knit night work

Last knit night I bought some NZ pure wool to knit into a wet pad for Zuri. Last night I put it onto the knitting machine there and zipped out this large rectangle. It measured 50"x36". Originally I wanted to get a sheep skin or fleece, but after researching them I decided I'd let some poor lamb live and knit one. Since this was to just be a rectangle I saw no need to knit it by hand. Once I got it home I bound off the ends and added a crochet edging at the sides. Since it's stockinette stitch and my side border isn't very wide it wants to curl up

Here's the pad after felting. It's almost a square. 24.5" x 26.5" after two cycles in the washing machine, one to felt with a small amount of laundry detergent and my dryer balls for agitation and one with lanolin wash and conditioner no balls. It did shrink and felt denser with each wash. I think I want to lanolize it again in the sink since a lot was going on and I didn't stop it from rinsing in time.
The ends curl because they are a different yarn and I didn't use a stretchy bind off, the sides are more so, they have the crochet finish and it felted at a different rate. All in all I'm very pleased with the finished product. It will be great for her hammock or for just about anywhere I want a soft, cushiony pad that also has water resistancy.
It didn't fade by the way, the colors are just as vibrant as the first pic. I just took this pic in poor lighting.

Emergency Kimono

I grossly misunderstood information from a friend and my sis about baby clothes for Zuri. . . needless to say there probably aren't going to be as many as I originally anticipated. Lemonade time. But I have to be honest, for a 24 hour period my planning self went into panic mode until I had a plan. Now things are looking much better. As they always do in the morning, after sleep and when there is more information found, like stashed unisex clothes in the attic and clothes from others. . .
Sunday I decided to take the situation into my own hands a little and knit Zuri some kimono tops. It was very late by the time I decided so I cast the first 5 stitches for this one and fell asleep. Yesterday into late last night I finished the knitting and this am I finished the seaming and ends. I just need to find buttons for the closure. I am going to make a few more of these. This is NB size. It is the Bamboo Baby pattern from the One Skein Wonders book. I used the recommended yarn, South West Trading Company's Bamboo. I'm going to try to make at least one more in cotton or cotton blend and another in wool or wool blend. They are pretty quick to knit and I think they can serve as either over shirts or little jackets depending on how I choose to dress her.

As with the pinwheel it was fun to knit this for her. I don't know if I would have broken down to do it if I would have gotten tons of clothes. . . I'm off to make more lemonade!

Not Another Legwarmer

Today was a weird day. Well not weird really, we've had this kind of day before, but not for a while. Today we repurposed several things around our home, rearranged some major spaces and did some long needed cleaning and de-cluttering. It's hard to explain without going into details so here's the short:
1. removed tv, vcr, dvd, stereo from armiore to make room for Zuri's things
2. put stereo into boy's room for nite nite music and play music
3. move vcr to bonus room
4. remove old tape eating vcr from bonus room, get stereo in bonus to work w/o over heating, re set up all componets in bonus to run w/o having to unplug anything and store videos and toys in existing storage areas to eliminate extra pieces in room
5. dust everything that got emptied, moved, rearranged, etc. and surrounding areas.
At times it felt like a lot of piddling around. But the finished product at the end of the day left Rocky and I both pleased with our efforts. We either gained better functionality of an item or use of space and did it all with no cost other than our time and brain power.
On a completely different note for the first time Charmie wrote his name all by himself today. I'm so proud of him. Way to go son!

Also my kids use bibs. . . for messy times and times when they are wearing clothing I don't want stained they still do. I know many of my friends say that their lo's no longer use them, or no longer will use them, or they have never bothered with them, but my kids still use them at home and when we are out often they get a napkin kerchief to protect their clothes and save my sanity.
Sometimes though bibs aren't handy. Sometimes I only have a napkin that is too small to make a kerchief. That's where the below item comes into play. It's a ribbon with a clip on both ends. It's for Zuri, it works like the clips the dentist uses to hold the paper bib on you when you get your teeth cleaned. This one is a little longer than it needed to be so I'll just tie a knot into one side of it to shorten it. I have clips and ribbon to make more. . . I just have to find the ribbon.

Two more pair

Less juvenile. More plain. The stripes are only where you see them, ie they don't repeat elsewhere.

