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!

wow - why hadn't i thought to *do* this before?

i have a ton (and i mean a ton, almost literally) of lion's brand wool and paton's that i stocked up on when i was learning to knit. i only bought pretty colors but i quickly became a yarn snob and at this point i've become so super picky that there are only about a half-dozen types of wool that i'm willing to knit with. well, to clarify, i will almost knit anything but i won't wear or expect my children to wear anything but some of the finest wool out there. that said. i have a ton of itchy, but pretty wool in a drawer.

and now i finally know what to do with it! http://goodmama.typepad.com/goodmama/2008/05/make-your-own-wool-dryer-balls.html

i'm going to make my own wool dryer balls!!! i will, of course, test them out on my clothing first before i convince my mate (the only one in the house that uses commercial dryer sheets) that they're useful and harmless to his business attire. see, i had no problem buying dryer sheets when we were buying other shaklee cleaning products on a regular basis, but we didn't stock up and the shipping is too high to justify ordering *just* the sheets. i was also a fan, previously, of the method dryer sheets found at target. but last time i was there? they were nowhere to be found. so i was forced to buy regular (meaning not "green", not "chemical-free", not "natural" and most definitely not "biodegradable") dryer sheets for my mate as he had been complaining about his crunchy shirts and i heard this complaint more than once and it almost sounded like, "don't come back home from target without dryer sheets...or else!"

the things i will do for love!

but now, maybe i've found a solution to please us all. i get a project to use up yarn i wouldn't otherwise use. he gets soft clothes, and i don't have to worry about the build-up of chemical softners in my dryer. hopefully the dryer balls don't get linty and pilly - that's my only concern, which is why i'm sure i'll be testing them out for a long while before i can convince him to use them ;)

my crafty (and lofty) goals for the upcoming year

i never make new year's resolutions, or i do and never stick to them.

generally, i view the making of resolutions as something that should be ongoing, not just given attention when one year is ending and another is beginning because it's tradition. i feel that most positive, fueled-by-hope, steps toward change can have negative effects when we don't live up to our own expectations or meet certain goals and somehow new year's resolutions fall under this category because it seems, for me anyway, that it's a time when we can "go all out" so to speak and write down whatever comes to mind, regardless of how unattainable some of it may be.

then there's the part of me that believes in infinite possibility and the abundance of the universe and i tell myself that nothing is unattainable. the only thing stopping oneself, is oneself. but still, i can't get out of this partly cynical loop when thinking of resolutions.

all that said, and who knows why i felt like sharing it, i am still making plans for the year ahead. many include ways to make art and use that form of expression as i feel it slipping away while little children suck the life out of me. not really, but gestating and lactating can be very draining and aside from knitting and some paintings i did shortly after the birth of my second son, i have had almost no need for a creative outlet because i don't feel moved to create much of anything. i haven't written a poem in who knows how long.

other things include plans to be a more present and mindful mother. of course sitting on the computer, trying to type this out, as my toddler says he wants me off, is probably not a very good start. but it's still december and he's having fun spinning on his papa's office chair next to me, waiting for me to get him a chocolate "poin" (also known as a coin, but don't worry. they're from trader joe's. made in holland or something. not full of melamine!)

and finally there's the lofty stuff. the do-it-for-me, taking-care-of-myself, i'm-not-the-kind-of-mom-that-let's-herself-go sort of stuff.

so here goes.

round one: the crafts

1. update the boys' baby books - what this means?

• fill out the replacement one i purchased for my oldest son (the original was filled out in different colored pens, at different points in his life, and was overwhelming sometimes because it spanned his entire FIRST FIVE YEARS and i wasn't very good at keeping up with it after he was three, and some of the entries are really sloppy. i found an almost exact replica of the same book on ebay two years ago and have yet to do anything with it, so i must!)
• fill out the baby book i decided to use for my second son, while referring to old journal entries and the baby calendar that i tried to fill out *religiously* every month of his first year (the book i decided on was originally for the baby, but my mom got me a really sweet one for christmas and i realized the john lennon one i intended to use for my second son was also one of those FIRST FIVE YEARS sort of books and who has time for that? it's a baby book. the first year or two are sufficient!)
• fill out the baby's book, every month. set aside a certain day to reflect on the previous month and keep it up, so i don't have to go back 3 or 13 years later and work on it.

2. print more digital pictures at walgreens, finish the disneyworld scrapbooks for the two older boys from our trip in oh? september of 2007. then actually begin actual scrapbooks for all three boys.

3. paint more. make at least two paintings. that's doable.

4. make prints of a few paintings and list on etsy.

5. use collage materials i've been collecting forever and make a collage. it's been years!

6. start to collect alcohol paints and explore that medium!

round two: mindful, present parenting

1. seriously go to the park, take nature walks, and explore the outdoors much more than i ever have. make a point to use our annual biopark passes at least once a month and spend the day at the zoo or aquarium, not just an hour or two.

