Monday, August 17, 2009

It's a girl!!


After an amazingly (but frighteningly!) quick 8 1/2 hours of labor, including a middle of the night race to the hospital, Baby E was born on Friday, August 14th at 11:57 am. She weighed 7 lbs 1 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long.

We are all home now and adjusting to our new lives. The first (OK, well maybe not the first) step is to figure out how to nurse and knit at the same time. Now I can get to all of the girly projects I had queued up!!

Thanks to all for your words of encouragement before her arrival and tricks to induce labor. Not sure what worked (I had my mom's homemade Polish Golumpki the night before) but she's here now :-)

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

FO: Trellis

One week to go! Well, at least until my due date, but who knows when baby will really come out. In the meantime, I've been crafting.
Trellis
Pattern: Trellis, Knitty Spring 2005
Yarn: Di Ve Zenith in dark brown, 2.5 balls from stash
Trellis
Mods: I knit this pretty much according to the instructions. Back and fronts were knit separately, and then I joined the shoulders using a 3-needle bind off. Then, instead of knitting the sleeves separately, I picked up stitches evenly across the armhole opening and worked the sleeve from the top down. The cable pattern looks the same upside down as right side up, so this worked well. For baby knits, I will probably use this technique again. I did have to sew the side and sleeve seams. For the collar, I used short rows instead, which didn't produce the rolled collar that I hoped it would - I should have done more short rows - but it turned out just fine. I think baby might outgrow this before he/she gets to wear it anyway!

Last week on Etsy I saw some really cute wipes cases that had been covered and embellished with fabrics. I was tempted to buy a couple to match my Amy Butler Diaper Bag and Birdie Sling, but I decided to try to make them myself with my leftover fabric.

I picked up pink and blue plastic wipes case from Babies R Us for $2.49 a piece and cut out some leftover batting and fabric pieces to size (photos above are the top, and photo below is the bottom), plus a little extra to wrap around. I then picked up some trim on clearance from Joann's for $0.99/yard. I bought 2 yards for each case.

I pulled out the hot glue gun and attached the batting to the top and bottom, then cut it even with the edges. Then I glued the fabric to one side and pulled tight and glued to the other side. The short sides were glued similarly, and the corners were wrapped like you were wrapping a gift box. No need to worry about frayed edges - that's what the trim is for. Then I glued the trim all the way around to hide the edges and give it the finished look. Not bad for about $5 in supplies each and 30 minutes of sitting on the couch with a glue gun! These would be a fun addition to any baby shower gift.

Now that I'm 39 weeks, I'm ready for baby to come out. Anyone have suggestions for getting labor going? I haven't tried anything yet . . .