i'm addicted to baby sweaters.

i seriously can't stop. i've knitted 3 sweaters for the new baby and am now madly working through a tomten jacket for my toddler (i recently discovered the tomten jacket pattern and i'm IN LOVE. straight knitting, no purling and hardly any seaming. and it's SO CUTE). i've also whipped up baby legwarmers and a newborn hat (will post later). every spare minute i have, i have needles in my hands manipulating string into fabric. is it nesting? maybe. i'm not in my own space so it would make sense that this time i'm madly knitting, rather than madly cleaning or baking.

right now i'm working on a swap hat (my girlfriend cut my hair today and it's AWESOME...traded for a lovely noro wool slouchy hat that i hope to start and finish in the next week) as well as the toddler jacket...i also hope to complete baby booties and finish a pair of socks that have been hibernating for a while. i was also excited to make baby knitted pants/soakers but we'll see...baby is due in 4 weeks!! ack!

anyway i'm super tired and can barely focus on the screen let alone type comprehensible sentences...so i'm off to bed. here's hoping my toddler doesn't have any bad dreams tonight and that i pee no more than 5 times tonight...

6 monthish sweater...i improvised this pattern from two other infant patterns.

classic elizabeth zimmerman tomten jacket...6-9 months probably.

tomten jacket number 2...newborn!

i'll build you this if you build me a house

my partner and i met a little over 6 years ago. it was "smitten at first sight" on his part (he'd known of me for quite some time prior to officially meeting) and it wasn't long before i too was smitten (it helped that he gave me a mix tape with amazing music on our first date, that we both drank tea, and that he used the word "smitten" to describe his feelings for me the day we met). we bought a house together 4 years ago, got married 3 summers ago, had our first child 2 summers ago...you know, pretty committed by standard terms.


anyway, i've been a knitter for about 3 years and have knitted several sweaters. many for babies and 3 lovely sweaters for me. according to ravelry, i have knitted over a hundred projects (110 to be exact).


 i've knitted for my husband several small things...mitts, wrist warmers, hats, etc. but i just could never commit to knitting him a sweater. why? ehn, i dunno...doing so would be a big investment, it would take a lot of yarn, a lot of time, and a lot of patience (he's 6'1 and long). and i wasn't sure he would fully appreciate it (being a non-knitter). in theory, i had a vague urge to make him one for a long time but kept putting it off...i was afraid of what i might do if he rejected it (grounds for divorce?). i had been willing to move in with the guy, combine our CD collection, get married, bear his offspring...but was unable to jump off the deep end and knit the guy a sweater. 


until a few months ago when i finally realized: I THINK I'M READY FOR THIS.


what caused the change of heart? i guess it helped that he was also in the process of building us a house... that was sort of the big push. a good trade i think...a house for a hand-knit sweater? pretty good deal on both of our parts. hah. 


the sweater is a variation of the pattern: "rogers-esque cardigan" by Mary Townsend. the pattern was a bit difficult to follow so i took some liberties...regardless, it turned out great. i also added pockets, which i lined with scrap blue yarn to preserve my sanity (it's harder than you think to knit for hours and hours in shit-brown yarn...you cannot fathom the joy i found in switching to blue, though my time with blue was short indeed). details of the pattern can be found here.

meanwhile i'm 1 day short of being 35 weeks pregnant. here's a couple blurry photos of me tonight, to go with the blurry sweater photos posted above (there seems to be no time during daylight hours to take photos; rather, i seem to only think of it when the sun goes down and i'm limited to terrible bathroom light). 

i'm gonna give you everything.

i've been in a creative (and lets face it, an emotional) funk lately, hence the lack of posting. i've been feeling pretty shitty physically (pregnancy back pain) and i completely lack energy. so rather than think of a post, i decided to let you in on the progress of my pregnancy through photos...a pretty typical thing for pregnant mums to do, but something i have been somewhat hesitant to do. perhaps it's that i don't like to draw attention to myself (people at work know that i neither announced my pregnancy nor announced my exit into the abyss of maternity leave...not to be an asshole but simply because i just don't like to make big announcements).

anyway, i decided to just bite the bullet and post the photos, mainly for those people in my life whom i no longer see regularly (there's recently been a mass exodus of my lady friends, all moving from northern BC to bigger, brighter [more southern?] things and places. which i admit, has contributed to my recent funk). i've been missing them a lot as of late...their absence has been particularly salient to me these last few weeks. so here you go dear friends, (particularly D, B and A) wish you were here with me.  

p.s. i'm just shy of 34 weeks at this point...i will hopefully get around to taking a few more photos before this new one is born. 

p.p.s. i'm pretty fucking freaked out about having a newborn in my life again and my new identity as a mother of two. i know i will love the baby dearly but do i have the capacity to be that sleep deprived again? (for those who are unaware, my first-born did not let me sleep for 6 months...needless to say i was an utter mess). 

p.p.p.s i worry about how my 2.5 year old will adjust. i'm going to miss what we have (our little routines that i live for) and i feel really guilty about disrupting his little life.

10 weeks

12 weeks

15 weeks

26 weeks

29 weeks

30 weeks