Lots of knitting

Not much going on in the news department but I have been getting quite a bit of knitting done. I just finished a great pair of socks in yarn dyed by my friend Gwen. She sent me this yarn when I found out I was pregnant and I instantly knew it needed to be knit into something pumpkin-y.

Pattern: Little Pumpkins Sock

Yarn: Ice Cream Sundae by Craftsmeow in the Desert Sunset colorway

Needles: Size 2

Mods: shorter toes-bound off when I had 12 stitches on each needle

They are so cute! I couldn't have asked for the yarn and pattern to match up better. I even have enough left to knit a hat and socks for Maegwin.

I also started one of the patterns from the book Vintage Baby Knits that my mom gave to me. The pattern is the Pearl Shrug and I'm knitting it in the Dream in Color Smooshy I got from my swap partner this summer. She knit me some really adorable angora baby booties that will match it and I had to use the sock yarn for a sweater. The construction is really interesting too. You knit an hourglass for the back then pick up stitches around it to form the sleeves and then a border all around for the collar and fronts. Here it is so far:

I got to work on if for three and a half hours while our car was in the shop yesterday. I was coming back from my monthly OB appointment (all is great with little Maegwin by the way, she's growing just as she should be) and noticed the AC was blowing hot. I thought I was just pushing the car too hard since it was 90 outside so I turned it off and gave it a few. No dice. The temperature gauge kept climbing. I got almost back to work then decided I should turn around and head to the dealership. I cranked the heat and got it there. The car was leaking coolant. It turns out that the radiator had blown a hole in it and it was good I noticed when I did so no damage was done to the engine. I had to sit and wait for them to fix it and send the shuttle to get Josh from work. Luckily I had this little sweater with me. I had just cast on that morning.

One final pic to share. Gwen recently had a bit of a dyeing "happy accident" if you will. She was dyeing some skeins and they came out lighter. When I saw them on the forums we frequent and she asked for a name I said Bubblegum Baby without hesitation. So that's the name! They reminded me of this blanket I had as a baby. I think one of my grandmas knit it for me, but I'm not sure. Mom brought it over along with a few of my quilts from when I was a baby. I think it will be a great match for Maegwin to have a sweater from the yarn. Maybe she will be camo baby and I won't be able to see her. hehe

I might have trouble getting the blanket back from Planck though. This is kind of his perch now.

At home

So apparently another fun symptom of pregnancy is that I'm now allergic to urushiol. If you don't know, that is the oil that is secreted by poison oak, ivy, and sumac. I have not had reactions to it in the past. I used to be able to run around in it as a kid. I had a small patch on my leg that was a bit itchy but thought nothing of it. Today the entire inner part of both my legs is all rash covered. Ick! Luckily Josh had a bout of it a few weeks ago so we still had some Zanfel in the house. I treated myself and am now at home trying not to itch. The stuff actually works great for getting rid of the irritation though. I plan to listen to episodes of Cast-on, enjoy our new sofa, break down the boxes from our recent furniture purchases, and catch up on house cleaning.

We are very happy to finally be transforming our house into a cozy visiting place. We bought a chaise/sofa combo and a day sofa for upstairs in the knitting room. The sides lay out to make a twin bed which will work great when family comes to visit over the holidays. Let me just say-Cost Plus kicks Ikea's butt on prices and quality.

All we need now is a dining room table and chairs and a different desk for me. We plan to move them upstairs (out of the dining room where they are now) and with the Cape Cod ceilings, my current desk is too tall to fit. Honestly I want a smaller one anyway since I'll have all my craft cubbies readily accessible anyway and won't have to put all my knitting all over the place on my desk. I really love the tote pictured in the sofa photo. We made gift bags for all our neighbors with coffee, chocolate, scone mix, some candles, etc to thank them for helping us mow our lawn and found the super cute Crafts totes. I'll probably slowly buy some for the shelves upstairs.

I've got two more squares to knit for the baby blanket exchange. I've had fun with it but I don't know that I'd do it again for a bit. It's pretty tiresome to have to knit the same thing over and over for a month. I've also felt like I couldn't be as leisurely about my knitting as I usually am. I like the flexibility of knitting when I want to and going for days without if I want to. With a looming deadline I haven't been able to do that. I also have really wanted to do some baby garment knitting now that I know we are having a girl. So no more squares for me for a looong time. I do like how they have turned out though.

One year

A year ago today an intrepid couple moved across country and crossed the finish line into their new home state. They decided that in California they could never have the kind of life they wanted. It was a risky move-they left with no jobs, the money in their savings account, and hope that the cost of living elsewhere would be cheap enough to allow them to buy a house and start a family.

Along the way they saw many things:

The rocky slopes of Nevada

The flat desert of Utah

The stormy skies of Wyoming

The rainbows of Nebraska

The plains of Iowa after the flood

The farms of Illinois

The RV billboards of Indiana

And finally the finish line

Here we are one year later and we have managed to buy a house, be on the way to having a child and both be employed. At the time it was a scary gamble but it worked out and I'm glad we did it. I miss California, but we could never have had the life we have now if we were there.

All things baby

We had our 21 week ultrasound on Tuesday and found out we are having a girl! We are both so excited. She has her dad's beautiful round head that even the ultrasound tech commented on how well shaped it was. Here she is in all her glory.

I can't wait to see her in person. So now that the mystery is out of the way and we can start calling her Maegwin as her name will soon be, I've started going nuts with the baby knitting planning. I had a few things in the works but now have matched up some yarn with cardigans which I think will be great options for the wee December baby to be. I've also been hard at work on my blanket swap squares. I've mailed a lot out and am hard at work on the remaining six I need to knit in the next two weeks. I'm cranking out about one a day so I think I'm still on track. Just a few examples here:

I also recently participated in my second ever yarn swap. We were supposed to create color themed packages for our swap partners. I made mine red and included OPI nail polish, some nail files, some really cute ladybug stitch markers from the Wee Ones Etsy shop (go there, trust me), and two skeins of Yarn Love Elizabeth Bennett in the Red Delicious colorway. I was pretty pleased with myself to get that all within our $30-40 budget. My swap partner sent me a green themed package and knit me some adorable and ridiculously soft angora booties. So cute!! I plan to use the Dream In Color Smooshy yarn she sent me that coordinates to make a baby sweater that will match. She even included greenies for the dogs which they loved.

We harvested the rest of our potatoes last week and I think this year we ended up with about six pounds or so. It might be more-we didn't weigh them. We froze them in hash brown and cut up form so we have mashed potato fixings and hash browns ready to go at a moment's notice. Our corn all has ears and providing the deer don't mess with it we should have corn in the next few weeks. The cucumbers keep producing, one tomato has finally been allowed to mature enough to get blooms, and our peppers all have blooms on them. Considering that the garden was a groundhog all-you-can-eat buffet, I'm pretty happy we've managed to salvage anything. We know next year will be way better...which brings me to the best news this week.

JOSH HAS A JOB!!!! (Ok, ok as long as he doesn't fail his physical which he has already taken) Finally after four years of struggle he got a chemist position using his degree at a good lab in the area. We are both so happy about it. We almost can't decide which projects to tackle first but probably the back roof, finally replacing the last of the knob & tube wiring upstairs, and building the garden fence will be the ones for this year's agenda. We also will be buying a car and are pretty sure about a Prius but we might also consider a Honda Insight. It depends on how the payments fit into our budget and which will work better with baby gear.