oh the crafting i do...

the current state of the baby's portion of my bedroom has been in near-constant flux so i have no new pictures of that. and all of the knitting i've done for the baby is mostly still in some state of unfinished-ness. i will be 34 weeks tomorrow and still have not a single thing prepared for my birth kit, nor has true nesting kicked in yet - unless that's what this desire to deep clean, not just spring clean, my house is, but the result is that things are upside down and messy for days on end and i'm not really seeing an end in sight or happy with the results thus far. i'm trying not to be a huge wimp about moving boxes in my craft closet or lifting and sorting things by myself but i really don't know what a safe level of strenuous activity is this late in the game. i know i thought it completely ridiculous when a woman at the produce stand told me i shouldn't lift a ten pound bag of potatoes last time i was pregnant. so, major furniture moving aside, i'm trying to do the best i can, by myself and the feeling can be overwhelming. it seems this needs to be done before i can actually "nest" because i don't want to be focused on junk or clutter when preparing diapers or spending the few last precious weeks with just my toddler who might be in for a shock when his little sibling arrives.

moving along...i've finished a few customs in recent months and did some low-water immersion style dying for myself last week and have results to share.


first is a pair of toddler-sized pants i knit with scraps that a customer sent me. this was so fun and i wondered why i had never knit pants from scraps for my toddler when he was in diapers. the weaving in the ends is a bit much but this next baby is sure to have at least one pair of "scrappy pants" (not my term) in each size.






next, i knit a pair of wide-legged medium sized pants with mosaic moon's "woodland tale in spring" and i loved how these came out so much that i might not have sent them, had the yarn not belonged to the customer. they would have fit the three year old as nifty board shorts - and i have a skein of this color on the way, so i just might knit some for him, afterall.


for the same customer i made a pair of medium shorts with dashing dachs "levi rabbit" - such a lovely colorway! i have two skeins waiting for something...


and here comes the fun stuff! the itty bitty homebirth shirt was my three year old's but after being stored for a while, it acquired those unsightly yellow, mama-milk stains around the neck so i decided some dye was necessary. the larger homebirth shirt was purchased for this baby but had some odd brown spot on it so it, too, needed another round of dye. both came out a little too dark but still look sweet!


again, with the previously stained clothing. no more white clothes for my kids, i swear! not only is white boring, but i like things i don't have to worry about keeping clean. the hanna andersson hat on the left was actually purchased from an ebay seller and arrived dirty. lovely, right? and the shirt on the right...i don't even remember my three year old ever wearing it, but it also had yellow discoloration. so voila! both look better now. much better.



this picture shows a breastfeeding advocacy shirt that will be handed down, as well. and a brand new organic baby gap romper that isn't so organic anymore now that mama dyed it, but oh well...even natural colored cotton may be too light for the little boys in my life!


and finally! some stuff for me to show off (or not) my inner hippie. one of my favorite, softest shirts and two pair of maternity undies dyed up all pretty like.


eventually i will not feel so stressed about the state of affairs in my home. i am getting really hard core and not holding on to anything i won't use soon. like in the next six months. our house is small, we're about to add one more little one to the mix, and i'd like to enjoy what i have rather than dwell on the lack of space or difficulty i have accessing crafting supplies. making the space i do have work for me will be a challenge but hopefully i can meet the challenge with time to spare to feel truly "nested" and share the last few remaining knit projects before a newborn arrives and i feel even more sleep-deprived!

so exhausted

i have been taking pictures and have wanted to share but there has been little time to upload and edit - and the majority of things i've been taking pictures of haven't even been crafty projects.

those have been on hold for a while as i was in a minor (thankfully) car accident on the 7th. i needed a few days to recover from some massive soreness, you know, in addition to already feeling crappy and sore most of the time. and then there was the process of dealing with my insurance company which (also thankfully) was a breeze.
the other party was at fault, and uninsured but my coverage and the claims adjuster couldn't have been better - the outcome i hoped for came true - and that involved my car being totalled, not for severe damages, but for lack of parts.