The lone pair

I finally found some that are not pink, purple, or white. . .

sweet dreams

Thanks Jenny for the idea of stars. I think they suit this color soaker well.

girlification

Last night I discovered 100% wool felt at my craft store so I splurged and picked up some to play with. I hand knit these longies for Mardie I started before he was born. . . I found out many months later I was twisting my stitches, and I made them up as I knit so I had to improvise for the crotch. . . Anyway these were sitting all boyish in Zuri's NB stash and I decided this would be a great opportunity to girly them up. I needle felted this appliqued flower using my 100% wool felt. I think I'll be doing many more. This was freakin' fun! Many of our wool soakers are boyish or gender neutral. This is the perect way to bring them into the time of Zuri!

embelished prefold first attempt

I decided to see how embroidery would work on one of my undyed prefolds. I like the design and concept. I skipped a few steps so my result could have been prettier. Over all it's still very functional so I think I'll try another later. . . The hardest part is always choosing the design. . .

Stained and Finished!!!

Our collaborative effort is finally completed and useable and looking quite sharp in my kitchen. We all love it and I'm sure we will be getting tons of use from it. My husband did a super fantastic job with all of the cutting, measuring, angles, calculating, staining and finishing.

THANKS BABE for such a beautiful piece for our home, and to help with the kids cooking time. This one is so nice I may make the original one disappear!

cabin o'legwarmers

I made 9 more pairs today for Zuri. I'm finally finding some other types of colors to blend into her stash, but the whole spectrum of yellow, green, blue and purple is really untouched so I'm off to search for more!

Cookie Monsters and more legwarmers

I hate Halloween. . . But the Ray boys love it. Here are my cookie monsters after eating some mini oreos that they scored a few nights ago.

I made more legwarmers for Zuri today. I am getting excited to see these combined with her cloth diapers.

kitchen sink

Well here's my pic. I saw it first on Jennifer's blog but went to the source on Karina's. Here's what I see. I've been on this kick to keep my counters clear so this is how it really looks. . . and has for the last few weeks, no doctoring I swear!
Hanging above is my potrack since my pots and pans will fit into my cabinetry (stupid new construction). I have a sheer over my window. It's not hemmed or finished, just pinned into the valance. It went up a few weeks before the house next door was being constructed and the neighbors closed.
Behind the sheer are all of my daily cleansers; homemade window cleaner, veggie wash, spray bottle of plain water, 7th gen dish soap, and Melaleuca Tough and Tender multisurface cleanser. Also in the window are 2 cups of soil that the boys are gowing grass in for Awana, a smooth stone that means something to me I just don't remember what, a small statuette from a highschool friend, a Romanian wooden spoon from my ils travels and a little saying from a dear lifetime friend, "Piglet said, 'The Best Things come in Small Packages, don't they Pooh?' 'Yes, Piglet, very often they do.'"
On the counter from left to right Breville Juice Fountain Compact, PUR water resivoir, some Method soap, a dish towel, some dirty dishes, electric coffee pot and of course one of the microfiber towels that I use in place of paper.

Lacks character huh? But that's how I like it. Pretty clear and clutter free. I seem to get out of control if I allow clutter so I can't let it creep up or it's crazy!
I do plan to redo all of the window treatments in my dining and living room and this window in the kitchen will be part of that project. I'm sure I'll post when I do it, well that is if I make them myself.

Legwarmers take 2

Here are the other 2 pair. I need to find some other colors but for now I'm sure these will go with plenty of outfits.

On both these two pair and the other two when photographed they look like the two sides are not even, but they aren't as bad as the picture shows. Just to see the look I slid these up Charmie's chunky 4.5yo leg and they went well up his thigh, but they are still a good size for a smaller leg to fit well down onto the foot and cover the leg. I think I've found a new project that I love to make. I doubt I'll be knitting any more leggins when I can whip up these.

