(Finally) Some Knitting (and Sewing)

Knitting! Gifts! Exclamation points! Parentheses!

I’ve been working on a few hand-made gifts for a while, but have held back their pictures so as not to spoil the surprise for the giftees.  Now I can finally share.  

Specimen 1: Parents’ Little Helper Bucket (from the Toy Gathering Bucket Sewing Tutorial at Sew, Mama, Sew!)

Recalling life with a newborn, I can remember countless times settling down to nurse the baby, getting us both comfortable, and then realizing that I couldn’t reach my water.  Or my chapstick.  Or the phone.  You get the idea.  Once I got the hang of nursing (and that pesky cesarean scar healed), I could hop up and grab what I needed without disturbing the baby.  But until that time, a basket, bag, or bucket to hold a few comfort items was a lifesaver for me.  This fabric bucket can hold whatever might comfort mom or dad when it comes time to feed the baby.  Stash the aforementioned water, chapstick, and phone.  Toss in a snack, pen and paper, a burp cloth, a tube of nipple cream.  Then scoop up the bag in one hand and know that you can relax with the baby and have whatever you need within reach.  This one uses fusible fleece to help it stand up tall.  Toss the bucket into the washing machine when the baby barfs on it or you spill/spray milk on it (parenting babies is so glamorous).  This was made with bits of two fat quarters of quilting fabric (the exterior) and part of an old flowery sheet (the interior).  The bucket makes a great delivery device for other gifts as well (this one held baby sweater, hat, and socks).  Later you can use for a toy bag, an Easter basket, or a really wacky hat. 

Homemade fabric bucket, light orange with dark orange outside pockets, a peek of flowery lining visible

An overly bright view of the inside of the orange fabric bucket

Specimen 2: Orange- and green-striped baby sweater (from EZ’s Surplice Baby Jacket knitting pattern by Elizabeth Zimmerman, with commentary by Meg Swansen, Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 2007)

This is a very easy garter-stitch sweater, knit in one piece beginning at the bottom.  Decreases along each side create the inner edge; strategic increases create the sleeve-shaping.  The only seaming is at the top of each sleeve.  I used three-needle bind-off for this, but kitchener stitch would do just as well.  Zimmerman and Swansen have given us more of a recipe than an exact pattern, with many possibilities for personalization and variation.  Button plackets, ribbed cuffs, a foldover collar, longer or shorter sleeves are all possibilities.  The  yarn here is KnitPicks Shine Sport in Grass (the green) and Marmalade (the orange), a very soft washable cotton yarn.  This one has buttonholes all around the bottom to make it widely adjustable to the size of the baby, but in the end, worried about the baby choking, I left off the buttons.  Ties might have been nice, but the overlapping points of the sweater will suffice for most purposes down here in the South Texas sunshine.  

Orange- and green-striped, hand-knit, baby surplice jacket

Specimen 3: Orange- and green-striped baby hat (from the patterns of my fevered brain)

This matching baby hat is made with the same yarn as the sweater, with a soft ribbed edge and stockinette top. 

Green- and orange-striped, hand-knit baby hat

Specimens 4a, 4b, and 4c: Infant and toddler socks (from the patterns of my fevered brain)

The grey/black pair of infant socks on the left of this picture are 24-stitch socks that are quick and fun to make. I can make one infant sock during a World Cup soccer match, provided I knit steadily, stopping only occasionally to blow a pretend vuvuzela.  I have a theory that baby socks knit during World Cup matches impart special kicking power to their wearers.  The greenish sock at the center is another infant sock, which has acquired a mate and been gifted to a neighbor for her new grandbaby.  The toddler sock on the right has a mate-in-progress and is destined to be launched to Canada to celebrate glorious Exceptions.  The yarn here is KnitPicks Essential in Lily Pad Multi (the greeny) and Carbon Twist (the grey/black). 

Hand-knit baby socks: one pair of grey/black infant socks, one greenish infant sock, one greenish toddler sock

Fancy-schmancy Presentation Idea A: Using the yarn wrapper

Some smart person on the internet suggested giving away the yarn wrapper with hand-knit gifts to share both fiber content and laundry care with the recipient.  Some people even include a bit of the yarn in case of future repairs.  I rolled up the baby sweater and hat and tucked them inside the skein band from their yarn to make this tidy little package.

