Where to begin?

He's here.

Silas Robert was born on April 2nd, after a mere eight or so hours of labor.  He weighed 9 lbs, 2 oz, is 20" long, has the chubbiest, most nommable cheeks, and the most beautiful lusty cry.

Admittedly, since bringing him home we're a wee bit less overjoyed with that cry at times, but we're still thankful, so very thankful, for this little miracle.

Also when he wears himself out crying, he starts making the cutest little crooning noise which my husband spells out as "Woooo Ooooh Oooo!"

I was surprised to find that even in the hospital, cuddling him and counting those perfect little fingers, I still found time to miss Gabriel.  I whispered to Silas that he had a brother in Heaven watching over him.  I wonder if that's true.  I really don't know one way or the other.  Are those who have died already in the kingdom, or are they sleeping, waiting for the Day of Judgement?  Not that Gabriel has anything to stand before God to atone for.  He passed silently from this world, from the embrace of my womb to the embrace of God, I hope.  Maybe there's a Purgatory or a Limbo, but I hope for him the transition was instant, and I wonder if he's at all concerned with this world, or if in the glory of His Presence he can see nothing else.  Does he remember his mother?  The sound of my heartbeat when it was the entirety of his world?  Do the dead in Christ watch us with the angels?

Will I still care when it's my turn?  Will the relationships we treasured on earth mean anything in Heaven, or will our only thought be of God?

On that note, back to the yarn!

I made him a hat.

I have another crocheted hat started for him which is much slower going because it requires making, like, ten pieces and slip-stitching them together, and I lose patience for that kind of thing pretty quickly.

Case in point:

Neither of these projects will be finished before Silas graduates from high school.  I'm not optimistic about the hat, either.

I had a spurt of energy weeks ago that realistically should have been spent on the nursery, but instead inspired me to work on that resolution I had about finishing my unfinished projects.  Ergo, Mirasol has finally had all of her ends woven in (half a year later . . .), and I did something relatively tidy with her hair (should probably be trimmed, too, but eh), and even wove in the ends on her dress.

She needs shoes.

I frogged a couple things that were going nowhere, and worked a few more rows on Andy's cabled scarf.  Then I had a baby and it all came to a screeching halt.  At least Miri looks pretty good.

One more:

Thoughts

I woke up this morning shivering in panic.  I'm going to have a baby soon.  I have no idea how to have a baby.  That's not strictly true, of course.  I know how to give birth.  Assuming their comments were not rhetorical encouragement, everyone said I was pretty darn good at pushing last time.  I think I remember most of what to do.  The part that freezes me with dread is the part I don't know about - the part where I spend the next day in the hospital with a baby, instead of with a body.  The part where I take home a baby, instead of several potted plants.  The part where I start my life fresh with a new human being, instead of trying to hold my old life together in the wake of unforeseen tragedy.

Melodramatic?  A little.

But when I got out of bed and walked through the nursery-cum-study to go downstairs, I was struck by the warm sunlight pouring over the cradle, the changing table, and the bins of baby items.  How absolutely wonderful it was, to be having a baby in the spring, in a nursery with eastern-facing windows, so that the sun bathes everything in this soft, warm light.

Now if we could just decide on a name.

I Knitted Something!

It's sad that my finishing anything is such a rare occurrence that I get giddily excited about it, but I did, and I do, and here it is!

Adding to my glee is that it's something for my husband, that he requested, that he LIKES.  Requests are so tricky.  He likes it!  He's currently using this very picture as his Facebook profile!  I'm a good wife!

...She says, deliberately avoiding thinking about the current state of the house.

Jenn's mittens have been added to my list of hibernating projects, and frankly, the Hermione mittens will most likely soon follow.  It's spring, which is no time to be knitting mittens, IMHO.  On my needles instead I have a shawl that is double-purposed for the Sense and Sensibility KAL and RAL in the Austentatious Fiber Artists group on Ravelry and for the KAL/RAL for The Secret Garden in the Folklore and Fairy Tales group, same website, of course.  The shawl is the Garden View Shawlette, designed by Tracey Withanee, and I'm pretending that I'm making it for my mom for Mother's Day, even though I know well before I'm finished with it I will be distracted away by the birth of my child.

