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I Want to Knit
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
finally the photos of which i spoke
I was going to post this earlier but I had a scary drive in to work this morning and by the time I got there I was a little shaken and distracted. I was in a tunnel that splits in two directions, I was in the middle lane (the middle and left lanes go to the left) and a truck (no container, just the cab part) was in the right (which becomes another tunnel veering off to the right). He lost control, did a bunch of drifting Zs across his lane and mine, then slammed into the right hand wall of the tunnel, bounced back off the wall almost exactly like I did in my car accident two years ago, and crashed into the middle wall of the part that divides the two tunnels. He was no more than 20 ft away from me when he started sliding and I saw it and slowed down to be alert to what he would do next, but by the time he crashed into the middle between the right and middle lanes he was no more than 6 ft away from me. I was so scared that he was going to slide back instead of forwards- if he'd come backwards my car was right in his path and there were cars in the left lane that couldn't see he was sliding and wouldn't move away to let me get by. Luckily he came to a stop after hitting the 2nd wall and, although he was 3/4 blocking my lane, I was able to inch around safely. Once I was cleared from the tunnel I called 911 to let them know what had happened, and that was when I started shaking from the shock of what could have been.

Sometimes it's not good to have a vivid imagination.

So- I've decided to put aside some of my current projects to focus on other ones. Jakob's birthday is coming up in a few months and there is also a contest I want to enter, so I will make those knits my priority for right now. Shawls and stuff can wait until later. In preparation for all that stuff, I've gone through my photos from the last week or so and am presenting you with all the outstanding photos. Enjoy.

This is the Marble hooded cardigan. I'm making the 1-2 year size, and hope to have this ready for Jakob for his birthday. It will be too warm and hopefully too big for him in May, but I want to put it together with some other items for his gift.
The colors (and clarity, LOL) are more accurate in the first photo, but the flash obliterated the cable. Here you can see the cable that runs up either side of the middle of the two fronts.
Here's Mommy with Jakob at 40 weeks. I couldn't get one of him looking into the camera.
Here's Yannick and Jakob at last Sunday's swimming lesson. We tried out this new one-piece bathing suit for the first time (thanks Robyn!) and it worked great! The last few weeks Jakob has started to cry when playing some of the games in the water, and when testing different things in his bath one night we discovered he started to cry when we made him "jump" in and out of the water. We think he was getting cold and that's what made him cry. I don't know if that was the exact problem, but this week they even did a part where the kids sit on floatie boards completely out of the water, and he didn't shed a single tear. Plus he looks like a little skater boy (not sk8tr boi, avril).
These are my dinosaur swatches. See the blue one? That's the same yarn I used when I knit the dinosaur for my little cousin Oliver. I did the swatch with 20 sts and 20 rows. Next to it is some leftover Homespun from the sweater I made a few years ago. That's also 20 sts and 20 rows. Nice difference, huh? The dinosaur for Oliver came out to about 20 inches tall, so if this works out according to gauge I'll end up with a dinosaur over 3 feet tall! I'm going to try to make both dinosaurs from the Family Circle Easy Baby Knits book, hopefully I'll have them both done in time for his birthday.
Here's a grin, just because I can't get enough of them. It's so sad- he went to take a nap at work yesterday and woke up with a cold. His nose is completely congested and runny, and he coughs every so often...he looks so exhausted half the time just from trying to breathe. At the same time he looks so funny because he's keeping his mouth open to breathe through it since his nose is blocked, but he's letting his tongue hang out so he looks like a panting dog!
This is the progress on the Silk Rumple shawl. Everything from the orange marker (middle of the right side) is new. I worked on it last week until I decided to concentrate on Jakob's projects.

Here's what I got to see the other day when driving to work. Do you see what I see? No? Here, look closer:
I don't know if I should be upset that gas is priced so high, or if I should find it amusing that the price of gas was 1.234$.
Here's another one, just because. He loves to feed himself, and often the only way I can get him to let me feed him something from a spoon is to give him something he can feed himself at the same time. Here he's enjoying the feel of mashed potatoes between his fingers.
Finally I have a FO that is now more F'd. Remember the Baby Cabled Hoodie? It was done, and looked cute on Jakob, except that (ignoring the whole ineffective hood thing) while the sleeves were too long and the body was big on him, the length was much too short. It barely came to the top of his jeans, and if he raised his arms- forget it. I'd been meaning to fix it for a long time, and this past weekend I finally got around to doing it.
Better eh? I know the zipper doesn't go down to the bottom, but I can live with that. I had more of the brown Decor in my stash so I picked up sts all the way around, one for each existing stitch, and worked the same cable pattern in reverse. Once I had done a few inches I tried it on him, and when it was at a good length I bound off loosely. I think it even looks like the pattern was always supposed to be this way, and it fits him, and I'm happy.
Now I'm off to watch Big Brother.


