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.

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.

butterfly hat

two full weeks of not leaving the house because of sickness (first me, then my little one) has allowed me plenty of time to knit. so on a roll of prolific-osity (sooo not a word!), i knit this butterfly hat for myself... i had this random ball of patons SWS natural blue that i bought on a whim and wanted to use it up. i don't like the way it knit up, honestly, and i think a beautiful hat like this might knit up more elegantly with a solid color. unfortunately, this hat needed just a tad more natural blue than one skein, so i'm still stuck with a random skein of natural blue! bummer. oh well, i'll see what i can do.

i do love the way this hat looks from the back though! so beautiful, in my opinion. the stitch is super easy to do. oh yeah! i got the pattern here :)

the wee wig

i finally got around to making a hallowig! i've been wanting to make this forever but haven't gotten around to it. give me two weeks of being completely shut in my home, first due to my being super sick and now mia being super sick (but getting better)and here is my wee wig, a little toddler version of the original adult hallowig. i love it! my little one has always had a ton of hair but never like this! it looks so cute on her! and for a girly-effect, i made a little flower (no pattern, just winged it) to go on the side! i love it.

i didn't care that much for the way the pattern because i couldn't visualize how it came together (and some of the directions were sort of confusing) but making it made me realize that my modifications for my toddler size (100 stitches total) had to be modified mid-pattern. it took some improvisation but i managed through it. i did get some good directives on modifying the pattern, however, from this post on this blog.

before i attached the flower, i did get my poor rusty (my little BOY dog) to model the flower i made and then tried to put it on mia but she quickly crawled away! my girl is getting big in no time :( she even took her first steps today! i was super excited but scared at the idea that she's now MOBILE! oy vey!

finally! some knitties!

i'm finally done with some knitted stuff! to get me back in knitting i did a black and gray kitty hat for a swap (which i forgot to take a picture of!) and a basic cable hat from stitch 'n bitch. the hats then put me in the mood for yet ANOTHER kitty hat, one that i've been meaning to do for a while! here is my little one, in full kitty hat-love. i thought it was kind of appropriate that she was wearing her halloween pajamas (well, i bought them after halloween 'cause they were on sale for a dollar, and who was going to see her pj's anyway? lol~ i guess, the world) i love seeing my sweet girl giggling like this (which she usually does) and i finally have a brown and pink hat which replaces the one i lost that i made her :(

in the stuff i made her before she was born

so i made her all this stuff before she was born, right? well, not a whole lot of stuff but some, and finally she's fitting into them! so i thought i'd show her wearing her stuff :)

the first one is the 5 hour sweater, which i now call the five hour plus sweater, 'cause it ain't taking five hours unless you knit the entire day without stopping for potty breaks or food. here it was flat and sad and baby-less (waiting for little mia to wear it).

i also made a couple of fruit hats for her, the first one being the little periwinkle fruit hat, also being called the eggplant hat, currently. hard to see in this pic, but it has a little stem and leaves. here you can see the hat in all its glory, pre-model.

the third pic is another hat i knit in a hurry, 'cause i realized that the first fruit hat didn't match what she was going to wear on her way home from the hospital. i know that sounds crazy, but i was waaaaay deep into nesting mode and on the hunt for the perfect coming home outfit at the time. i never took a picture of that one by itself, so here it is, on my best model :)

the hat, full circle

i absolutely love it when she wears something i made her. and this hat (remember it?) just happens to match our new wrap :) i love the way it looks on her :) what a cutie! she wears it when we go on our walks at naptime.

heirloom tomato hat

i've got a horrible cold... and when i'm sick, i like mindless knits. what's more mindless than a roll border hat? i love to make fruit hats so here's my latest: the heirloom tomato hat made with a yarn that i got from a swap (the red and yellow variegated). it's quirky, yes, and goes with nothing that i own but i love it :)

tassel pixie cap (sans tassel)

so to ease myself back into a knitting habit, i started out with a sweet hat for miss mia, called the tassel pixie cap by she's crafty. i love the pointy-ness in the back but i'm considering whether or not to put on the tassel. right now, it's sans tassel, but who knows? i may change my mind. oh and look! i finally have a model for tiny baby creations. i must say though, she's quite a reluctant model and can only take it for so long. eh, i don't blame her. it's july and i put her in a wool hat for the sake of modeling cuteness. yes, i'm mean mommy.