2. structure. structure. structure. i don't like the word "schedule." i don't have a job and therefore shouldn't have to adhere to one but -and this is huge- kids thrive on structure and routine and i know this. i've used my pain as an excuse not to be more structured because i never know how i'm going to feel, but before this pregnancy, it was my school schedule or whatever else i could think of to excuse the fact that i'm not very structured. i could benefit from this, too, obviously and i have some ideas on how to incorporate it in the coming year, so i'm going to give them a try.

3. letting the most important people to me, know they're important, more often. i can't remember if that concept came to me from an inspirational email from my mother or from a natural parenting article i read but it's really hit home for me. blogging and keeping up with online friends shouldn't take up so much time when there are more important things to attend to!

4. finish reading the Enki foundation guides and prepare for preschooling the toddler in the fall. also finish "scream-free parenting" and "buddhism for mothers" which i seem to pick up every now and then but have never read from start to finish in all the years i've had it.

5. declutter even more. i have made sure there was more space in our tiny little house. i have made my craft supplies more accessible. and there is still more to do. this falls under this heading because i fully believe when there is "less stuff" around, there will be "less stuff" to focus on, worry about, and deal with and therefore more time to just enjoy my kids and play with them without the ever-oppressive feeling of guilt that i should be doing more.

and finally, the "lofty" make time for me and my health goals:

1. going to the dentist after this baby is born and getting my first cleaning in three or so years

2. regular stretching, yoga, pilates even though this means doing it AT HOME, with a video, as boring and uninspiring as that can be. it's my health that's important and besides, i'm not always that motivated to leave the house just to take a class, though once i'm there, i'm dedicated. maybe i will somehow feel the same way once that DVD is in the player!

3. have a monthly MNO or solo outing. and by solo, i mean with the baby. i miss being able to go to barnes and noble and browse whatever i want to, for however long i want to without having to sit in the hard wooden chairs next to the train table, or on the low wooden benches in the other part of the kids' section. i need some "me" time and even if my mate isn't able to make time for himself, much less for me, i need to do something and can hopefully rely on my little (grown-up) sister. i don't really "pay" her when she watches the toddler while i do my bookkeeping stuff but i would pay to get out for a few hours once a month!

4. i will take more baths!

5. i will give myself at-home pedicures more often - this is a must!

6. i will really try to make getting a massage every now and then a priority!

7. i have finally come to accept that i may never be a huge fan of tea like i've envisioned myself as being so i can enjoy the occasional cup of coffee but not let it become a daily need.

wrapping up and my new journal

day before yesterday, my toddler decided he wanted to paint.

his requests included statments like: will you get the painting stuff for me, please?
and: i really like to paint.

he's done so maybe twice, which is a sad admission since there was a time that i, myself, painted frequently - but taking out my paints and cleaning up afterward is a different animal than taking out paints for a child, letting them explore their creative genius, and cleaning up after them.

i think the word is anal, and that is what i tend to become when watching children paint. i want them to hold the brush just so. i want them to avoid dripping and dropping - even though i, myself, am guilty of sometimes making a mess. i want them to choose colors carefully, colors that actually complement one another and don't turn into a brown, mushy mess on the surface.

i breathe. i think about it. i use every opportunity i have with this toddler of mine to relinquish all expectations and judgments about art or how "arts and crafts" should be handled. backstory: when i was a child, i had to color in the lines or my mom would often just color for me. at three years old i was very distraught because i couldn't make the pages in my coloring books look as perfect as she could. i tried and i tried and to this day i am not the artist she is. of course, i have long ago given up a desire for perfection in my artwork (but not in other areas of my life) but i am still somewhat envious of how she can exact a colored pencil to do just what she wants it to do. she's not afraid of pressing too hard or wearing it down to nothing, another thing i need to get over. i tell myself, you know, they make more. and yet i'm still afraid to use my supplies until they're gone. don't know what that's about and i'm not interested in exploring that. so excuse my morning tangent...(this is why i should post only at night, but i had all this stuff to share and for two nights in a row, i've been too tired to get to it).

so, tangent over. i decided i would, in fact, let my toddler paint. i decided it would be a christmas present for his papa. we had done something similar for his papa's birthday, afterall. i was prepared to offer only minimal guidance and not hover, instruct, or criticize. and as always, i'd add only the tiniest of tiny, finishing touches.

i went into my craft closet to gather supplies and noticed the back of the box that my toddler's (as of yet incomplete) baby book came in. i didn't know what i'd been saving it for, nothing in particular, just for some future art project - and so it became the canvas. the sides would serve not only as mess prevention, but also a cute bordered frame. so i grabbed some crayola poster paints i got in a surprise swap once upon a time and i set about giving my child the tools to create.




next i decided we needed a way to hang this, so i found my cool memory makers multi-tip punch and made some holes for future eyelet placement...



and i let the toddler go about his business...




i thought i had taken a picture of the mostly finished project but there wasn't another on my camera. it looks great, though i still need to affix those eyelets (grommets? whatever they are) and apply some sort of something to the outer edge of the box to fancy up the "frame" - this will be done today at some point.

