The baby came!

Where: Home
When: November 2011

The baby is here, and it is all going swimmingly. Here are some pictures!

In the hospital a few hours after the birth:


And a variety from home, from the first week or two:

Where: Battery Park
When: November 2011

Such a beautiful couple of days! It was so nice to get a little bit of relief from the wind and cold, but it seems that's back on the menu today.

This baby had better come out soon, my warm jacket is only going to fit over my belly for so much longer!

Bees Knees

Where: Battery Park
When: November 2011

Look Baby!

I finished your hat!




Where: Home
When: November 2011

Your head will be all warm, and also pretty. So you can come out now!

Really. Right now.

More baby stuff

Where: Home
When: October 2011

This is going to be a pinwheel blanket. I'm extremely proud of it, because it was the first time I had used double pointed needles, and I figured it out by myself, with the help of some descriptions and youtube videos. It's now quite a bit bigger - when it's all finished, it will look like it's made up of 10 spokes, with a lace separation between each section. I'm doing it in 4 colors, and have started the second color at this point.

Here are the colors in order of use:
(The center color)


(The color I'm on now)






The colors remind me of a sunrise or sunset, with the blue representing either water or the sky. We'll see what it ends up looking like - it will be rings of color around the center. Some people who have done this blanket have managed to make each pinwheel section a different color, but I'm not that clever, sadly.

It's coming along very quickly, with the help of librivox.org, which has free audio recordings of classic books. So far I've worked through the second half of Pride and Prejudice, all of Persuasion, and am now listening to A Room With A View. It's amazing how listening to the book makes the knitting go incredibly quickly, and the knitting enhances my ability to focus on the book. Between them both, waiting for this baby to get here becomes less tedious and frustrating, as the day flies by quite quickly, and I feel like I've gotten so much done by the end.

Baby stuff

Where: Home
When: October 2011

Baby booties, on top of a baby blanket that I finished recently! The booties are adorable, but probably too small - my first attempt to make a larger pair was a bit of a failure, I'm not quite sure how to increase the pattern while maintaining the proportions.

I'm kind of disappointed with the blanket, it's not particularly interesting, and I made a number of mistakes in the seed stitch which bug me. I'm now working on another blanket that I am MUCH more excited about, with a much more interesting pattern and a challenging start.

Next project

Where: Home
When: October 2011

This scarf exists because I am incapable of entering a yarn store without buying something, apparently. I had gone in with a very, very specific yarn in mind, in a specific quantity, and I had picked it out and was waiting for the yarn to be wound, and congratulating myself on only spending $6 this trip... and then I started touching things, and disaster struck, because I touched THIS yarn, which is an amazingly soft and delicious and squishy baby alpaca, and I before I knew what had happened I was walking out the door with FOUR skeins of it. Sigh.

Originally I was planning on knitting the scarf, but I recently learned how to crochet as well, and I came across the pattern which seemed both good looking and relatively simple, using double crochet stitches, so I decided to give it a shot.

I kind of wish that I had decided to do one more row, and I think it actually wouldn't be that hard to add one on with the crochet pattern... I'll have to think about it, I decided to stop because I didn't really want to use more of the yarn for this, I wanted to save enough for a hat! So I think I'll do the hat first, then see how much yarn I have left and maybe try adding another row. I blocked it yesterday (my first attempt at blocking), but I think I wasn't bold enough with the stretching or the wetting, as it didn't really do much in terms of making it wider, although it did make it a bit longer.

I've already used the scarf, and it is quite decadently soft and warm, so overall I'm quite pleased!

Projects

While I wait for Baby Powers to hurry up and make her debut:


Where: Home
When: October 2011

I've been knitting and crocheting like crazy, which has been so much more fun than I imagined when I first decided to learn how. And now that I've discovered audio books, my productivity knows no bounds!

I have several projects that are either finished or almost finished - I'm not going to post them all at once, as that will be a little overwhelming, but I'll get them all up over the next week or so.

First project: my first attempt at a (very simple) lace pattern, which is turning into a gorgeously thick, squishy, cozy, warm scarf, with only a few bobbles and errors here and there:

Piper discovered my body pillow

Where: Home
When: October 2011

She was one happy girl. Until I came to bed and took it back.

Fall flowers

Where: Warwick, NY
When: October 2011

Dalliance

Where: Warwick NY
When: October 2011

In the interest of full disclosure - I totally didn't see these two grasshoppers until I downloaded the photos and looked at them in lightroom. This was the only photo where they were in focus, too.

Apple picking

We went apple picking last weekend! And I have a new lens to play with, so that made it even more fun. It's the Nikon 35mm 1.8 - I'm enjoying the new focal length, and it's proving to be quite a good walk around kind of lens, it served me well this trip for the detail shots, portraits, and a few landscapes. I'm quite pleased.

There were many, many apples:


Some rain - not too much rain, but just an occasional drizzle:


And a seasonal chill in the air, which made the hot mulled cider and apple cider donuts even more satisfying. We had both a pre-picking cider and donut, and a post-picking cider and donut - it's important to keep up one's strength in this kind of situation:


The drizzle made hats even more necessary, which always improves the hat-wearing experience:


A great time was had by all! It was my last outing before this baby decides to make an appearance - I'm not sure I want to be hours from the city in the next several weeks!