More sewing. . . legwarmers take 1

After knitting some, I decided to sew some. Here are 2 pair of baby legwarmers I made for Zuri tonight. I found out how to make these today. I still have to sew up the other two pair over the next day or two.

merino wool sleep sak

I love my kids in sleep sacks. The boys used to wear them almost constantly at home from my memory until they were walking age. They are wonderful for co-sleeping. They keep baby warm, but baby can't kick off the sack and the arm holes give enough ventilation that they don't overheat.
I wanted to get a wool sleep sack for Mardie but didn't want to pay the price, they are not cheap. I finally this time around found one used for Zuri that is super soft. After getting that one I decided I wanted to try to make her one. Wool sleep sacks act as a diaper cover so with cloth diapering it just makes sense to have one step instead of two!
Here's my attempt. I took a super soft merino wool sweater, felted and lanolized it and recycled it into this. It's slightly larger than the Disana one I bought so this will work for her through a longer time period. I put snaps at the shoulders instead of buttons and ties at the bottom for easy diaper changes. The other sack has no bottom opening. There is about 4" of fabric tucked in at the bottom so as she grows if we are still using this one I can move the ties, or devise some other clousre for the bottom.
For some reason this wouldn't photograph well for color accuracy. My countertop really washed out the color. This table gives a truer color but the sack is actually a little more rose than lilac.
I think I am going to make her some more.

Sad Mardie

Mardie lost his remote control to his view finder. We looked all over and cannot find it. He's so sad. . .

lap of luxury

Here's a soaker I finished up knitting for Zuri this weekend. It's 0-8mos size. It's a merino, alpaca, silk blend yarn that is so yummy and soft. This yarn was made possbile by Janet, see previous post of how I begged her for it. I was thinking of dying it, but the more I see it the more I love it undyed. I hope I have enough leftover to make a matching cap.

cup of Tea

Here's my response to Karina's post on favorite cups.
This is my favorite cup at the present. I seem to adopt one every few months or years for different reasons. This one was given to me last year at MOPS for the Tea and Testimony that we shared for one of our last meetings. The gift was a reminder to us of what we mean to our children. Drinking from this mug/cup reminds me to try to be the best for my Ray's.

I drink way more tea than coffee. Tonight as it's 2am and I can't sleep I'm brewing some Tazo Calm.

Is that a knit WIP merino, alpaca and silk diaper soaker peaking out from behind????? I just couldn't wait to start this one. Janet (the sweetest, most generous, loving, unselfish and best big sister ever) found this yarn and I very ungracefully and literally got down on one knee in all my preggo splendor last night in ACMoore and begged her to let me get it as it was the very last of it. (Can you say pregnancy hormones causing irrationality? Can you say OC over Zuri's butt covers? Can you say, maybe she's lost he mind?) Then I kidnapped her away to Target in the next town to fulfill a selfish need to acquire the final basket. . . see below.

OC about a butt????

Along with my cleaning I guess I've fully crossed over into the nesting phase because I'm OC about getting things ready for Zuri. I still have until mid January before she's due +/- a couple of weeks but none the less my impulses are not driven by what I know to be true. That being said this week I've been obsessing over her diapering.
I know you're thinking, what can be so important about a baby's butt? I don't know exactly but it's all I can think about this week.
Last week Rocky found this beautiful changing table on Craig's list for me. Recycled treasure!!! It all started when I had mentioned that since our mbath doesn't have a closet and we'd be sharing with Zuri we needed a place to store all of her fluff. We discussed something to go here and decided that a plain ole changing table would probably be the most functional and affordable. We're still using the Shower Baby (look above the toilet behind the table for what imho is one of the BEST accessories for any baby!!!) for her actual diaper changes, bathing, etc. But we needed a place to house the cloth diapers and accessories, her toiletries, wipes etc.
The table had no baskets with it though. I went on a mad search for days, since just stacking the dipes on here wasn't the look or style I was going for. Just think open access to two little boys to mix, toss, flush and do whatever at will with the diapers. I was starting to have panic attacks just thinking about it. Plus I tried it with carefully planned rows of like items and the stacks were barely a few inches high and looked sloppy, disorganized and were starting to cascade to the floor.
I don't know why, but places that sell changing tables DO NOT sell baskets or bins that fit onto them well to house anything without substantial loss of storage space. Let me explain. They all have baskets and bins, but they start wide at the top, which is only about 4-7" tall anyway, and loose about 2" all the way around at the bottom. The wedge shaped baskets don't take up close to the space of the table so though you can fit 2-3 baskets/shelf, the actual storage gained is no more than if you just stacked the stuff without the baskets. Plus the baskets are not very sturdy so when and if baby ever gets a hold of them they are going to be trashed. I guess they are trying to make them disposable so you need new ones after baby is done with them? Go figure.
I needed sturdy storage with either deep sides to accommodate for the sloping sides, or they could be lower with nearly straight sides. I found a great solution of crochet baskets made from fabric strips to fit exactly 2/shelf made by a WAHM in the latter, but could not afford her $50/basket price. I think they are worth it, but just not in our budget.
Further searching online and finally in stores yielded these lovely bamboo slat baskets from Target. I LOVE THEM!!!! So much so that I actually made 4 trips to 2 different Target stores in less than 24 hours, including one 2 towns away with 15 minutes to close! I started to get that feeling that someone else would stumble on the use usefulness of my baskets and buy them all before I could figure out what I needed. Can you say OC? It was worth it though as they are the look I wanted. I entertained the idea of traditional baskets but am not a big fan of wicker. These definitely not like wicker (no holes) are all lined with natural cotton fitted liners. The added benefit is that the bamboo is biodegradeable, sustainable without damaging forests, wildlife, prevents erosion and naturally has less or no pesticides due to it's quick growth cycle.


