...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.

Labels: FO, Striped Scarf

Labels: Rumple Shawl/Scarf, Striped Scarf, WIP

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).

He's so delicious!

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!

Labels: Rumple Shawl/Scarf, Striped Scarf, WIP

Labels: Striped Scarf, WIP

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

Labels: Rumple Shawl/Scarf, stash enhancing, Striped Scarf, WIP

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.

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.

Labels: Rumple Shawl/Scarf, Striped Scarf, WIP

Mommy with Jakob at 37 weeks

I swear I don't think I can get enough of him. I'm in love!

I'm also (somewhat) in love with the Noro Striped Scarf. This is my first time using Silk Garden and I really enjoy it. I have enough for a Klaralund which I think might wind up on the needles sometime in 2008 (never mind that I've had the yarn since 2005-ish).

This is my progress as of tonight. I think it's 51 stripes. I just got an email from Maaike saying that she's at 53 stripes. I feel a challenge brewing!

Labels: Striped Scarf, WIP

Labels: Striped Scarf, WIP

Makes "hitting the bottle" seem appropriate, huh?

I thought it was only older kids who preferred to play with the boxes gifts come in!

This was from Monday. We didn't have anywhere fancy to go, just playgroup, but I loved this outfit on him when he wore it to the bar mitzvah in Toronto and that was the only time he wore it, and now it's getting too small. The pants still fit okay, and I can probably pull off the vest a while longer, but the shirt length is way too short- when he brings his arms up it's a belly top.

Ha ha- see what I did there? I snuck some knitting in atcha. :)

It's funny- he looks so blonde in this photo but it's not like that in real life. He looks much too grown up though!

Now, back to the knitting. I'm really enjoying knitting the Noro scarf even though I made one mistake. For the first 8 stripes or so I forgot I was stranding the unused color up the side and began each new color row as usual- tugging the yarn up to knit with it. Silly me forgot that tahis would make it pull up, and sure enough there is no slack on the right edge of those first few rows. Now to make sure I include enough slack to avoid this, I wrap the yarn once around my needle before making the first stitch. On my return row I just drop the wrap off the needle, and it leaves me with enough yarn loose on the side to match the looseness of the other side of the work. It's quick and easy and avoids me having to remember and pay attention to leave some slack when I start each new colored stripe.

Maaike- this part is for you. Here's my progress from last night on the Striped Scarf.

Total stripe count as of Wednesday, January 30 - 20 stripes. You?

Today's stripe count and my Thursday photo with Jakob later.

Labels: Striped Scarf, WIP

Mommy with Jakob at 36 weeks.

I finished some knitting! As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm one of the test knitters for one of Anny's new Jujube and Lolo designs, the Hickory Dickory Dot sweater. I finished it today, and it's so cute!

There was an odd glitch or two with the pattern, mostly just a note or something overlooked, and all in all I'm sure this is going to be a pattern that knitters are going to love! The lap-shouldered construction is great for little ones, and I'm only slightly miffed that Anny put her pattern out before I got around to designing something with that shoulder myself, as I do have a bunch of sketches with lap shoulders. But she beat me to it! :)

I didn't really enjoy seaming the pocket on, but I really do like how it looks. I'm not an uber-perfectionist, but I'm too much of one to just place the pocket somewhere that "looks good" and just sew, so I had to spend time counting stitches in from each end to make sure it was perfectly centered, then seaming a little here...a little there...to make sure it was lining up straight and even. (Actually...I think I was a little off on the rounded edge but I can live with that).

The sweater pattern comes with the pattern for this really cute mouse toy. Earlier I had finished the mouse with only the ears left to attach, when Jakob woke up in his crib and started to cry. When I got back to the couch after calming him down I couldn't find the mouse anywhere. I finally found it on the floor under the couch! I guess Sam likes it too! Looks like some catnip-filled versions will be getting knit up around here pretty soon...

Details:

I'm going from memory here 'cus the yarn and needles are downstairs. The yarn is Bernat Soy from Walmart, in pink, white and tan. I forget which needle size I used but I'm pretty sure it was the one called for in the pattern. I got gauge, in any case. I knit the 12 month size which should have used 3 balls of pink Soy but I didn't even finish the 2nd ball.

I tried to stay as faithful to the pattern as I could since I was doing it as a test knit. I did make 2 minor alterations though - sorry Anny! After working a marathon seaming session, sewing down the white icord that lines the neck, then the sleeve and side seams, then finagling the pocket into place, I couldn't bear the thought of any more seaming. Thus, even though the mouse pattern is supposed to be done flat, I did the mouse in the round. Because I did it magic-looped I was able to follow the pattern exactly as written working one mouse chart on each needle. My only other modification was to sew the two mouse ears onto the flat side of the mouse (as in the photos above). The pattern and provided photo have the mouse ears sewn on either side of the seam (making a taller, skinnier mouse instead of a wider, flatter one).

As soon as it is dry I will be sending it off to the intended recipient. :)

Now that (one set) of my needles were empty I was free to cast on for something else! Maaike and I decided to work a little Noro into our lives (who doesn't need a little Noro in their lives?) and cast on for a little striped scarf knitalong. I have to admit that our scarves were completely inspired by the fun scarf and breathtaking photography on Jared's blog. (I'm name-dropping like I know him. I don't know him from a hole in the wall. An amazing knitter/designer/photographer hole in the wall). You can see the scarf that got us drooling here.

I'm using Noro Silk Garden, 1 ball each of 4 colors- 8, 251, 258 and 264. The scarf is a simple 1x1 rib done working 2 rows from one ball, 2 rows from a second ball, repeat until the first two balls are done then move on to the next two. I made my color choice easily- I bought one of each of the Silk Garden colors that Robyn carried (excluding the white one).

I'm copying Jared's slip stitch edging too. At first I thought I could just work a regular "slip the first stitch of every row" edging and didn't know why he decided to slip the first and last stitches of the 2nd row of each color change. I told Maaike I'd swatch it up and see, when it hit me. If you slip the first stitch of every row you DO get the same chained edging, with one big difference- you will be pulling the contrasting color up into the next row which will be of a different color. Not sure if I typed that properly but it's late and there's a hot NeoCitran calling my name. Long story short- he's right and I'm copying.

Labels: FO, Hickory Dickory Dot, Striped Scarf, WIP