Oh, and I worked on this during the car ride:


Baby bootie! It turns out that attempting to crochet, when you have only just learned how to crochet, is made far more difficult in when in a moving vehicle, because there's a lot more bouncing than one might expect.

I really need to be doing more of this.

Where: Home
When: August 2011

Evening at the lake

Where: Upstate NY
When: August 2011

Piper at the lake

My girl is getting old:



Where: Upstate NY
When: August 2011

We had the opportunity to spend the weekend at a friend's parent's lake house, and it was absolutely lovely. Piper had a great time, but it made me realize that she's really starting to slow down. Her face is getting whiter, and while the opportunity to romp around in a lake would once have sent her racing in uncontrollably crazy circles, this time she was notably restrained, indulging in a matronly wade to stomach depth, pausing with eyes half closed and a contented expression, then wading back out. I think she enjoyed herself anyway, but it was a reminder that we probably only have a few years left with her.

Here she is looking a little more lively:

The end of Irene

Where: Home
When: August 28, 2011

Where: Battery Park City
When: August 2011

We had the most amazing weekend, totally by accident. Some friends invited us to head upstate with them to a lake house for the weekend, at 5pm on Friday night, and we had SUCH a great time. Although Piper might have had the best time of all, rolling in the grass, wading in the lake, begging for food in the kitchen, and walking through the woods. Our friends are fabulous hosts as well, and cooked the most delicious things all weekend.

Where: Tannersville, NY
When: July 2011

Where: Tannersville, NY
When: July 2011

Summer

Where: Tannersville, NY
When: July 2011

I finally uploaded some photos that I've taken over the last month or two, so I'll put those up this week, or will try to remember to.

Where: Tannersville, NY
When: July 2011

Sorry I've been so light on the posting these days, I'm having quite a lull in the creativity department. I took a couple of nice things over the weekend though, so I'll try to get those up.

Where: Solterreno, Spain
When: April 2011

Incoming

Where: Home
When: July 17, 2011

Sorry for the long silence - we've spent the last two weeks preparing for, and then recovering from, a move to a new apartment. This has been both stressful and exciting, but mostly exciting!

This was the view yesterday - we had thunderstorms rolling in and out all day, much to Piper's (and therefore my) distress. This morning the water is like glass, and there are no clouds, just a light fog over the river that the sun is dispersing. I think the thunderstorms are back tomorrow, sadly, but I'll take whatever reprieve I can get.

If it weren't for the dog's panic, I would actually enjoy them, especially from the new place, which provides an excellent viewing experience for all the drama.

Morning

Where: Solterreno, Spain
When: April 2011

I love that pre-opening stretch that flowers seem to do early in the morning.

Projects

Where: Home
When: May 2011

I'm learning how to knit! So far, I can purl and knit and cast on and bring in new colors! I like knit stitches best, the purl stitches make my hands cramp. I haven't gotten to the binding off stage yet. In theory, this will be a scarf, but I don't actually think it will be a scarf anyone wants to wear. It's more complicated than a scarf really should be, honestly, but because it's got lots of different elements, it is good practice for a variety of techniques.

The next thing is a hat, which is also a part of the learn to knit kit that had the scarf. And then I will either take a stab at a lovely looking afghan I just ordered the kit for, or I will try to hunt down enormous US 19 sized needles so that I can tackle the whole reason I decided to learn to knit in the first place, which is to learn to knit THIS most adorable of all adorable things.

At the moment, I'm stuck on what type of yarn to order for it, and also on finding needles that big, but I'm going to find a NYC yarn shop and see what they say.

Where: Highline Park, Chelsea
When: May 2011

Does wisteria come in yellow?

Where: Church garden across the street (NYC)
When: May 2011

Because this looked like a yellow version of a wisteria, but I'm not sure that that exists.

Bad back day today - no sharp, crippling pain, but a lot of continuously sharp and nagging pain made doing just about everything difficult, and made me feel extra cranky. Swimming was lovely, in that I didn't have any pain while I did it, but it didn't really help beyond that. I think this is weather related - it's been pouring rain for a couple of days, and I've noticed that rain seems to make it worse.

Make Way

Where: St. James Park, London
When: April 2011

These guys were so cute! They were very tiny, and there were at least a dozen of them.

Mommas

Where: St. James Park, London, UK
When: April 2011

I forgot about all these photos I took in Europe! I'll try to get more of those up.

Peeking Through

Where: Church garden across the street
When: May 8, 2011

Seven. My stamina for the "picture a day" game apparently goes to seven, because I cannot bring myself to pick up the camera today. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted! Maybe I'll pick it up for another week long stint in a few days.

In fabulous news, I tried swimming today, and found that not only did it feel wonderful, my back felt much better afterwards too! So between that, and the Pilates (which I found also helped my back a lot) I might actually be able to maintain a reasonable level of fitness through this pregnancy. I am so relieved.