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posted by Jennifer Lori @ 10:08 am   5 comments
Sunday, February 24, 2008
the things we do to get kids to eat (and laugh)
So I was watching the nine hundredth repeat of the premiere of Girlicious on Much Music. I know. Does the world really need Girlicious? I don't think so, but what do I know? Anyways, during the fifty million commercial breaks, they aired the American Idol video game commercial about 10 million times. In the commercial they sing along to Fergie's hit Glamorous, and it got stuck in my head.

Fast forward about an hour later and I can't stop singing just that part, of just that song. The portion that they sing in the commercial is the following:

G-L-A-M-O-R-OUS

We flying first class
Up in the sky
Poppin' champagne
Livin' my life

Well, I was feeding Jakob lunch and trying to get him to eat his veggies when all he wanted were the toast, cheese and orange waiting for him. Suddenly puree of brussels sprouts was not so interesting. What do I do to get him to eat? Start singing of course! What did I end up singing to him?

B-R-U-S-S-E-LS

It's flying first class
into your mouth
They're from Brussels
and they're sprouts

Hey- stop laughing- it worked!

p.s. I don't know if Brussels Sprouts are actually from Brussels but it worked for the song. :)
posted by Jennifer Lori @ 2:48 pm   2 comments
Saturday, February 23, 2008
can infants make a decision?
Yesterday, when preparing Jakob's lunch to bring to work, I held out 2 cubes of meat to him - a dark cube of beef in my left hand, and a light cube of chicken in my right. I offered him the choice. He reached for my right hand, so I included the chicken with his veggies.

Today I offered him the same choice, but I switched hands. I had the chicken cube in my left hand, and the beef in my right. Jakob was sitting in Yannick's lap, and I held both cubes an equal distance away from him. He looked up at me, looked at the cubes, and immediately reached for my left hand - the one with the chicken.

Is it possible he's making a choice? I know he doesn't understand that one is chicken and one is beef and he might like one taste more than the other...but could he be making a clear choice between the light cube and the dark cube?
posted by Jennifer Lori @ 12:01 pm   3 comments
Friday, February 22, 2008
you ever have one of those?
You know...those weeks where you actually have stuff to post? But then you get busy, and more stuff happens. And you really want to blog about that, but then more stuff happens? And by the time you remember a week has gone by and you're home with time to post on your hands and you realize that you left your camera, the one with all the relevant photos, at work?

I'm having one of those weeks.

The aforementioned camera is still at the aformentioned store, so I won't be able to add any photos to this post. Those of you who came here only to see knitting or Jakob...well...I guess I can say anything about you that I want in this post, 'cus you probably won't stick around long enough to read it. :) Those of you who care about the rest of my life (and knitting stuff without accompanying photos) keep reading!

Last Saturday we finally went to Ottawa. I say "finally" because for 3 weeks now, stuff has continued to come up and prevent us from going. So finally, we go. We left early Saturday morning and drove down in my car, because Yannick's car was leaking prestone from an unidentified source. On the way down we hear my car start to make a funny noise. Yannick said it sounded like a pulley was nearing the end of its life, but he'd check it out when we got back home that night. (We were only going for the day). Can you guess where this is going?

We spent a wonderful day in Ottawa with Julie and Richard and adorable 8-week-old baby Kayla. Jakob got to play with his new friend, Yannick and Rich were able to sketch out plans for their basement and talk "guy" stuff, and Julie and I were able to go to Michael's- a chain we don't have here in Quebec. (Oh yeah- that was another thing I wanted to post...I bought yarn). We left much later than we'd originally planned on, but figured it was no big deal. It's only a 2 hour drive from Montreal to Ottawa and we knew Jakob would sleep the whole way home, so the worst that could happen was that we'd be tired the next morning when we woke up with Jakob and couldn't go back to bed after because the boys had swimming class.

