She does this a lot lately...

She used to like throwing some fabric over her head and walking around bumping into things, but now it's this. All the time.

Friday Brag Book: Knitted Projects!

I have started to notice that there are a lot of projects that never seem to make it into my blog, so I thought I'd just do one big brag book and include all of the stuff around the house that I knitted within the last few months.

I'll open this brag book with one of my favorite completed projects of all time: my Amelia Earhart Aviator Cap. When I first saw this I just had to have it. If you love it as much as I do and want to tackle lots of wraps and turns, the free pattern is right here! (You can also click on the pattern to see more of the design on the sides of the cap. It's very pretty.)

No brag book of knitted projects would be complete without including two things: the craft table and some unfinished (and never to be finished) projects! After months of wanting a spot in the house to dedicate as mine and have a table to work at, a place to store my notions, be able to leave books open and jot down notes, etc, I finally got exactly what I wanted, thanks to a flexible husband and some money my mom gave me for Christmas. And what you see here is not messy, you see, it's inspiration! Creativity in action! Words cannot describe how much I love having my sewing machine always at hand, plugged in and ready to go... I think I've already altered or embellished every single pair of Annabelle's pants. (Maybe that should be the subject of my next brag book.)
As every knitter knows, you sometimes start projects that you don't finish. I don't want to pretend that I don't do that, so here are a couple of scarves I started last year for Dave's sister, only to quit after ten or twelve inches because I realized the colors were so wrong. They are still hanging out in my knitting basket and I haven't figured out what to do with them yet. The white one I could easily unravel and make something else with. The pink one, well, maybe I should just finish it and give it away? I can't decide.

This is the scarf that I ended up making for Dave's sis. The yarn is my favorite: super soft and 100% wool with absolutely no itch and no lint (also seen above in my aviator cap and below in the scarf I made for Annabelle.) She had recently moved to a town called Seaside, the exact name of this pattern!

Not yet blocked, but cute just the same, this is a little sweater for a doll I haven't yet crafted. You eagle eyed knitters out there probably noticed right away that I picked up the stitches to attach the sleeves on the wrong side, creating a little "vest" effect. Oh well. And I'm not too keen on the collar. Besides once I do actually make the doll I will probably want a different colored sweater anyway! But, if you are interested, the doll pattern can be purchased here and the sweater pattern is available for free here.

This blue scarf is knitted with the softest hand-dyed variegated cotton yarn I have ever touched. The pattern is from Last Minute Knitted Gifts and was easy to make. But the edges roll. Even after I blocked it and added a crocheted edging it still rolls. So aggravating! And it bugs me when I wear it. So, someday I'll probably rip it all out and use the yarn to make myself a simpler blue scarf just to show off the yarn. Because, honestly, I can't get enough of the soft blueness!

This was my first cable project, a scarf for Annabelle to wear on our trip to San Francisco over Christmas. It fits her perfectly and she doesn't mind wearing it when it's cool enough. Sweet, isn't it?
My current project: practicing some complex cable patterns for the back of another doll sweater. This sweater really has me missing a project that I can just sit back, watch a movie and knit mindlessly... or take to the playground and knit while I follow Annabelle around. I have to track every line on the chart (see the post-it marking my spot?) and the mistakes seem impossible to spot early on. This pattern is obviously a little too advanced for me and only reassures me that the next one will be easier and more fun to work on!

My beloved warshrags. I've only got two so far, but look forward to the days when I have ten or twenty! These lovely rags are so awesome for cleaning up just about every mess Annabelle makes. They have survived multiple trips to through the washing machine and the wear they show only makes them that much more lovely. The pattern is in the Mason Dixon Knitting book.

I love that to make these warshrags I'm knitting with the yarn my mom bought me two years ago when I was in the hospital during my pregnancy. She got me all this Peaches and Cream cotton dishcloth yarn, a few crochet hooks and a little how-to-crochet pamphlet and ordered me to bed (complying with the bed rest order from the doctor!) and I sat there for hours and taught myself to crochet a great many things. I always think about that when I think about these rags.

My house slippers. A pattern I made up as I knitted, not very well thought through, but as comfortable and warm as I wanted, so I let the rest slide.

Whoa!! Whoa!! Whoa!!

What do you say in a post when your life has been kind of rough lately and you don't want to spread your dark mood to the small (but great!) readership of your inconsistent (but driven to be positive!) blog?