I also made a dishcloth, which there will be pictures of once I've weaved in the ends (so, some time next year).

Memory

It's been a year already.

I miss you so much.

Wiling away my time

Interwebs!  Long time no see!  No surprise, I haven't been knitting much either.  Jenn's mittens lay forgotten in a bag on the passenger seat of my car, occasionally I pick away at another row on the second Hermione mitten's cuff, and I've finished the knitting on a Steve Zissou-inspired hat for my husband, but that is all.  No pictures yet.

On the crocheting front, I visited my parents a couple weekends ago and sewed up my second Christmas angel, here modelled by my willing victim brother Nathan:

Careful examination will reveal subtle (or perhaps not so subtle) differences between it and the original, which had the kinds of mistakes you get crocheting at three in the morning on half-remembered directions.  I used perhaps a little too much glue stiffening it, but otherwise I'm satisfied with the results.

I've been working away at the stamped cross-stitch pattern kit I bought two Decembers ago for the nursery.  It was a great source of comfort and distraction while I was in the hospital, and now I find it again to be wonderfully engrossing at a time when I'm prone to worry too much about this pregnancy, my dad's cerebellar ataxia, and how to balance my mother between the two.

Jiji, on the other hand, thinks I'm spending too much time not petting her.

Theo shares the opinion, but he's too big now to fit his whole body all at once on to this particular embroidery hoop.  He still squeezes himself into odd little spots, though.





I picked up a copy of "Our Mutual Friend" by Charles Dickens at Half-Price Books.  I've seen the BBC movie/miniseries, so the end is already spoiled for me, but I am nonetheless adoring the book.  For some reason I've had a hard time getting into some of Dickens' other work (A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol), but this one has me hooked.  The characters are delightful and a bit absurd, and the language is mellifluous and a welcome change from the clunky and insipid prose that so much modern writing is plagued with.

She said, ending her sentence with a preposition.

A Progression of Mittens

I've been on a mitten kick of late.  I like mittens.  I like that they're more old-fashioned and quirky (and warm) than gloves.  I like that everyone else I know likes gloves better than mittens, because I'm contrary like that.  I like that they rhyme with kittens.

My first pair of mittens were of epic proportions.  I'm not sure why I felt it necessary to knit them at such a large gauge, except that I have long fingers and perhaps I was worried that they wouldn't fit otherwise.

I can easily fit both of my hands into one, though the thumbs turned out to be exactly the right size.  I wish I had kept that in mind when I knit up the next pair with the same pattern, this time on the correct needles.

They are much more reasonably sized, though still quite roomy, but the thumbs came out just a tad short.  At the time I was not so brave as to try adjusting the pattern itself to fit.  They're my go-to winter-wear right now.

I love how the slip-stitch pattern plays with the variegated yarn.  I do not love the jarring seams up the side or the fact that they're stiff enough to stand on their own, however windproof that makes them.

I really want a pair of red mittens, so Hermione's mittens screamed out to me, "Make us!"

The first one is done, minus weaving in the ends.

I know, I know, I should be working on Jenn's mittens exclusively, but I was laid up in bed with a cold, absolutely miserable, and these were so comforting to my frazzled mental state.  They look crazy long, but that's okay, because I have such long arms that most of my coat sleeves are a little short.  My current mad rainbow mittens don't have enough coverage.

I love the elegant increases for the thumb.  It seemed like an odd way of doing it, but it worked up beautifully.  I'm unsure about the bobbles.  They really are like little knitted tumors.  My husband thinks they're hilarious, and my cats bat at them and try to chew them off.  The way the traveling cable emerges from the ribbing makes me smile every time I look at it, too. The eight stitches I added to the pattern worked out alright in the end with the decreases.  I had to be a little creative with them, and I squeezed in an extra bobble that looks a wee bit awkward, but I'm pleased with the overall result.

Now back to those other mittens . . .

2012!