I've arranged Zuri's things in the lower 4 bins as such:
The top bin on the left is daddy diapers. These are 11 all-in-one diapers, 3 pocket diapers and 4 g-diapers, 8 g-diaper liners and plenty of g-diaper inserts. Basically this basket has the ones that Rocky doesn't have to think too much about. All he has to do is take off what she has on and put it into the pail or if it's a g-diaper flush it, then grab a new one from here and slap it on like a sposie!
The top right bin is all covers and wraps. . . 5 nylon, 5 pul, and of course my favorite, 5 WOOL and a wool sleep sack! There will be more wool coming I just have to knit them or sew them up.

Can you tell I LOVE WOOL?????

The space between bins on this shelf will hold 4-6 folded and rolled hooded baby towels. We use plenty of those with our Shower Baby!

On the bottom left I have 15 contour and 12 fitted dipes.
The right has 9 flats and 19 prefolds.
The space between the bins on the bottom shelf will hold the clean reusable diaper pail liner and smaller wet bags for the diaper bag.



The set up for the upper shelf of the table for quick access to supplies is:
From the the top left special bath toys, the middle is snappis and pins and the bottom has toiletry tools like hair brush/toothbrush, nail clippers, etc.
In the middle the top is diaper doublers and the bottom is washable fleece liners.
The top is right cloth wipes, the middle is flushable liners and compostable nappy sacks, and the bottom is baby wash, lotion, oil and creams.
The top of the table is my favorite part since there are special places for all of the goodies Zuri will need.

This is our current newborn to small sized diapering stash (up to around 12lbs) with 70+ diapers. I can go a few days between washing if I desire. All of the larger size diapers are in storage. If I decide that I need to add some more to this and when she grows into the bigger dipes there is plenty of room in the bins to accommodate more booty stash. I'm so glad now that I saved so much of the cloth diapers and supplies from Charmie and Mardie. Even though they are either gender neutral or boyish it feels nice to get ready to use them again for their baby sister.

Changing table Nirvana. . .
Now I can move on to being OC about something else.

domescitiy bliss

I haven't been blogging as much as I would like to, and I also haven't been knitting or sewing as much as I would like. I've been domestic. Being a stay at home mom, some of you may be asking yourselves, well isn't that your job? I say, well not exactly. My job is to be there for my kids, but domescity comes along the way.
These days more than ever in my life. I've taken some new responsibilities pretty seriously and in doing so created some new habits for myself and somewhat for my family. I created a budget. We are sticking to it as painful as it has been. I love to shop and Rocky loves a bargain and the boys love new stuff so it's been really painful for us all, but it's good to know that we are within our plan now. We haven't eaten out hardly in the last 4 weeks. I've been preparing our meals breakfast, lunch and dinner. We've started eating mostly organic. This has made the budget even harder but I think it's worth it. The boys have actully voluntarily have somehow started to selectively eat veggies.
In cooking more and with the projects I sometimes give the boys to help with cooking and baking in the kitchen I wanted a step that they both could stand on with no one falling off. We have a single step from Wally world that is perfect for just one person but is no longer sold by them. I went on a search and the step stools that I've seen have no room for 2 kids no matter how small. I don't like the boys standing in chairs. There's something from my childhood that doesn't sit right with that. I even looked online, but the best I could find was a bulky, heavy, and very expensive piece of furniture that got great reviews for it's functionality, but poor ones on storage, or being able to move it around much.
After that I decided forget the commercial stuff, my husband has a miriad of tools and carpentry skills I was betting he could build exactly what I wanted. We discussed basically a wider and deeper version of what I already had. We worked together on the design details. He did the cutting and measuring and calculation of angles. I decided the main dimensions, features like two handles and support rails and did the sanding and fine tuning rotary work (always with a mask). It still needs to have possibly a blonde stain and varnish finish but here's the result:

