Oh, baby!

Baby is finally here!!! He arrived early Saturday morning, August 25th. First he made us wait 12 days after his due date and then he decided to arrive in 2 hours! So we didn't make it quite to the hospital, just to the parking lot... I gave birth standing under a street light and caught the baby myself. Probably lucky that it was in the middle of the night...

Not quite how I had envisioned the birth (no, really), but baby is fine and I am fine so all is well. But we sure were the talk of the maternity wards this weekend :-)

Here is baby A with his proud siblings:

Their t-shirts say "big sister" and "double big brother" and were presents from the baby :-)

The Waiting Game

That's right, no baby yet. Due date + 11 days today. I've never been this pregnant before. Say no more.

In the mean time I have finished the Baby Surprise Jacket (i. e. sewn on the buttons),


blocked Rudyard (and Kitchenered the shoulders and started on the collar),


finished the first Pheasant Run sock (and started the other one),


and started a new plain sock.

The yarn is Cider Moon Icicle in Grand Canyon. I'm calling it Fire & Ice :-) and I love it! All the Cider Moon yarns I've tried (and petted) are very soft and nice to work with, and the colours... mmm. These will probably take some time to finish at 36 sts/10 cm (9 sts/in) on 2 mm needles but they are my new mindless project so that's all right. Maybe I'll make it a little less mindless in the leg, I'm considering Feather and Fan, I haven't tried that and I like the look of it.

I am also working on the Mystery Stole 3, I have only about 10 rows to go so it'll be done soon I hope. The blocking will have to wait until baby is here though. No way I'm crawling around on the floor before that!

Socks and a sweater

H's socks are done. She loves them :-)

Pattern: My own: Toe-up with magic cast-on, Sherman heel, stockinette with a little ribbing on the sides of the leg. I increased 4 sts about halfway up the leg. 1k, 1p rib at the top, kept on knitting until I ran out of yarn. I had less than 3 meters left in the end :-)
Yarn: Claudia Handpainted fingering in Carousel, chosen by H.
Needles: 2,5 mm Addi Turbo
Verdict: Nice socks, and quick :-) Love the yarn! I have more in my stash but this is the first time I tried it.


Baby isn't here yet (let's not talk about how today is my due date + 7, ok?) so I'm trying to lure it out by knitting nice things for it. Here's a sweater front almost done:

The back is done too but it's just a square, not much to show off. The pattern is inspired by Kipling. I wanted a larger size and I didn't manage to biggify the pattern so I created my own. I'm calling it Rudyard. If the sweater turns out ok, and if it's ok with Kim I'll make the pattern available here.

Now of course H wants me to knit a sweater for her... Blue and white stripes, she says. I'm thinking top-down raglan with wide stripes. But what yarn...?

Due date

Today is my due date, but baby doesn't seem to know that. Or care. I do hope s/he decides to be born soon though. My tummy is huge.


And so are my feet (no pic of those!). The only shoes that fit me are flip-flops and Crocs. Summer has finally arrived, with frequent thunderstorms, so here's hot and humid and lots of mosquitoes. We have no AC (almost noone does here, you don't need it very often) so the little buggers get in through the open windows at night and eat us. Bleh!

We visited friends yesterday, and their new baby. A tiny two-week old girl. So cute and sweet and I got to hold her and she fell asleep in my arms :-) My own baby didn't get the hint though.

I've got mail! From Germany. This:


Yes, that's a feather.


Could it be from the elusive wool tit? Yes! Wollmeise yarn!

Yummy, no? Five heavy 150 g (about 5,5 oz) skeins of superwash sock yarn in luscious colours. Each skein is 525 meters/574 yards, so it should be enough for two pairs of socks, at least if one pair is short!

The colourways are (left to right): Red Hot Chili, Drachenblut (dragon blood), am kalten Polar, Vergeissmeinnicht (forget-me-nots), Zenzi. All are in the medium variety (you can chose between light, medium and dark) The Loopy Ewe carries Wollmeise now but if you live in Europe it's better to order diectly from Claudia. Lower price and no risk of extra taxes at Customs (if you are in the EU) And the yarn don't have to cross the Atlantic twice.

I finished the first one of H's socks:


That piece of yarn at the top is all I have left from that half-skein, 25 cm/10". Not bad, eh? Now I dearly hope that I did start with the smallest ball, otherwise I'm in trouble. I'm almost at the heel of the second sock so I'll find out soon enough.

The Loopy Ewe sock club package arrived last week and I just had to cast on immediately.