Yeah. No. We left Ottawa at 11pm. First we get lost after leaving a gas station, and it took us a half hour to find the 417 highway. We were a bit annoyed, but this ended up saving our butts, big time. (You'll see how in a minute). We start driving and make it another half hour...when we hear a loud noise followed by the sound of something falling off of my car, hitting the road and rolling away. This was immediately followed by all the lights on my dash starting to dim.

10 points to the one of you who can guess what happened. Yes? You in the back? That's right. The pulley broke.

The reason we ended up thankful that we spent 30 minutes lost and trying to find the highway, is because my car ended up dying about 15 feet from an off ramp for a service station/motel/resto/bar area. We were able to take the exit and park my car with all the cars from the motel clients. Had we been driving home for the whole hour we would have ended up stranded on the side of the highway somewhere most likely in between rest stops with no heat and the prospect of a long walk...and Jakob with us.

I'll try to sum up this long story by telling it in point form:
-even though it was midnight Julie and Rich were gracious enough to come back and get us and let us sleep over, and even take me to the 24hr grocery store so I could buy the supplies I'd be missing for Jakob for the next day (diapers, food, etc)
-my dad had to drive down to Ottawa the next day so he could drive us home while my car was towed
-the tow truck was called at 3:45pm. He said he'd be there in 5-60 minutes. He got there at 6pm.
-We finally made it home at 8:00pm. We only were able to come into our house at 8:20 because I'd left my house keys on my car key ring...which was in Yannick's pocket...which was on Yannick's coat...which was on Yannick...who was in the tow truck...which stopped for gas and was 20 minutes behind us. Thank goodness I had brought knitting with me! I did enough work on my striped scarf during the extra time away to allow me to finish it after only knitting for an hour once we got home and I put Jakob to bed.

Poor Sam was starving once we got home- he has dry food and water out at all times but he's used to getting 1/2 a can of wet food every night for supper.

The rest of the week wasn't as hectic. I missed playgroup on Monday because I had no car to drive, and even though one of the other moms offered to pick me up, I chose to stay home and do the cleaning that I was supposed to have done on Sunday. Monday night Jakob we had a shiva to attend for my friend Debbie's grandmother, and while it sucked that it was on those circumstances, it was nice to see Debbie's family again. Debbie's parents' house and my parents' house are literally 2 streets away from each other (about the same distance as my house and Maaike's house...but it feels shorter 'cus it was a straight line) and I'd spent a lot of time there in my teenage years.

Tuesday was my first day back at work. I needed a lift from my dad 'cus my car still wasn't ready, which was great for me because it meant I could knit on the way to work (not something you can do when you're driving). Since my dad has bowling on Tuesdays and goes straight there from work he wouldn't be able to drive me home, so my mom picked us up when she finished teaching at 2:15...so it was a nice, short day. We stayed at my parents' house for supper and for the first time ever Jakob fed himself an entire meal from real people food (as opposed to purees that I'd thawed). My mom served hamburgers with a broccoli/cauliflower/carrot mix and potatoes, and Jakob had already been cleared of allergies for all those foods, so I broke them up into small pieces, put them on his high chair tray and let him feed himself. He loved it!

He is trying so hard to be independant- the only way I can get him to let me feed him a meal with a spoon is if I give him a breadstick. He gets the opportunity to self-feed and he tolerates me offering a spoon in between bites.

Wednesday I didn't end up going in to work, because my dad was delayed in going in, and by the time he would have picked me up, I would only have had about an hour before my mom was due to pick us up, so it wouldn't have been worth it. That evening one of Yannick's friends fixed my car (he could have done it himself but was too tired and his buddy works at an auto-parts place and knows cars like the back of his hand) and while they took my car for a test-drive, I went outside to try and take photos of the lunar eclipse. They didn't come out so well, but I only went out when it was about a quarter covered, and didn't go out again to see it at full eclipse. I'd wanted to, but suddenly started getting the chills.

I went to bed early and woke up many times throughout the night. I kept taking my temperature- I had 102 F all night. I felt really achy too so I think my body was trying to fight something. In any case by the time Thursday morning rolled around it had dropped to 101 F but I wasn't about to go in and have to work and take care of Jakob the way I felt. It was hard enough just taking care of him! I slept every time he slept, and lay next to him on the floor while he played, and by night time the fever had broken and I felt much better. A bath before bed and I was as good as new.