I don't know. Talk about crafting, maybe?

So I finished all the pieces of my cool bag (scroll down or click to check it out!) and it's just sitting there on my crafting table. I will probably piece it together this weekend, but can't really promise anything since I got this awesome book and am all excited to try to incorporate some nifty cables into my next project. You might be wondering what my next project is... and really, I don't know either, but I've already casted on the stitches and have promised myself to figure it out when I get there. It's going to be good, very good.

I realized recently that I've knitted several items that I haven't mentioned here. I think it might be time to make a list, take some photographs, and post a Brag Book completely dedicated to those projects...

I also wrote down all the things Annabelle says. Speaking in actual English isn't her strong point, probably because she knows upwards of 75 baby signs, but she has been using a few phrases that seem to catch some attention when she uses them in public. And because this blog is the closest thing I have to a baby book for Annabelle, you get to read the list in its entirety.

Presenting, in the order of frequency used, what Annabelle knows how to say:

1. Mom, Mama

2. No Way! (pronounced No A!)

3. Yep, Yeah

4. Hello (pronounced Lo! Lolo! alo!)

5. Yummy! (said Yumyumyummyyumyummyyum to indicate hunger)

6. Oh Wow. (really draw out the Wooooooow)

7. Ow! (regularly yelled really loudly just for fun)

8. Uh-Oh

9. Nope

10. Whoa (either Whooooooaaaaahhh or Whoa!Whoa!Whoa!)

Annabelle is really growing up to be quite the comedian. She is such a crazy little girl, filling my heart and making me lose my mind all at once.

Wednesday Brag Book: One year ago

It's so amazing to go through old files and look at photographs of Annabelle just a year younger and see the difference. These shots are highlights from a cruise we took to Mexico with my parents and sister. Annabelle was only nine months old!

Leaving Long Beach, our staterooms had decks!

In port, Annabelle demonstrating her first Baby Sign, "Big!"

There weren't a lot of places to sit and nurse a baby in Mexico. Short of sitting in a church, we opted for a semi-hidden spot under a statue.

We wore her in the sling all over Mexico!

Hanging out in the stateroom. I love her round Charlie Brown head.

Allergies and the Immune System

There are times when being a good mother means causing your child some pain. And no matter how much it hurts you know deep down that you would do it again if you had to and might have to do it again at some point in the future. I hate this part of parenting.

This morning I drove Annabelle to a lab in Newport Beach to have her blood drawn so it could be overnighted to another lab in Massachusetts where they will run some tests on it and determine the severity of her allergies.

Doing this allergy test is elective, but necessary for Annabelle. Especially since I've learned how an allergic response taxes your system and can make you sick. In recent weeks I've learned that you can be exposed to an allergen and not display symptoms externally, making you think that you are not actually allergic to that food/mold/animal/etc. But internally you are producing antibodies (immunoglobulins) and really working your immune system. If you have a constant, but high, level of antibodies in your system and then expose yourself to another allergen that perhaps you are only slightly allergic to, then your immune system goes into overdrive and your body displays obvious symptoms: hives, rash, headaches, earaches, stomachaches, fatigue, eczema, asthma, and more. You may only identify one of the two things that caused your reaction. And ultimately if you do not identify and avoid the things that cause your immune system to generate these antibodies, you are needlessly overworking your body and are more likely to get sick.

(Also of interest is that there are conditions that are associated with food sensitivities: Autism, ADD, Chronic Infections, Obesity, Fatigue Syndromes, Skin Disorders, and more.)

A few months ago I took Annabelle to the same lab for a blood draw to determine the cause of her Anemia. (Thankfully it was dietary.) I had my mom come along just in case it was traumatic, and they had fun playing while we waited for our turn. Otherwise, the experience was pretty boring, Annabelle had practically no reaction to having a needle poked into her arm, all I did was sit there with her on my lap and try not to look at the blood.

But this morning Annabelle motioned to the door of the lab and shook her head at me right before we walked in. In my shock that she would actually remember the place (very nondescript, single door on the side of a large white building) I didn't really respond to her initial hesitation. Once inside she seemed to relax and enjoy interacting with the other people in the waiting room. Until her name was called, that is.

When the guy called her name she immediately started crying and ran for the door shaking her head. The next ten minutes before the actual draw varied between her crying, me entertaining her with bandaids, her shaking her head "No" at the lab tech and then laughing at her, and then basically freaking out right when we began the blood draw process.

