cervix watch 2009

I can't decide whether it's in really poor taste to write about one's cervix on the interwebs. 

In the last few months I've discussed that part of my body with total strangers.  And my parents.  Is it dilated? Funneling?  Short?  Long?  Changing?  High, low, thick, thin, hard, soft, etc.  Six weeks of bed rest and (alleged) preterm labor can't really be discussed without mentioning the cervix, so by now I don't have any boundary issues.  Cervix cervix cervix!  Say it loud and there's music playing...

So.  Yesterday the fetuses and I went to the doctor where we learned that I'm 4 cm dilated and very effaced.  Doctor thinks it likely that the babies will be born in the next week.  So, naturally, I think to myself, "I really ought to go to the fabric store."

Naturally.

There are only 700 tons of laundry sitting in my roach-infested garage, waiting to turn into mildewy rags.  There are exactly zero frozen meals for us to eat after I come home with the babies.  My hospital bag remains empty, except for some yarn, a pair of tweezers, and a book about breastfeeding multiples.  My house is in an unprecedented state of squalor.  None of these situations are likely to resolve themselves, and are even less likely to be resolved by anybody I might happen to be married to.

But to the fabric store I went, and $45 dollars worth of fat quarters later I felt like my nesting urges were totally fulfilled.  I am completely ready to have these babies.

I seriously think that when the time comes, I might post photographs of the fabric instead of the babies.

BIG

In case you're wondering, this is what being 35 weeks pregnant with twins looks like.  If you're wondering what it feels like, try fracturing your pelvis and having a slipped disk.  Then take all your internal organs and squash them into something the size of a pez dispenser.  That will give you an inkling.

The reason I cropped out my face is because I am not smiling.  The reason I left in my dog's butt is because that seems totally appropriate to my mood.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really really happy that I'm still pregnant and that we've made it nearly to term.  Six weeks ago I was very worried about having two very tiny sick babies.  Now it looks like they'll be about five or six pounds each, which is pretty respectable for twins.  What I'd like to know is how ten pounds of baby required me to inflate to the size of a futon.

zippy sweater

It's under 70 degrees in lovely north Florida, which means only one thing:  bust out the woolens.  I finished knitting this zip up hoodie just in time for our bracing winter season.  It's a little big on him, but there's no way I'm spending a month knitting something that can only be worn for one year. No sir. 

I feel like the hood needs a pom pom or something.  While my kid still tolerates being dressed like a gnome, I am not passing up any opportunity for gnomification.  

Attaching a zipper to a knit is a pain in the rear.  I'm not 100% thrilled with how this zipper looks, but I can live with it.  My only advice is to keep the stitch length long for easy unpicking, use lots of pins, and--this is the key--close the zipper before attaching it to the second side (that will help you keep things lined up, which is key where stripes are involved).  Also, it's apparently impossible to shorten a separating zipper.

This is the pattern, but I did the hood my own way to boost the elf factor and maintain the stripe sequence.
This  is the yarn (very good price, let's hope it doesn't scratch/pill/felt too much).

doll quilt

Joseph needed a blanket so that the dozens of toys in his crib could be properly put to bed.  I thought this would be a way to use up some of my random blue scraps but it barely made a dent.  Why do I have so much blue fabric?  I don't even like blue.

Anyway, 2 inch squares, patched together, backed in some truck and train fabrics (because everything has to have a truck on it these days, okay?), quilted in the ditch, and bound with more blue scraps.  Now I kind of understand why people get all into making doll quilts.  It's totally on a manageable scale.

Two more things:

• This seems like a pretty slick way to piece together tiny squares; I will have to try it out when I grow up enough to use interfacing.
  
• This is the most inspiring assortment of doll quilts.

happyish

After an especially stressful morning involving one of my dogs attacking the other dog (again), and the ensuing horrible decision-making process which I'm sure I'll get into here once I stop hating myself, I am focusing on trying to be peaceful.  Calm.  Zen.  In that spirit, this is a list of easily accessible things that make me happy, or at least prevent a seriously bad day from becoming stratospherically awful.

• A long hot shower with nice-smelling soap.  The more expensive the soap, the better.
  
• Broadway show stoppers, belted out shamelessly.  By me and only me.  I truly hate when other people sing show tunes, or pretty much anything else for that matter.  This would be hypocritical but for the fact that I only sing at home, alone, with the shades drawn.
• Essential oils in the laundry.  We use some very virtuous, additive-free, earthy-friendly laundry detergent, and sometimes it leaves our clothes smelling a bit disappointing.  Some lavender essential oil in the fabric softener dispenser solves that problem and also makes my whole garage smell nice, almost like a place that doesn't harbor colonies of vermin.
• Tea.
• Take out.
• New fabric or yarn.  It's amazing how much distraction you can buy for under $20.
  
• Long walks.  Preferably by my own damn self, thank you very much, but my husband and kid are okay too.
  
• Organizing my closet.
• Making something.  Dinner, a sweater, some coasters.  I think it's a very primitive response to the mystery of creating something out of nothing, but making stuff usually takes the edge of a bad mood for me.  Of course the correlative is that when a project doesn't work out, I feel rotten.

That's enough to work with.  Now I'm going to make some tea and sing flamboyantly.

be still my heart

A bias tape making machine :

The catch is that it's $90 and you have to buy different tips to make different size bias tapes.  If it were $30 and came with a bunch of tips, we'd have a deal. 

SANTA, ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?


(my husband is santa.)

pile of rags (magic!)

This week's obsessive nesting project:  diaper inserts!  I had already made a boatload of pocket diapers, all of which needed inserts (i.e., something absorbent to stick inside them).  In an ideal world, you use super-absorbent microfiber inserts.  In my world, you scour your house in search of every unwanted piece of of vaguely absorbent and soft fabric to cut up and sew into rectangles.

A bunch of my husband's undershirts mysteriously committed suicide at the same time, so that was convenient.  I also cannibalized a lot of my nightclothes, having decided that I am a grown woman who no longer needs to sleep in bleach-stained t-shirts and body-hating yoga pants.  Then I cut up some yardage of hideous lime green cotton pique that I bought to make Joseph a golf shirt which he has worn twice, under duress.

Here's the neat part:  instead of sewing the fabric into proper diaper inserts (about six layers thick and probably about 10" x 4") I cut them into 8 x 11 rectangles which can be folded to be the right size and thickness for diaper inserts, and can also be used as tiny newborn-sized prefold-type diapers, with another folded rectangle in the middle for absorbency.

See?  I think these will fit better than the infant prefolds we have left over from Joseph.

An added bonus is that the same rectangles, folded up, function as both diaper doublers for older babies and as inserts for the ten million postpartum pads I made myself (free tutorial here!).  And they'll dry faster than a thicker, multi-layered piece of fabric.

To recap:  this is what I have accomplished

• inserts for the newborn diapers
• doublers for the bigger diapers
• prefold-ish newborn diapers for using under covers
  
• pad inserts for me
• everything dries quickly
• my husband's nightshirts do not need to go to the landfill
• no more hideous nightclothes for me
  

Awesome.