Today was our first full day at work...or at least it was for Jakob. I left for 2 hours in the afternoon to attend the funeral of the mother of one of Yannick's friends. My sister came to the store to watch Jakob so I could go.

I've been working on the Rumple shawl all week long and am nearly finished the first mini ball of silk. I'm trying to focus on it before moving on to something else, but I might put it aside- for a good reason. Jakob will be 1 in less than 3 months, and I have a 12 month sized sweater I want to knit him, plus his birthday gift. I don't need a silk shawl done in the next 3 months. I do need a sweater and giant dinosaur knit. :)

Anyways, I've been sitting here half-posting and half-websurfing since 8pm, and it's nearly midnight. I've got work in the morning so I'm going to bed- I work Tuesday to Saturday, remember? Hopefully I'll remember to bring the camera home so I can take some photos of the latest shawl progress (all week's worth) and maybe a few of Jakob too.
posted by Jennifer Lori @ 9:56 pm   2 comments
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
9 months and a fo
According to What to Expect the First Year:
By nine months, your baby

...should be able to:
-work to get a toy that's out of reach CHECK
-look for dropped object CHECK
...will probably be able to:
-pull up to standing position from sitting CHECK
-creep or crawl CHECK (rolling/creeping)
-get into a sitting position from stomach NO
-object if you try to take a toy away NO
-stand holding on to someone or something CHECK
-pick up tiny object with any part of thumb and finger CHECK
-say "mama" or "dada" indiscriminately CHECK
-play peekaboo CHECK
...may possibly be able to:
-play patty-cake (clap hands) or wave bye-bye CHECK
-walk holding on to furniture (cruise) NO
-understand "no" (but not always obey it) CHECK

...may even be able to:

-"play ball" (roll ball back to you) KINDA- he doesn't roll it back to me, he picks it up and gives it to me to roll back to him

-drink from a cup independently CHECK but makes a hell of a mess

-pick up a tiny object neatly with tips of thumb and forefinger CHECK

-stand alone momentarily CHECK

-stand alone well NO

-say "dada" or "mama" discriminately NO

-say one word other than "mama" or "dada" NO

-respond to a one-step command with gestures ("Give that to me", said with hand out) CHECK

Here's Mommy with Jakob at 39 weeks. He has now been out for just as long as he's been in. :)

There haven't been enough "Jakob with Daddy" photos lately, so here's one from our trip this past weekend to Ottawa. More on that in my next post...it's a long story and I want to finish posting before Big Brother starts.
Hey look- a finished object! What's funny is that Maaike and I both finished on the same day.

Striped Scarf details:

I used 4 balls of Noro Silk Garden, 1 each of the colorways"8", "251", "258" and "264".

I cast on 41 sts with a tubular cast-on and a 4mm needle, and did 1x1 rib, changing balls every 2 rows (first using balls 1 and 2, then when they ran out I switched to 3 and 4).

I did a slipped stitch on the first and last stitch of the 2nd row of each color (copying Jared's, whose scarf was the inspiration for this one), and I bound off with the sewn/Kitchener bind-off.

Cast on: January 29 2008.

Bind off: February 17 2008.

I am so happy with this project! I love how it looks, it is comfortable but most of all, my favorite thing about this scarf is the colors. Not any one in particular- but how they ended up meeting each other. I'm calling this my "inspiration scarf". There are so many spots of inspiration in this scarf- areas where two colors meet that I never would have thought of pairing, and yet they look just amazing together. I have so many ideas brewing in my head just from looking at how certain colors play off of each other, and I know it will only inspire me further.
And it makes a great valance too!

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posted by Jennifer Lori @ 7:48 pm   4 comments
Friday, February 15, 2008
happy day after valentines day
I forgot to mention that I went to see a great show on Wednesday night. I saw Houdini the Musical at the Saidye - whoops, I mean at the Segal Center for the Arts. I met up with a bunch of moms from Jakob's playgroup, and I brought my mom, and it was so much fun! Our tickets included a "petit souper" (light supper in hors d-oeuvre form) and wine and a raffle. Oh yeah, and I won a prize! $50 gift certificate at a local spa. That will be fun! It was strange seeing these women without our kids but it was so nice to have a little time together as grown ups. We HAVE to do it more often!

