things I have been doing to be less crazy

I veer between punch-the-wall anger, blissed-out dopeyness, and open weeping.   Thank you, hormones.  I remember this happening at the very end of my first pregnancy, but this time I suppose it's coming sooner because of all the extra twin-related hormones.  The solution for a normal person would probably be to exercise but I'm now supposed to be "resting as much as possible" so the babies don't accidentally get themselves born too soon.  There are so many things I could say about the silliness of telling the mother of a toddler to "rest" but I will leave that up to your imagination. 

So this is what I've been doing to achieve whatever mental stability I might be capable of at the moment:

• Scott now takes Joseph out on Saturday mornings so I can clean the bathrooms.  There is something about a clean bathroom that I find very soothing, so this has been good from a mood-stability standpoint.  It also means that I could probably take a bath without catching anything.  If I can still fit in the tub, that is.
• I let Joseph do pretty much whatever he wants as long as it won't hurt him.  Putting makeup on the dog?  Fine.  Distributing hundreds of baby wipes around the house?   Super.  Insisting on complete nudity at all times?  Great idea, wish I'd thought of it myself. 
  
• We bought three new hampers so I can partially satisfy my laundry-sorting obsession (complete satisfaction would involve about six color-coded hampers and a label maker).  This is a huge improvement over the perpetually overflowing, unventilated, rusting, mildewy, bug-harboring Ikea trash bin. If only I could figure out a sorting strategy that involves no more than three piles (whites, colors, and delicates, maybe?).

I've also been sewing a lot, but there's a limit to how often you can post about homemade cloth dipaers and little baby dresses.  

a completed Liesl

This sweater--made from the justly famous Liesl pattern--is a knitting first for me:  something that I can actually envision buying in a store.  The color may be bland but it matches all the other dirt-colored things in my wardrobe.  It also is the first pattern I actually paid for. The thick yarn (KnitPicks Shine Worsted) and huge needles make it a satisfyingly fast knit.  Also, it wasn't hard, once I realized that I had to pay attention to the stitch count instead of just watching the Netflix and hoping for the best.  I'll definitely knit this again (already bought the yarn, actually) but I'll make the sleeves longer.

I had Scott take these pictures because tripods and toddlers don't mix.  We don't have full length mirrors in our house (for some very good psychological reasons, such as the fact that full length mirrors stop me from eating lunch, if you get what I mean) so I'm not used to seeing my new expanded dimensions.  Whenever I get a glimpse of myself I really can't imagine how I'm going to make it three more months.  All of my internal organs have already been displaced by baby limbs (at the last ultrasound there were four feet lined up against my rib cage) so I imagine that the only place to grow is out.  Troubling thought.

P.S. Yes that is a giant stain on my dress.  I have nothing to offer in my defense.

art quilt love

I love this:

As a matter of fact, I love all of this.

Love, I tell you.

I want to make something  just like it, but I'm pretty sure this is one of things that looks easier than it is.  Meanwhile, I'm eating up that flickr set.  LOVE.

silly hat for tiny baby head

Because I had a bit of a loaves & fishes situation with the yarn I used for this little sweater, I was able to make a matching hat.  The pattern is here.  The pattern was very easy to follow, although I when I got to the top of the hat where I was using two colors per row, I was not sure what to do with the yarn I wasn't using, so I wound up carrying it across, fair-isle style.  In other words, the inside of this hat is quite a mess.

I like baby hats with ears, flowers, plants, etc. growing out of the top.  I remember when Joseph was tiny, looking at him in the rear view mirror and watching him scream his little head off while he was wearing a hat with bear ears.  The bear ears definitely took the edge off the daily tragedy that was getting in the car.  I figure a screaming baby in a silly hat is better than a screaming baby without a silly hat.  And two screaming babies?  You get my point. 

I have no idea whether the sweater and the hat will fit the baby at the same time.  This is one of the problems with making things in advance of the babies' arrival.

baby sweater in mysterious color

 I knit this during the hellish flight back from New Jersey a few weeks ago while I pretended not to know the screaming toddler in the seat next to me.  The yarn is Cascade 220 Superwash.  Joseph kept calling this sweater "pooka," which at first was a mystery but now we understand is how he says purple.

The pattern started out as the baby shrug from Debbie Bliss's Simply Baby (and conveniently available for free here) but I made a lot of modifications when it became apparent that the smallest size was going to be much too big.  Basically, I cast on fewer stitches and took a bit off every dimension.  Also, I added a buttonhole but have yet to add a button because all my buttons look cheap and dumb when held against a handknit.  I need a fancy button.

This came together so damn fast and used so little yarn that I feel very comfortable with the fact that it will only fit the baby for a month or two.

As a side note, what is with the cheesiness of baby hangers?  I wish I could find some tiny, simple wooden hangers instead of this satiny ribbony business.

another baby hoodie

To match this one, of course.

A philosophical / knitting question:  how come, when I do the exactly the same thing two different times (e.g., use the same yarn &; needles, cast on the same number of stitches, work the same number of rows in exactly the same way, etc.) I can get two different results?   This sweater is about a size larger than the other one.  It must be a gauge issue (what I'm trying to say is that I might have rushed through this second sweater in a fit of "holy hell I'm having two babies but if I make another hoodie right this very minute because then everything will be just fine").

Oh well, I suppose one of the twins is bound to be bigger; he or she will be the one who wears this sweater.