Having not posted anything for almost a year, I am not even going to try and catch up on everything I’ve been doing, but there are a lot of projects I want to remember. Here are a few of things I did (crafting mainly) that I have done since my last post (forever ago).
There are some projects that you wonder why you didn’t finish sooner:
We spent an entire year in our house with an unsightly exposed closet space in our bathroom (I disliked it enough that I won’t even show the shelving full of bathroom linens and hair stuff that is now behind the curtain). When I finally sat down and made up this curtain, after agonizing for a long time over the box pleats at the bottom (due to my lack of sewing math confidence), I wondered why I had allowed myself to suffer that long while.
Similarly, all summer long every time I hung out our laundry I thought, “I need to make a clothespin apron.” When I finally did one in September it was awesome (despite the enormous belly bump by then) and I only wish I had done it sooner. I am only this year fully appreciating its convenience—two hands fully free to hang things up—hooray!
My childhood best friend was having a baby only weeks apart from me (also a girl) in September. Our mothers used to dress us in “twinner” outfits a lot in elementary school. Incidentally, they were totally awesome eighties outfits like hot pint and black spandex shorts with a matching top. When I knit up a newborn cardigan for her baby, I thought I might have enough to do one for my baby and so I squeezed out a short sleeve version and had to cut out some of the repeats in its length as well, but I had enough to crochet some tiny rosette flower clips for the girls. So they get their first matching outfits.
I was apparently totally nesting in September, because this set of mittens and gloves for the new baby took me about a day and I did them right after the clothespin apron and three days before the baby actually came. I also decided to organize all of my yarn stash and take pictures of everything for Ravelry (I know, the most pressing order of business right?—Well, you’ll be happy to know that since there were still three days to delivery I then went on a cleaning and gardening rampage to get the house in order, but my subconscious apparently puts yarn and crafting first!).
This was the blessing dress I made for Quintessence (Quinn). It was a good thing my mother was around to help because for some reason I put this off until the weekend of the blessing. It was really useful to have someone there to keep the baby happy (newborn at the time—we took these pics a long time after when we thought, “oh no we never got pictures, we better see if it still fits her”) during the sewing and to explain instructions to my foggy post-partem brain. Not to mention to have someone there to do the buttonholes!
I knit up this wool soaker for Quinn and have really liked it. This was the second time I used this pattern and it is admittedly huge (it still fits at nine months), but that isn’t a big deal because it still doesn’t seem to have leakage issues if used with a Snappi. I like that you don’t have to wash it constantly and that it is super breathable. The only thing I could wish for would be a side snap feature (like the more modern PUL covers I am used to), which can be really useful when facing messy newborn poo. I designed a wool one of that sort from the PUL covers we have and used an old sweater to make it up (no picture taken). I need to make up more, but I also just like the idea of adding snaps and side seams to a more traditional soaker like this one.
A friend of mine had a baby in December and so I knit up some seed stitch shoes by Debbie Bliss, and added a strap to them to help them stay on better.
Lastly, my sister-in-law had a baby this spring. She is a dancer and so I mailed her (modeled by Quinn) a pair of ballet slippers from this pattern. I also made up an improvised tutu from fabric I had lying around and a lot of good online tutorials about using a crocheted headband (which I used as a base and put my fabric as a sort of binding over the top of) to loop tulle into. I used tulle underneath (you can see some black poking through) and then a sheer fabric on top. It was a little weighty, but on a three to six month old they are really just going to be sitting in it and it shouldn’t hold them back too much.
Looking back over this last year I am actually really surprised by all the stuff I have gotten done. In fact I am feeling pretty accomplished. What have you been up to this year? I’d bet it is more than you would have thought!
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