It took me and another lab tech to restrain her for the two minutes of blood collection. She cried bitterly. She screamed (I did pause to wonder how this affected any nervous patients in the waiting room only a few feet away) and she struggled.

And then she looked at me with her red eyes wide and wet and said, "OW MOMMA! OW! OW! NO MOMMA! NOOOOOOOOOOO! OOOOOOOOWWWWWW! MOOOOOOOOOMMMAAA!!!" And I buried my face into her hair and started to cry. This was too hard.

Once the tape was wrapped around her elbow I picked her up and nearly ran out of the place. She cried for at least twenty more minutes. She bawled and clung to me, "Ooooowwwww, ooooooowwwwww....." punctuated by "Maaah.. hahaha.. haha.. hahaaaaaa..ma" through hiccuping breaths and gasps. We walked through the parking lot to the car and for the very first time she asked to be put in the carseat, and pulling the straps around her arms, she signed "home." I cried most of the way home.

It is so hard to watch the pain your child suffers, I just don't know how to do it. I'm not one of those moms who walks over to their kid who is crying because she just fell down, and happily says, "You're okay!" and gives a pat on the butt to get her back on the playground. Annabelle's pain is very much my pain.

In fact, when I see other kids hurt themselves I feel their pain too. The other day I saw a little boy fall off his bike and into the gutter, landing on his knee. He immediately started crying and I ran across the street and said, "Oh! That hurt your knee, didn't it?" He cried, "Yeah, my knee!" And then his mother arrived at the scene, picked him up, handed him his bike, looked at me and said, "He's fine." And walked away from us both. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this way of parenting, it's just not my way.

By the time I arrived home with Annabelle she was eager to nurse and take her nap. It was a hard morning. But hopefully the information we get from the labs will help us. God knows we need it- both Annabelle and I are sick with our third cold this year so far, and it's only the middle of February! And with (what appears to be) Annabelle's predisposition to ear infections, an allergy could very much be at the root of the problem.

Wee Bunny

I made a couple bunny rabbits recently, one for Annabelle and another for my friend's daughter. The pattern was a freebie from Wee Wonderfuls. I still haven't given Annabelle hers... I'm saving it for Valentine's Day.

And Annabelle found a new use for one of my bags as her new backpack. Looks like I know what my next project is going to be!

The bag obsession continues...

Isn't this bag so adorable? After sewing three bags over the weekend I got my latest copy of Interweave Knits magazine and saw this picture in a Berroco ad and decided I had to have one for myself! Especially because the pattern was free. A fourth bag? Yep! And my enthusiasm hasn't waned even slightly. In fact, I think about working on it all day long.

I'm nearly halfway through, having completed one side and part of the gusset. The pattern is gorgeous and just challenging enough that I have to knit slowly but I'm not making mistakes. (That I know of... hahah.) My favorite thing about knitting this bag is that while it's in progress I get to keep it in one of the bags I made last Saturday. Double the pleasure!

My new bag obsession.

I've pulled my sewing machine out of its dark corner, dusted it off, reminded myself how it works, and actually made a few things! A few bags, that is. I've started going through and cleaning out all my crafting stuff and I came across a bunch of patterns, some were for purses. I liked one of them and thought, "Hey, it says right here that it's 'sew easy' so maybe I could try it." It was a little bit of a struggle, maybe not the best project to try after such a long hiatus from my sewing machine, but I did it. I had forgotten how sewing can make me so nervous that I break a sweat!

Of course, I made one bag and was hooked. I had to make another. And then I went to the craft store for some fabric to make a THIRD. I'm nuts, I know. But it was nice to have a break from knitting and still feel creative.

The red one is a heavy duty cotton and the brown is a faux suede with embroidered flowers. But inside the red one I used a really yummy asian print with gold lines. Don't you just want to get out your spoon and try a bite? The picture really does it no justice. The brown bag got a soft green lining.

This one is my favorite. I snatched the cream corduroy from my mom's garage sale, and the black toile was a remnant I thrifted from a local flea market. Both are super soft and plush.

But I know what you are think at this point, (especially if you are my husband.) What am I going to do with three bags? Honestly, I don't know. Right now I just look at them sitting on my craft table and feel giddy about my return to sewing... and that's enough, isn't it?