Here's yesterday's progress on the Silk Rumple. Everything from the orange marker is new. I feel like all these photos look alike, because it is growing so slowly! At least the first ball is showing signs of depletion (the single skein turned out to be 2 smaller ones together).
And here's the progress on the Noro striped scarf. 144 rows as of last night's TV watching marathon. Speaking of last night's TV- any one else super annoyed with which team won on Celebrity Apprentice? Piers or Omarosa need to go home!
In other reality TV complaints- I find I'm kinda irritated at Big Brother for splitting up the real life couple with other "soulmates". I know they probably did it on purpose to try and trigger some drama, but I still think it's tacky.

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posted by Jennifer Lori @ 9:20 am   3 comments
Thursday, February 14, 2008
754...
This is my 754th post. I am thinking about running a contest in my 777th post. At the rate I post, that would end up being somewhere towards the end of March, I think. Hmm...

No photos yet. Mainly because the camera is downstairs and I'm lazy, but also because there are no new photos to show. I am going to knit more stripes and hopefully will have something to show for it later tonight.

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posted by Jennifer Lori @ 8:39 pm   1 comments
a contest!
I'm sharing a link to a contest I read about over on Dianne's blog.

One of my favorite knitting tips that makes my knitting life easier is how to calculate how much yarn you'll need for a long-tail cast-on. How many times have you ended up with a tail that is much too long, or run out right towards the end? Here's an easy way to know how much yarn you need:
Let's say you need to cast on 100 sts. Cast on 10 sts then unravel your cast on and see how much yarn it took. Multiply that length by 10 (10 x 10 = 100) and that will show what length yarn you need. Add a few inches for weaving in (or a longer length for seaming, if necessary), and that's it!

(Obviously you need to multiply the 10-st-co length by whatever number it will take to give you the number of sts YOU need to cast on).



(If you decide to enter, please leave in the comments that I referred you. Thanks!)

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posted by Jennifer Lori @ 3:52 pm   5 comments
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy 10th birthday dear knitting guild, happy birthday to you
First of all, a big apology to those of you who get here directly via http://www.jeloca.com/. I'm sorry it appeared as if my blog had gone bye-bye. Apparently my domain-forwarding-provider decided that since they never sent me a renewal contract, I clearly must no longer be desiring their services, so they dropped me like a hot potato. I swear our phone call went like this:
Me: How come my website isn't working?
Them: Because you haven't paid for it.
Me: Well, you never sent me an invoice.
Them: We don't send invoices until after you pay.
Me: If you don't send me an invoice, how am I supposed to know it's time to pay again?
Them: Well, we don't send invoices until after you pay. Your payment was due in January.
Me: How did you expect me to know that you wanted more money in January?
Them: We sent you an email in December to tell you.
Me: I never got it.
Them: You probably didn't check your email.
Me: I check my email about 15 times a day. I didn't get it.
Them: We're sure it was sent out.
Me: Can you check?
Them: No. The emails are all sent out autmatically and are generated by our system. We can't check to see who got them. They were sent in December.
Me: But I never got it.
And so on. Ugh...At least everyone is happy now. They have my money, I have a blog that works, and you don't have to finagle your way here via the http://www.jeloca.blogspot.com/ address. It's all good.
There was hardly any knitting today, and I might do a few more rows on the Striped Scarf before bed, so I'm saving my row count for tomorrow. Tonight was the 10th anniversary party of the Montreal Knitting Guild, and it was a potluck event. There was so much food! I ate much too much, and knit much too little.
I do have a photo of that Marble Cabled Hoodie thing I mentioned the other day. I'm about 10 rows farther than this, but I've put it aside to try and finish the Striped Scarf instead.
Instead of stripes, I leave you with a tutorial on how to eat toast.



Step 1: get toast into mouth

Step 2: get toast into mouth

Step 3: get toast into mouth
Step 4: get toast into mouth
Step 5: grin with accomplishment (and toast in mouth)
Step 6: pose for the camera



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posted by Jennifer Lori @ 10:43 pm   2 comments
Monday, February 11, 2008
a reprieve
I feel like I've been granted a stay of execution!

I was supposed to return to work tomorrow. Maternity leave- over. Real world- commence.

Then I got a letter in the mail this morning advising me that my maternity benefits will be ending on February 16th (Friday). Which means I don't go back to work until NEXT Tuesday.

There was much happy dancing done in this house!