afterward, i was still feeling crafty and realized that christmas was coming relatively soon, so we finally got around to making the cards for my oldest son and my younger siblings. i picked up some two-pack DIY card kits in the dollar section at target. not sure i'll do that again since they're cute and all, but kind of blah - the adhesives aren't really good quality and yes! i expected more, even at 50 cents a piece. they look cute, though - and while i had this vision of letting my almost three-year old go all out and do *whatever* he pleased, in reality i had to unstick a few stickers and place them right side up, or where i thought they looked better. so not that complete free-spirited influence on my children, but i am making the effort and that's all that counts, right? right?

so now i'm thinking they look too polished to say a two year old did them, but mostly he did :)



that day i also *finally* got around to blocking the scarf i had made my mate for christmas. it had been done for a couple of weeks, at least, but i had set it aside and never got around to the finishing touches. so i wove in the ends of the yarn and put it to soak. i'm not sure why, even after blocking, it wants to roll in on itself - it may be the nature of the pattern or that my "blocking" was haphazard - but my real worry is that it will be too itchy for my man. the yarn felt soft in the skein, but not so much, once knitted.



i told him if he didn't like it, i'd eventually make him another, though it may be too warm to wear a scarf by the time it was complete. i really like the scarf askew pattern, though, so maybe he'll get a new one every christmas.


and because i take very little time to start creative projects by myself and for myself, i bought myself a pretty little journal yesterday. i didn't *need* one, as i have plenty of gorgeous journals already, but this one spoke to me. and i wanted something i could reserve just for this last leg of my pregnancy - and i had a journal i often referred to but it has become not so much an inspirational and uplifting book, but one full of complaints, half-hearted thoughts and incomplete musings. it's like the composition book i carried around when i was fifteen, full of all sorts of things, but not one single purpose, not anything i'd want to share with anyone else.

so. this journal jumped out and bit me with its beauty.




i hemmed and hawed and had several other pretty paper things in my hand (that's why i go to anthropolgie, really. the gorgeous $328 sweaters do very little for me, but their children's books and staionary. HEAVEN!) and i was careful to only select the most perfect thing. nothing was more than $12 and the price wasn't even an issue (though had the journal been $20, i probably would have set it back down so fast one might have thought my hand was on fire). then i turned it around, after flipping through the inside and loving the block print and the pink, green, and brown pages but not so sure about the lines. i prefer unlined pages in most cases. anyhow, i turn the journal around and this really gets me...



"where troubles melt like lemon drops" - it was my mom who pointed out that that's from "somewhere over the rainbow" - i just thought it was eclectic and a soft reminder that i need not worry and focus so much on fear and negativity during this painful, but beautiful journey - i have yet to decide if i'm only going to fill it with positive things, part of me wants to use it as a companion to birthing from within since i don't have the journal specifically created for that purpose. but i'm not sure i want to explore my fears here. and the pain i'm in will serve as a permanent memory within my mind, body, and spirit that i need not record it's every happening - why not relish in the delightful and reserve a little spot for it to exist in its own right? well that's the kind of question that comes to mind when this journal is in my hand!

yesterday was a good day and things seemed to come together well. we chose a name for the new baby and i carved out some time after my toddler was asleep to write about it...



and even if i might not be too careful about whether or not the contents of this journal be seen by others, for now it's private ;)


now i'm off to make a list for the day, attempt to follow it, and wrap as many gifts as i can with a toddler underfoot.

my house may not be clean but...

my loving mate brought me home a winter bouquet tonight, with my favorite flowers - lilies. though only one was open, i suspect the others will bloom beautifully.



and i made my first batch of from-scratch chicken stock tonight. i didn't cook a whole chicken but used the bones and skin from a chicken we roasted the other night. there was more meat on the bones than i thought so i made note: don't add veggie scraps when there will be meat to salvage. or else it's messy and takes forever to seperate.

but aside from the hassle that is removing carrot peel from very, very soft chicken, the results are prettiful!

see?



tomorrow we will be having chicken noodle soup and potato rolls for dinner. yum!


i've been working on the pinwheel blanket as often as i can and i'm reconsidering my lengthy estimate. who knows when i'll finish, but i know it would be a lot sooner if my interchangeable needles didn't come apart at the cable extender. it's happened at least four times and i drop stitches and because of the nature of the pattern, i literally lost a stitch once and worked about an inch outward until i realized that i was off by one stitch (after i had more than 120 stitches on the needles, i stopped counting the number of stitches in each of the ten sections). i was quite frustrated but i just picked up another and kept working after my oldest son reminded me that it was for me, not a customer. and who was going to notice anyway? hopefully when the blanket is all spread out it isn't terribly obvious, because after all the frustration i wasn't about to frog back to that mistake, and i had already convinced myself that that would be insane even before my son tried to reassure me that it was okay.

you can't really tell how large the cicumference is, but this is what the progress looks like so far:




and now it's a little bit after eleven, and this crafty mama is also a tired mama. i'm not really looking forward to trying to sleep in a semi-upright position but that "severe hip butt thigh pain" has made the last three nights something i never want to go through again. i'm going to try this to see if it's easier to get up in the middle of the night and in the morning. it seems every time i find a tactic for dealing with the pain, it only lasts a few days, but until i can get an appointment for physical therapy i've got to do something. and on that note, instead of sharing more of my crafty mc craftiness, i am off to brush my teeth and try out my experimental sleeping position.