I'm so proud of my husband's work on this. It's exactly what I wanted and so nice. I'm proud to have it out in our kitchen area all of the time. I doubt I'll be wanting to store it away, yet at this size storing it wouldn't be a problem. The boys love it too. I've been fighting them off of it ever since Rocky flipped it right side up and finished construction. With no finish it's easy to get the wood dirty and stained, but as soon as it's finished I know it will be hard to keep them out of the kitchen.

With my new found domesticity my house is much cleaner too. Now don't get me wrong. Any person could walk into my home and probably find an area of clutter or dust. I' not perfect yet. But it's getting better. I have systems to manage laundry, kitchen duites and cleaning and tidying of toys that have kind of popped out of nowhere. Being in the end of my 2nd trimester isn't helping btw. I'm SO TIRED! Today I did some major cleaning that's been needing to be done in my master bathroom. We're going to be sharing our room with Zuri for the first 16+/-months of her life so we need space for all of her things. This process started very early on in our bedroom of clearning away spaces for her things, but the bathroom was another story. Today though it all came together and I'm so happy with the resulting combination of functionality and asthetics. Well it's asthetically pleasing to me. . . Lots of things tossed out that I no longer use, lots of rearranging. Lots of cleaning and clearing. But the end is space for Rocky and me and new space for Zuri.
So that's what's been giving me bliss.
Tiredness but bliss.
And now off to bed. All this blogging has zapped me completely.

knit night produces undies

tonight at Rave I mostly finished up the panties and undershirt. I just had to edge the arm holes and add the french knots to the intarsia flowers when I got home. I'm not going to tackle the rest of the clothes tonight. That will have to wait for another knitting session. At least I don't have to see her little naked body anymore. I think the clothes suit her well. I am learning that I suck at intarsia, that or it's extremely difficult to do on fine yarn. None the less I'm glad these clothes are for a doll and not a person!

3 out of 4 rays prefer. . .

I made pizza tonight for the first time from scratch. . . well I didn't make the sauce from scratch, that's next time, and I didn't make the pepperoni or the cheese, but I think you get the idea, this wasn't frozen or a kit. I used the Pizza dough recipe from Whole Foods for Whole Families LLL cookbook. I need a 2nd pizza pan or baking stone. I had to make my cheese only pizza in my 9x13 pan and the crust was all folded over on the ends.
Charmie said he didn't like the skin, which meant the dough and crust, but Mardie ate 3 slices and Rok and I had our share too! I'll definately be making this whole wheat pizza from now on vs. buying the frozen ones from the store. I felt so much healthier serving this and I'm glad it was enjoyed by most of our family. Charmie is under the weather so maybe when he's feeling better he'll enjoy it too. That and I'll never say never, but I am not planning to buy any more of the frozen ones and we aren't eating out very much anymore so this is probably the only pizza he'll be getting for a while.

Zuri's dolly

I have been struggling with trying to find affordable safe toys for both Zuri and the boys. There are tons of toys available, but many are not safe. I knit some balls for the boys when they were smaller but I wanted to make something a little more complex for Zuri. Here's dolly. We'll have to name her later. . . she also needs some clothes. I decided vs. straight yarn hair to give her little french knots all over her head. Here hair looks like mine did when it was shorter. I don't know what Zuri's hair will be like, but I assume it will be somewhat curly.
I used some organic cotton yarn from Janet that is weight suitable for weaving with size 1 needles. She's based off Lucinda Guy's And So To Bed's Lula doll. The pattern includes knitted underwear, a dress and booties so those will be coming soon.