a lot of time and energy have been spent on decision making and compromises between my mate and i regarding everything from the possibility of just keeping my crap car and driving it as is, using the money from my insurance company and a little bit of savings to buy something decent, safe, and on the cheap, or actually taking on a small loan in addition to using our money in order to increase our car budget, and therefore our options. needless to say, trying to find another vehicle has been a chore. and we're not even done but anyhow.

i have managed to finish knitting a pair of pants for someone in trade. and one of the things i've wanted to share for a while are pictures of some of the coolest trades i've recently been involved in but at this point i'm just plain exhausted...

all the pictures are finally off of my camera but all i will leave you with is a sneak peek of how the section of my room, now belonging to the baby, is coming along.

my mom, who is more crafty than i, came over last weekend with a small dresser that once belonged to my oldest son. it had some very bold red-faced drawers so we covered them up with some cute contact paper i bought a long time ago with an unknown or long forgotten purpose. she also removed the original yellow plastic handles and attached some wooden star and moon handles i picked up a while ago, also without a purpose in mind. i love when things i collect come together well!

the result thus far is this:


i'm not sure if i want to cover up the green panel on the bottom or leave it - it does sort of coordinate well enough with the green peppa doll on top. also, the fabric box (part of the dwell studios for target "circles" line) that the doll is sitting on has green stripes and all in all they come together in a neat, but not matchy-matchy sort of way.

yesterday i picked up this cute skip hop wall organizer to hang up above the dresser. i'd liked the organizer since i first saw it but would have never paid $29.99 for it. so the trip to babies r us was worth it because the organizer was the last one left, marked down to $8.98 but rang up $6 something.




today at target i spied a simple, white wooden changing table for $29.99 on clearance, originally $119.99. i debated for a minute and then decided that yes! it was mine! i have never had an actual changing table and while i'm not even sure i'll use this as one, it will serve its purpose in giving me enough space to store and display all of our cloth diapers. i'm not sure when we'll set it up but i'm looking forward to the cuteness because i also picked up the dwell studios "circles" curtain for $3.74 and really, it's just a nice piece of pretty cotton fabric that i can fold and put over the changing table pad - not matching the color scheme exactly at all, but again, coordinating well. incidentally, i had picked up a dwell studios boppy at another target a week or so ago (yes, also on clearance) in the same circles pattern. i didn't do this on purpose but of the different lines they've had, i've only liked "circles" and "zoo" - and yes, once upon a time i picked up the zoo curtain panel on super clearance because the piece of fabric is more than a yard and at less than $4, it's a steal. one day i'll figure out what to do with that, as well, even though it's so pretty i don't want to cut it!

see?



it actually looks good with all the other blue and brown stuff going on so it's possible that i'll use that on the changing table and not the circles panel. or maybe both, to change, as my moods often do.

anyhoo. exhausted. still.


more later.

holy pinwheel blanket...

as my pinwheel blanket was coming to an end, or rather, the 8 oz. skein of organic cotton i used was coming to an end, i realized it wasn't going to be nearly wide enough and i wasn't going to have enough to finish the edge in the same yarn. it's measuring about 24" across but i want it to be at least 30" and instead of ordering more yarn and hoping it would match (it's been over a year since i ordered this yarn so chances are that the dye may not be consistent) i decided to just buy some lion's brand organic cotton at michael's. so it's going to have a slightly darker edge but it'll look great. i wasn't sure what type of edge would best give this blanket a somewhat masculine feel. i'm not opposed to ruffles on a blanket for a baby boy but i'm not quite feeling it, either. so i googled and came across this flickr group specifically for pinwheel blankets. and wow! some of the color choices are amazing. some of the perfection is amazing. and some of the edges make me wish i knew how to crochet. but i'm okay with settling on a regular ol' garter or seed stitch edge.

i was eager to get the thing off my needles, though, so i already bound off. now to decide whether or not to pick up stitches and continue, or undo the bind-off and go from the last row of live stitches. decisions, decisions!