Acorn Head Toddler Shedir

so being in italy, you would think i'd have plenty of time to just sit around and do nothing, happily vacationing, reading books and sleeping in, knitting away (yes, in my sleep, that's how all great knitters do it!) but alas, i have an almost one year old, which means i probably won't get a vacation for another... oh... 17 years. so i've basically been taking care of her this whole time (with help from marco, of course, and my mom and aunt when they were here). so it took me forever to finish this, my second shedir, for my little one. it's unseasonable, it's totally going to be outgrown before she can wear it, but here it is, my acorn-head toddler shedir. acorn-head, 'cause i made some modifications for size and that caused the end of the hat to get pointy a la acorn. so that's what it's called :)

ah and let me just say that i love the goofball picture of my goofball at the end. it's.just.perfect. and exactly how i want to remember her babyhood.

a really long time since i've posted and... a baby fakedir (shedir)

i remember a time when i used to post silly things on my blog, simply because i had the time and the inclination. no one told me having a baby was going to be this much work! yes, i blame my inefficiency and lack of posting to my blog on the baby. she is the cutest time-vortex known to man :)

another thing i was doing was getting ready for our european trip 2008! for family bonding time, we decided to visit marco's family in italy. they had never seen the baby and this was quite possibly the only time they would have to see her quite so much. i took the opportunity to visit some of my side of the family as well. my cousin, pina, just had her baby (who will be turning a month this coming saturday), alana, and i went to germany (specifically bonn) to visit her. it was very fun to see her and the trip included a cool road trip to the didymos (baby wrap) store in ludwigsburg (about 4 hours away from bonn) and a visit to the surrounding castles and an aquarium around bonn.

after a few days in germany, we made our way to italy, where we saw marco's family and soon afterwards were joined by my mom and my aunt who came over for a week and a half. needless to say, family fun ensued! we had a great time. my mother and aunt left today and we are still in italy; we have a couple more weeks to go.

i made a baby shedir for alana so she could wear it on her little newborn head and here she is in all it's splendor. it's a bit long so it's cuffed (which i don't care for) but she looks adorable there. she's only 10 days old in this picture. additional pictures show the hat by itself and the stitch detail :)

here are my pics from the european trip!

strawberry toddler hat

nothing terribly original about a strawberry hat but i've always wanted to make one and since Mia can't really wear the incredibly wintery fake isle hat i made until next winter, i decided to make her something more "immediate" to wear. enter the strawberry hat :) it's simple and fits into her various berry hats (that barely cover her head now -- my baby is growing up so fast!) and she seems to view it as acceptable as she doesn't rip it off her head for a whole two or three minutes.

nakey nakey

i just wanted to take a nakey picture of my little one, as all mothers should have of their babies because they will need one (or more) for future blackmail purposes. :)

a definite loss & a baby fake isle

it's official, my computer, who was named Mr. Slate, is no more. all recovery efforts have been completely futile and he's been pronounced dead (and takes all my data with him). we are now rebuilding :(

out of the sadness of loss, comes creation... sounds poetic, right? well, it just means that since my computer died, i started knitting like mad, both as a stress-reliever and because, well, i had no computer. so out comes this completely unseasonable hat, which is wayyy too warm to wear in sunny california at this point. i hope it still fits her when winter comes! it looks much more complicated than it really is, and i love fair isle (i like to see it knit up); the pattern is a very clever one, using a striping yarn in what is really a two yarn hat, but looks a little like those complicated multi-color fair isle designs. and i have enough to make myself a hat too (or maybe some baby legwarmers) so those might also arise from my grief! either way it'll have to wait as i have already started another hat for mia, LOL!

and the cherry on top of all of it is... mia hates hats; i had to bribe her with some yarn to sit still for the first picture and then the second picture is the classic one of her ripping the hat off her head. sigh.

danger will robinson! danger!

so my hard drive crashed. it crashed in a fatal way, in which no professional drive saving companies could save it (we tried). it died and took with it my entire image bank, my grad school career and, oh well, everything. all i can do is sigh :(

so this is my excuse for the lateness of this pic! i actually finished this a few days ago but i didn't put it up 'cause i had no computer to really do it. i still don't, really. i'm borrowing the laptop i'm on... sigh.

it's the mary jane pithy hat with a brim. it's for a someone's birthday but she doesn't know it. i hope she does actually like it! more photos here. all i did was knit the mary jane pithy hat and then i added the stitch n' bitch newsboy brim. i think it cam out pretty good :)

sigh.

we won a photo contest :)

i love photo contests 'cause they challenge me to better and better pictures. Lemon Balm Essentials, an online retailer of baby carriers wanted shots of sleeping babies in wraps :) and here were my submissions!

we won a spot in the website's upcoming homepage (soon to be redesigned! keep an eye out!) and a little prize money toward a future wrap purchase :) (which was promptly credited toward an existing wrap order, LOL!) i'm so happy we took these shots 'cause i'll forever remember her sweet face sleeping against my chest and a time when all i needed to do was carry her to make everything alright.