Back to knitting- no news on the striped scarf or the silk Rumple shawl, as neither were touched all weekend. Instead I cast on for a hooded cardigan for Jakob with some lovely soft blue/gray Marble yarn, and am about 1/3 done with the back. I had hoped to finish more over the weekend but somehow I ended up with only about an hour to knit each day. I have photos but they are on my camera, which is downstairs. Since I'm very tired, downstairs seems really far away right now.
posted by Jennifer Lori @ 11:10 pm   4 comments
Thursday, February 07, 2008
thursday's stuff
Mommy with Jakob at 38 weeks. One more week and he'll be at the same number of weeks of my pregnancy he was born at (he was delivered at 39 weeks).
The next photo isn't the most flattering of me, but I have to share it.
Jakob gives kisses. It's the cutest thing ever- he actually takes your face in his hands and plants one on you. It's usually open-mouthed, and mostly slobber-covered, and occassionally he bites, but they are kisses just the same. Sometimes he grabs me for a kiss at least 10 times in 3 minutes, and if I don't get my face up to his fast enough, he grabs me by my hair and pulls me to him. We were at my cousins' store this afternoon and Amy caught this photo of him kissing me.
He's so delicious!
She also caught a photo of his other latest thing:

He waves!

I forgot to post this yesterday, but last night Yannick helped me wind these two skeins of Woolly Bully by hand. Um, yeah. Two skeins. This is a case (Maaike) where a yarn purchase ISN'T a yarn purchase. I already HAD one skein, so I only bought a second one so I'd have enough to make something worthy of it. (I asked Yannick, he said it was ok). :) These balls are huge! Each one is the size of a cabbage!

Here's the latest on the Silk Rumple shawl. Again, everything from the orange pin (on the right) and up is the new stuff from today.
And finally, here's tonight's final view of the striped scarf. I'm at 118 stripes, but realized this am that it doesn't really matter if I beat Maaike in the stripe count unless I beat her by a lot. I have only 41 sts per row, whereas she has 45. So for example, last night she'd knit 92 or so stripes and had finished the first 2 balls, but I'd knit 98 and needed another 10 or so stripes to finish them. I finally finished mine, though, and am about 10 stripes into the new balls. This officially makes me more than halfway through!

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posted by Jennifer Lori @ 11:56 pm   5 comments
this is for wednesday
98 stripes done. I really wanted to finish the first 2 balls last night- do you see how little is left? But at around 11:30 I just got too zonked. I couldn't do it. I gave up and went to bed. Hopefully tonight's progress will delve into the 2 new balls!

p.s. Jakob waved for the first time today! We were at my LYS and the owner and some of the staff waved and said "bye bye" as we were leaving, and Jakob waved back! Then later he did it to a stranger too. It was the first time he'd even ever tried, and I almost started bawling in the store, I was so shocked. :}

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posted by Jennifer Lori @ 9:52 am   2 comments
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
title goes here
I would have posted this last night but I went to bed too late and was too tired. Just pretend you are reading this last night. If it helps, you can go put your jammies back on, brush your teeth, take out your contact lenses, then come back.

Yesterday we went to my friend Maia's house for a mini-playgroup. I know you can't tell by these photos but there were other babies there! I think we were about 7 or 8 moms, plus 1 extra baby (Maia has twin boys).

Jakob had a blast pulling her foam alphabet mat apart. I MUST get him one of these, it entertained him for so long!

He would pull off a square and then separate the letter from the background.

Of course, eating them was fun too! I also want to get that pig she has- when you turn it on, one ear flicks and the jaw works back and forth grumbling and talking about eating some nice slop. It's too cute!
So my hubby came home with some yarn yesterday. I asked him what he was trying to get out of. He swears it was just an "I was thinking about you" gift. Cue the "awwww". :) The yarn is Estelle's Woolly Bully, and this one skein is freaking HUGE!
Seriously- that coke can is included for scale. This is BIG. I don't know what I'm going to make with it yet. I love the colors and it is really soft. The thing is, I'm currently in the middle of 2 scarves, plus I have a half-finished Clapotis somewhere. I don't need 4 scarves (especially since I've made it this far in the winter without wearing even one), so I think I'll swatch it for a bit and maybe try to design something with it.
Here's yesterday's progress on the Silk Rumple shawl. Everything from the orange pin and up is new. It's slow-going, but I only worked on it for an hour yesterday.
Here's the Noro scarf progress. I took a quick count last night, I think I'm at 78 stripes completed. I'm also thisclose to finishing the first 2 balls which means I'm almost halfway done!