Yes, I know it's been forever since I posted anything - why, it's been since LAST YEAR.  I'm terrible.  Here are some pictures of my cats to make us all feel better.

Can you tell we've been cleaning?  All the stuff piled on the desk used to be on the floor.

It was a mostly successful Christmas as far as gifts went.  I still haven't finished Laura's hat or Jeremy's blanket, but there's no rush there.  They haven't found a permanent place to stay yet, so I'd rather wait and know that they will receive any package I send them.

Mom, after some convincing, loved her fingerless gloves.

She doesn't really "get" fingerless gloves, but she has poor circulation and I thought they'd be nice for around the house, especially when she's typing.  She's always saying how her hands get so cold.  Of all people Phillip came to my aid to explain how they keep the fingers warm by warming the blood at the pulse points.  My brother has hidden depths in his general awesome.

He got a gun cleaning kit for Christmas.  I thought about making him some potholders for his new house, but then it occurred to me that Mom might want to do that, since potholders are her specialty.  I passed the idea along and she was thrilled.  She's on a potholder/coaster making kick now - you can never have too many.  As for her granny square slippers, I frogged them, decided to put any other knitting for her on hold until Mother's Day, and bought her yarn and knitting looms instead.  No time left.

Jenn's mittens, alas, were not finished in time for Christmas.  I gave it  the old college try, as my husband would say, but it was not to be.  However, one was worked up enough for her to see, try on, and approve of the pattern, and assuming I don't give up in a hissing rage on trying to weave in the ends, she should have a complete pair by Valentine's Day.  As the pattern is called "Valentine's Mittens," that seems appropriate enough.  The original, from "Stitch and Bitch: Nation," is red and pink with duplicate-stitched hearts, but Jenn does not like pink hearts. She likes stripes.  And bunny hats.

Another pattern from the same book (which she gave me for Christmas several years ago, the enabler :P).  The original hat, naturally, was pink and infant-sized, but it turned out that by using two strands of white Caron Simply Soft held together and size10 or so needles, I didn't have to change the pattern directions at all to end up with Jenn-sized super-adorable hat for marching band practice.



On the mitten front, Ryan finally got his two-years-in-the-making argyle flip-top mittens.

 

I even blocked them, since I had to wash one anyway.  While the second was still in production he used the first while trying to fix his car.  Fortunately gentle hand-washing with mild dish detergent saved the day, and also allowed me discover that blocking is a beautiful process that turns lumpy mittens into handsome, soft, awe-inspiring functional pieces of art.  They even got a stamp of approval from my sister-in-law's fiance, a mechanic, who says that flip-top mittens are the best thing ever.

Not flip-top is my newly resized Hermione mitten-in-progress, which has not seen any progress since I started my Christmas knitting, and won't see any more until after Jenn's mittens are done.

I made a New Year's resolution that I would only work on two projects at a time this year, and at least one of them has to be from my enormous and looming pile of unfinished work from previous years until it is all gone.  Finish or Frog! is my battle-cry this year.  Once Jenn's mittens are done, I can go back to these mittens, which probably won't see any service until next winter, at this rate.

I did make an exception for two little projects.

The last couple months I've been searching for some kind of first Christmas memorial ornament for Gabriel.  I wanted something angel-themed, maybe with his birthstone, but nothing struck the right chord until I read on Ravelry that a woman crocheted angel ornaments for her miscarried babies.  "I can do that," I thought, and at 1am Christmas Eve morning I started with size 20 crochet cotton and a size 10 hook.  Angel number one was finished just in time to hang it on my in-law's tree before we left for church.  I wasn't able to finish the second one before the end of Christmas at my parents, but they didn't put their tree up this year, so it was alright.  It just needs to be sewn together and it will be ready for next year.  The one pictured, the first one, has two fairly major mistakes, in the wings and in the halo, but she turned out alright, and I'm sure Gabriel doesn't mind.  I was able to catch them in the second angel, so that one should be picture-perfect once it's done.

One last picture, then, of my angel.

We will always love you.  Merry Christmas, little one.