bubby

i tried to make a bubby. but i don't really like the way the little guy came out. he looks nowhere near as cute as the one in knitty and honestly i thought he would be bigger even though i knew that he was supposed to be 7 inches tall (& mine is about 8 inches). i'm disappointed as i was making it for mia as her first teddy bear. maybe next time i'll make a baby bobbi bear instead (shell out some cash for the pattern) and hopefully it'll come out better. we'll see.

the teeny tiny sweater

i made this teeny tiny sweater for the one tiny thing swap on craftster. it's seriously teeny tiny! the hanger i used was made from a paper clip. i think i might have goofed a little bit of it (the pattern for this sweater wasn't super clear) but it turned out alright at the end :)

An experiment and the Green Piece baby hat

thanks to amy of amysbabies for making the cell phone on the stomach suggestion! amy suggested that for maximum entertainment, i could play various ringtones from my cell phone on my stomach and lo and behold, the baby has a favorite ringtone :) ironically, it was the ringtone that sounded like a salsa song, so at least we know the baby has taste and has inherited her mother's rhythm ;) she wiggles every time she hears that particular ringtone which is an endless source of entertainment to me, really! thanks again amy :)

i also finished this hat this week along with a teeny tiny something for my partner at the one tiny thing swap over at craftster. i don't swap that much anymore because frankly, i have no time. but it's only one tiny thing i have to send out so i'm happy about that and am willing to participate gladly. anyhow, about the hat, it's again a made-up pattern based on some cabling on a sweater that i have. the design came out ok, but i don't like the yarn i used at all. i used crystal palace cotton flamme, which looked divine on my screen but ended up being kinda ugly in person. i thought it would be good for the baby since it was cotton, but the fact that little floofy things come off of it (off of cotton???) is kind of disheartening. it's not my best knit by far, but perhaps i can get her to wear it once or twice.

i made a happy poo! and a baby cable baby hat

i love saying i made a happy poo. it is for my friend beth who is having a really poo type of semester... and since we always use the term poo, well, then this seemed really appropriate :) i got the pattern at puchitomato. my poo-colored yarn is red heart soft yarn and the color is called "toast." (a friend said if she ever got toast that color she would immediately revolt in terror).

the second is yet another hat i made for the baby. truly very gratifying, making teeny tiny hats that are done in a flash! to make it cuter, i stuck a huge pink & toast (poo-brown) pom on the top. as you can see, i've been very apt to use the poo-brown toast colored yarn. i don't know, i think it's growing on me! (ew. ew. ew.) this hat is of my own design, using baby cables in a certain pattern which didn't exactly come out like i had thought (i was hoping it would look like some cables were higher than others, but the cables just look the same). while i was knitting it, someone commented: "babies and poo! what else could possibly go better?" nice.

Faire Isle Dreams Baby Hat

last night i couldn't stop myself from knitting. i know i shouldn't have, what with the wrist thing and all but i couldn't help it... one little hat couldn't hurt, right? also, it was a newborn sized hat, so that's the way i rationalized that. anyhow, i couldn't find a pattern to inspire me so i made one up... and ta da! the Fair Isle Dreams Baby Hat was born :) i really like the way it came out and i haven't seen similar fair isle hats for small babies, so i was thinking i would sell the pattern on etsy... i think i will hold off on that, though until i figure out the sizes :)

disneyfan and some news :)

i was in a "one tiny thing swap" this last month at craftster, so the one tiny thing i sent my partner, disneyfan was very, well, disney. this cell phone holder gave me the fun opportunity to make something up rather than follow a pattern. and it gave me something to make which i normally wouldn't (a cell phone holder and a disney item). the top pic is the front and the bottom is the back. my own design made in caron simply soft! yay :)

in other news, i am currently crocheting a star blanket for the baby. she is super wiggly and squirmy lately, and i'm thinking of calling her squirmy again instead of mia. and we're in the homestretch! next week marks the end of my second trimester :) wow the first trimester seemed to last forever and the second one seems like it went by in no time at all! i'm glad we're close though because i can't wait to see her. marco is getting super excited too :)

i guess it's also safe to say we're moving! marco has a new job starting mid-month and we're going to be moving closer to where my mom lives. we're super duper excited about that as we will be leaving our little one bedroom for a much bigger 2 bedroom apartment. and then this summer we'll be buying a home! hooray :) my biggest excitement about the new move: the new apartments have a washer and dryer IN THE APARTMENT. now, that may sound domestic, but let me tell you what a huge pain it is to have to carry your laundry down a flight of stairs and across the complex only to find that all the washers are being used. ugh!