The yarn is from Claudia Handpainted and the pattern is called Pheasant Run. It has fun triangles of twisted rib. I could probably have knit them toe-up without problems but I'm doing them as written for a change (almost anyway, I changed the heel a little)

The colourway is really similar to H's yarn:

The sock club yarn is a muddier version version of the Carousel. Even H commented on it, "That's the same yarn!" Here they are knit up:


The package also included a little accessory bag that matches the Loopy Groupie tote and the sock club project bag we got in the last package, lollies, stitch markers, hot cider drink mix (which I will try when it's not 26 °C outside) and a knitting reference booklet.

All packed in orange tissue paper. Very autumny :-)

The last week has been too hot to work on the Mystery Stole. Sweaty hands, lace weight yarn and Addi Lace needles apparently don't mix very well, everything just get stuck. I'm about halfway through Clue 5, the start of the wing. Clue 6 seems to be more of the same so I'm very curious about Clue 7, the last one. I'm hoping for feathery shapes on the edge.

Socks and socks

The Wendelin socks are done! I managed to get M to model them, despite the heatwave (27 °C)

Pattern: Wendelin socks
Yarn: Regia Mini Ringel Color in 5211.
Needle: Addi Turbo 2,5 mm Magic loop
Made for: FIL
Verdict: Me like! A perfect pattern for the pretty stripes and the fact that I'm not entirely sure of the recipient's foot size.

These count for both Summer of Socks and Sock-a-Month KAL 4!

H saw when I was ordering yarn from The Loopy Ewe last week. She got very interested in all the pretty yarns and wanted me to knit socks for her. Sure, no problem. She chose Claudia Handpainted in Carousel, a fun yarn with lots of colours.

The yarn arrived super quick so I started her socks on Wednesday. Thursday morning they looked like this:

Now I'm halfway up the leg already. Of course it helps when the foot is only 6" around and 6" long :-) She wants knee-socks, we'll see how far the yarn goes (I only got one 50g skein)
The pattern is my own: magic cast-on, Sherman heel, ribs along the sides of the leg.

I have also started on the Loopy Ewe sock club sock for August. No pics or descriptions today, I don't know if everyone has got their packages yet as mine arrived so fast this time. Anyway, I love the yarn and the pattern so I *had* to cast-on now, even though I have a few (ahem) other projects OTN.

Knitting and waiting

... for the baby of course! I'm less than 2 weeks away from my due date now and I keep hoping that this one will be at least a little early. Please?

M has started his vacation now and that is So Nice. I can sleep in every morning and rest during the days. Which I really need right now, because I'm tired all the time. Today I also have a very sore back. I overdid things by mowing the lawn this morning... Silly me. But it really needed doing and this was the first day in ages that it was possible because of all the rain we have been getting lately (rain as in puddles on the lawn) And M has a lot of weeding to do, so sore back it is. I hope it is better tomorrow.

I have a finished object! It feels like it was some time ago... I've started a lot lately but not finished much.


Pattern: Curly Purly soaker pattern
Yarn: Garnstudio Alaska, almost 100 g for size small.
Needles: 3 mm, 4mm, 5 mm
Verdict: A very well-written pattern. I'm not sure about what size baby will fit into them, we'll see. The yarn is slightly scratchy, I hope it gets better with washing (I haven't blocked the soakers yet)

The first Wendelin sock is done too.

And the second one is started. These are my almost mindless TV knitting currently so they'll be finished in good time before FIL's birthday in September.

My Mystery Stole has seen some action too. I'm about a fourth into Clue 4 by now and I really like it. I've decided to knit the original length, that should be around 75"/190 cm when blocked.

And my startitis continues... My excuse for starting these Swirl socks is that I need something easy to bring to the hospital for when the baby arrives. I'm planning to stay a couple of nights and rest without the older kids so I'll need something to do. Can't spend *all* the time gazing lovingly at the baby you know ;-)


I'm using the suggested yarn, Cider Moon Glacier in Juneau (which is a bitch to photograph by the way, but the colours are rather accurate here), and it was really hard to put them away. The yarn is so soft and the pattern so fun. And there's only 48 sts to the row so they are fast too :-)

I'm not sure what made me start these Monos Locos though.

It is a toe-up variation of the Monkey pattern. The pattern is nice enough and the yarn too but I think they will be too large for me and the yarn is much darker in one end than in the other (this is the dark end) so they won't match a bit. I think I will frog them and split the yarn in four balls so I can blend the lightness/darkness somewhat. Dunno what pattern I will use though.