Today we only have some errands to do once Jakob wakes up from his nap, so I hope to have much more progress to show off tonight.

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posted by Jennifer Lori @ 10:18 am   2 comments
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
don't bother me, i'll be reading
I have six minutes to sqeeze out a post. (That sounds vaguely dirty...) I promised Yannick I'd meet him in bed at 12:30. No you pervs, not for that. We still haven't finished reading the last Harry Potter, and I have so far remained remarkably unspoiled in terms of who dies, etc. I did find out one little tidbit by accident (if "by accident" includes reading Stephen King's column on the last page of my EW magazine where he blurted something out), and that tidbit, for those of you who have read it, implies that...oh how can I put this for the unspoiled? It implies that one of the characters had a lot in common with the original actor who portrays him/her in the movies. Is that vague enough?

I had to share this with you.
Isn't that cool? A HABS holiday decoration! I kept meaning to blog about it, and when over at Maaike's on Saturday I snuck a quick photo. If you go over to her blog to comment on it, send some love over to her hubby who made it!

I didn't post my stripe tally over the weekend because I had none. Yannick's parents came over Saturday morning and we spend the day putting up new window treatments in the bedrooms and preparing the heated floor for our (eventual) den, then they slept over that night. Sunday I didn't get any knitting done either, as in the morning we had swimming lessons, then around lunch time Julie and Rich came over with adorable little Kayla, and then we had plans later that night.
Sunday afternoon Jakob was being really kvetchy and his toys weren't holding his interest. Out of desperation I popped in a Baby Mozart dvd. Think he liked it? He didn't move from that pose for the entire video, except to laugh out loud every so often and turn to look at me as if to say "did you see that?". It was too cute. I know I'm going to have to stop keeping the tv on for me soon, as he constantly turns to see the moving shapes and colors, and I don't want him watching once he's old enough to understand what he sees. But I approve of the videos and I don't mind him watching those. He was never able to sit through a whole half hour, so I only played each of the 3 videos we have once or twice each. Now that he pays attention and enjoys it, I think I'm going to sit with him maybe once a week and watch it together.
On Friday I re-started an old project. Remember the Silk Rumple from HandMaiden that Yannick bought for me? I was having a hell of a time trying to knit the shawl on the label, because none of my needles were sharp enough for the k2togs in the boucle-y yarn. I had even bought needles with special "precision points" but they were too blunt. On Saturday I gave Maaike's Options needles a spin, and they worked perfectly! I am now able to whip through a yo, k2tog row almost as fast as a regular k row.
This is where I am as of this afternoon. I only work on this project during the day when Yannick isn't around. Last week when Maaike and I started our Noro scarves, I mentioned to Yannick that I was working on a cool scarf. He asked "is that the one with the yarn I bought you?" I felt bad that his yarn was still sitting in the project bin, so I decided to work on it behind his back so I can surprise him one day soon by wearing the finished shawl and praising him on his taste.


This closeup shows off the subtle color variations and the stitch pattern. It isn't actually supposed to have a wavy bottom, but I was feeling too lazy to weave another needle in the bottom edge to hold it straight, so this is the result of my quick pinning-for-the-photo job.


This closeup shows the texture of the yarn. Now do you see why I needed sharp needles? I was almost getting nauseous at the "stuttering" effect those yo, k2tog rows were having on me. I'm used to knitting in a rhythm, and those rows were throwing off my groove.


Finally, here's my Noro Striped Scarf progress as of tonight. I'm laughing at myself because on Friday Maaike told me she had 74 stripes knit, and then she didn't get a chance to knit at all over the weekend, and she let me know today that she didn't knit today either. So she's stalled at 74. I knit my fingers off from 8-11:30pm tonight while watching my tapes and when I finally called it quits I counted up my stripes- I have 73 done! Yet again I could force myself to sit there and do just a few more stripes to be in the lead, but I'm not. I'll let her think she's winning...for now. :)

p.s. as you can see by the time this post records it was posted at, I didn't come close to being done by 12:30. We're going to put the reading off 'til tomorrow. I'm aware that now my post title makes no sense, but I'm too tired to fix it.

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posted by Jennifer Lori @ 12:18 am   3 comments
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