an addition to the winnie cooper

although i loved the way the entrelac came out on my winnie cooper, i didn't really like those ends. i saw a lot of people putting fringe on theirs but i thought i wanted something to cover up my non-blocked ends (and i don't want to block this scarf 'cause i like the puffiness of the entrelac). and i just recently bought some pom makers (super cool ones by clover that make the boring task of making pon poms so much faster and pretty even) so i pommed it! it kinda takes the sophistication edge off the scarf (which i'm not sure if i like or not) but i can always take them off if i change my mind.

winnie cooper

after some feverish knitting i've finally finished my winnie cooper! what is a winnie cooper, you ask? it is knitty's danica, but since she's a little transformed with the red instead of the purple, she's been renamed winnie cooper (a charater played by danica mckellar in the wonder years).

not bad for my first entrelac scarf, huh? i think i might have kinda screwed up the beginning (there's a weird twist in the foundation triangles), but overall once established, entrelac wasn't so bad. it had a ton of ends to weave in though, so that wasn't fun.

in spite of it all, i love love love this scarf. lately i've had these scarves that are crocheted and feel a bit breezy due to the holes within the fabric. this baby is completely warm :) and she matches my only coat that fits (a ruby colored maternity pea coat). i added a little shot of the entrelac detail because i love it. :)

the five hour baby sweater for my baby

so i've been going a little bit crazy with the baby knits! yes, i'll admit it... some say it's because i'm sentimental, but really i think it's the satisfaction of finishing something so fast and the fact that a lot of stuff only uses one skein of yarn, which is both economic and stash-busting. not that i don't love to make teeny tiny little things that will end up on my baby :) i just love the instant gratification of it all. so the latest thing i've made, since the hats, is this five hour baby sweater (i got the pattern here, although i revised it a little). it was supposed to take 5 hours, but i think it probably took me a little bit more than that. anyhow, now that it's done it's very satisfying and super cute! i love it. and i made it with some knitpicks yarn i had leftover from my mom's hat & gloves -- which was supposed to be a clapotis-- i made about a year ago for her birthday.

prolific? or just inspired?

so after the disappointment with my flore hat, i decided to make a hat that the baby could wear right away after she's born. i have this funny daydream where people are looking for her through the nursery's glass and she's wearing a funny little hat that makes her easily identifiable. so i made her a little fruit hat with the leftover yarn from the flore hat. it's really teeny tiny! it fits a little head from 13 inches to 16 inches so basically a very newborn baby.

i've also made a couple of other things lately. the second item is a 4 inch turtle i made for the one tiny thing swap, where you put a lot of effort into one little thing for your partner. my partner, peihan (who has a cool etsy store), likes toys but can't crochet so i made her this tiny turtle. it's super cute and since turtles are my favorite too, i'm gonna make myself one too.

last but not least, marco has been harassing me for months to make his friend tim a hat which i refused to make as i prefer to good-humoredly jingle the idea of a hat in front of tim. but finally i said ok, and i made him a crochet boy beanie from the happy hooker :) it came out pretty good :)

the flore was supposed to be for the baby

so when i found out i was having a little girl, the first knitted thing i thought about was this hat, flore, pattern by knitwhits. i've always wanted to make it but never had a reason. so the baby gave me a perfect reason, and i ordered the pattern and some yarn from knitpicks... i really wanted to make this perfect little hat for a baby girl.
unfortunately, i have no idea where i went wrong but this hat is pretty big (which is weird 'cause i had the right gauge). so big that it fit my glass head which is adult sized. :( i'm pretty disappointed 'cause i really wanted that infant size to be, well, INFANT SIZE. the hat is also a bit floppier than i thought it would be but i guess it's still pretty cute. problem is, it fits me!

on a happier note, yesterday i felt my baby move! it was weird, kinda like my stomach was making waves and something was swishing back and forth. i mean, i guess it could've been some sort of stomach function but others keep telling me that it was the baby so i guess that's what i'm saying now too :)