cute little bootees, and Aliflo gave a cute monkey comfort blanket. (I think I am remembering everything; I don't have my cheat sheet on me!)
Everyone put in so much work to throw such a fun party, and I appreciate all those wonderful people have done. Lynitter did an excellent job coming up with little games to play (even though we kept getting distracted by knitting and yarn to focus on racing to get the games). The "guess the size of the belly" game with the yarn was amusing; I decided to play as well, cutting my own string after everyone else had. All but two people overestimated my belly size; even me!
It was such a fun night, and thank you all so much for planing this out. You are all so wonderful, and the next time I'll see most of you is the knit in public day!
Of course because of moving to a new house this weekend, as of tomorrow I am going to be out of internet and won't be able to post any pictures of the event. I do hope a certain someone sends me photos so I can post some up here, but it will certainly won't be a speedy process.

Results!

Well this morning we had our appointment for the anatomy scan and to find out the sex. About an hour before we were planning on leaving there was a huge accident on the west end of the Bay Bridge closing 3 lanes and making the bridge even more congested and backed up than it usually is. The appointment was in San Francisco (UCSF Med Center) which meant we had to scurry to make it accross the Richmond and then GG Bridges as alternate (more expensive due to tolls) route. We ended up getting there at 9:45am when the appointment was at 10:30. Lucky for us, the u/s tech was ready and waiting (someone must have been unlucky enough to get stuck in the bridge mess) so we got in instantly.
Most of the pictures were for measurements, checking fluid, heart chambers, and all that fun stuff. It was weiiiird to see a picture of the face straight on and actually make out the eyes, nose and mouth. I'd say it was beautiful and moving, but honestly it was kind of scary in a creepy horror show kind of way. Since it was in the morning, I hadn't eaten more than a bowl of oats, and hadn't been moving a heck of a lot, someone was still napping in a nice little tightly curled ball. I was actually mostly expecting and preparing myself for a shy baby not giving up the goods. The majority of the people at work and in knitting who gave input on what they thought said boy, while only 4 total said girl. In order to get better glimpses of the baby, the tech had me roll on my side, or stretched the table out, or flipped me upside down. I think after laying flat the first time when the tech went to measure the femurs, he asked if I had been having much morning sickness. Luckily, I haven't. He replies with "Well, there goes that theory". Of course since it is a fuzzy black and while image of bouncing sound waves, it is not 100%, but it seems as though we have a little lady floating around in there.
Now we get to embark on the name game. We've decided that just in case, we'll also come up with a back up boy name, but for now it's focusing on narrowing down those girl names.

Non Knitting Post

So this coming Friday (as in the day after tomorrow) is the day we go in for the "Big Ultrasound". I figured I'd play a game with any and everyone who reads my blog and have people place bets or guesses as to what they think we'll find. I'd embed a poll in here, but I'm not computer savvy enough to figure out how. Plus, I have a very short attention span.

So! Comment with your guess! Not promising a prize for the winner(s), but I'll let everyone know once Friday is over. :o)

Finally an Update

Okay, it has been waaay too long since I have updated this site. I have been feeling bad because my track record lately has been of pictureless posts, and I wanted to wait until I have actual pictures to post so that some color and pretty could be brought onto this page. However, it only resulted in no posts whatsoever, which makes for a much more boring blog.

So! When we last left our hero she was working on obtaining the very last ball of Debbie Bliss needed to finish the Simply Marilyn sweater that she was working on. (okay, enough of that) I finished the sweater Thanksgiving Day while at a family friend's house celebrating with a Turducken (it is really a heck of a lot tastier than it sounds... trust me on this one). Instantly after finishing, I picked up and worked on what little I had done of the Minimalist Cardigan. Even without working on any other projects in the meantime, I am still finding myself working on the cardigan. So much for monogamy making knitting one item go faster, huh? Well, I have a good excuse..

The weekend of Thanksgiving, we found out I'm expecting. Yep, my home of two is about to become a home of three. And that sounds very weird. With the low energy I have been experiencing, doing something as easy as knitting has become too much effort, when all I want to do is lay on the couch, sleep or eat everything in sight. Recently however, I have picked up the sweater again and am forcing myself to knit through it. I'm beginning to get some (some, most definitely not all) of my energy back and knitting has resumed. I am half way through the left front panel and only have the sleeves left to do. thank goodness they are 3/4 length. ;o)

While knitting on the Minimalist Cardigan, I decided to play around with the way I purl. I've never felt comfortable with purling, and have changed my method about 3 times already. I knit continental. I finally figured out a nice way to hold the yarn over my fingers as I knit and purl so that transitioning between the two is easier and smoother. This is essential as I'm doing Moss stitch and am alternating knits and purls with every stitch. I've noticed that with my stockinette my stitches have become much more even as well. Hooray! I've finally found a method that I am comfortable with!

There are still more "Me" things I want to knit before diving head on into baby knitting, so I haven't done any of that yet. I have however ordered Expectant Little Knits from Amazon, and am impatiently waiting for it to arrive. I figured since little baby items knit so quickly, I don't really have to start knitting them until June. By then, it will be so warm I won't want to be knitting anything big anyhow and a nice little baby hat/socks/whatever will be much more welcome and quick, perfectly suited for my lacking attention span. I'm due August 5th, but of course that should be taken with a grain of salt.

So that's what's been going on in this little Kiwi's life as of late! Happy knitting in 2008!