Striped baby sweater and hat, rolled up and tucked into the yarn wrapper

Fancy-schmancy Presentation Idea B: ribbon and tag 

Baby socks are too small to tuck inside yarn wrappers, so I often tie them up with a ribbon and a card.  I write the fiber content and care instructions on the card along with a message.  In the case of socks I always point out that baby socks make great Christmas ornaments.  I bet many of the baby socks I give spend more time on Christmas trees than on feet.  Babies grow fast.  

Grey/black hand-knit infant socks, tied together with a blue ribbon and a card that reads: “When these wee socks are outgrown they make sweet ornaments. 75% wool/25% nylon. Machine wash/tumble dry low.”

Specimen 5: G’s Treasure Bag (from Traci’s Trinket Keepers Sewing Tutorial at Amazing Mae)

This was a fun, quick, and easy little gift for a five year old’s birthday.  The bag is reversible and the tutorial gives instructions for varying the size.  The carabiner can be clipped onto a belt loop, bike handlebar, or some other place in order to stash the treasures of the new big-sibling away from the pokey fingers of the baby. This one held a small notebook and pencils.  I printed out large, fancy upper- and lower-case G’s as templates for the felt applique.

Homemade fabric treasure bag with red carabiner, blue side with red, felt applique, lower-case g

Inside-out view of the treasure bag, red side with blue, felt applique, upper-case G

Warm Regards to Sonar X10 (double digits!)

Sonar X10, back when he was SonarX2monthsThe birthday kid! He has a lot more hair now.

ABAW May Edition

A.  Book.  A.  Week. (with echoes. echoes. echoes.)  We read bits of several different series this month. Also, slim notes this month. Winging it on memory.

Books I Read to Myself that Had Little or Nothing to Do With my Children

Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman

Through touchingly frank stories about her own experience as a parent, Ayelet Waldman tries to get at what it takes to be a good mother in America.  The threshold is incredibly high.  In fact, it might be impossible.  Even when we work ourselves to the edge of mental breakdown, work as hard as we can to please everyone and do everything, someone still thinks we’re not doing it right.  By that unattainable standard, we are all bad mothers.  Waldman’s stories are funny, heartbreaking, honest, and rich with detail on topics such as learning disorders, depression, abortion, religion, breastfeeding, maternal boundaries, sex, and GUILT.  Waldman’s style and tone are engaging and familiar, and I found myself jotting down phrases and sentences here and there as I read.  My favorite:  “I always tell my kids that as soon as you have a secret, something about you that you are ashamed to have others find out, you have given other people the power to hurt you by exposing you.”  So wise.  I couldn’t help but reflect on my own experiences with motherhood as I read.  I admire Waldman for sharing these very personal experiences.  She’s a great writer and strikes me as smart and tough, and I would throw myself in with bad mothers like her any day. 

America’s Cheapest Family by Annette and Steve Economides

This was a straggler among the books I read for our personal finance checkup last month.  Unlike some of the others last month, this one was more oriented toward practical, everyday actions to improve family finances, plan for the future, teach our children how to handle money, and dig out of debt. 

Jane Slayre by Charlotte Bronte and Sherri Browning Erwin

I resisted this one for a while.  Okay, for about a week.  I resisted mainly because I love the original.  It’s one of those books that is a sort of memory anchor for a particular personal transition in my life.  So I resisted, worried that this derivative would tamper with that memory anchor.  Turns out I had nothing to worry about.  Jane Slayre is fun.  It doesn’t have the musty atmospherics of the original, but Erwin exploits the spaces around Jane’s story in clever ways.  I preferred the innuendo-packed camp of Pride and Prejudice with Zombies, but I think I may be finished with the supernaturalization of the classics.  I wonder if there’d be any interest in rewriting classic horror and suspense novels to remove the supernatural elements?  No?  Didn’t really think so.

Grave Sight (Harper Connelly Book 1) by Charlaine Harris

Grave Surprise (Harper Connelly Book 2) by Charlaine Harris

An Ice Cold Grave (Harper Connelly Book 3) by Charlaine Harris

Harris has received notoriety as the creator of the Sookie Stackhouse universe, but she has other notable characters in her repertoire as well.  The main character of this series, Harper Connelly was struck by lightning as a teenager, and since then she’s had the uncanny ability to find dead bodies and know how they met their ends.  Of course, most people think she’s a fraud, but she and her step-brother Tolliver now travel the country trying to make a living with Harper’s talent.  They fall into creepy situations, dance around their own personal family mysteries (including a sister who disappeared many years before), and try to help the dead be found.  Whereas the Sookie Stackhouse books trade in camp, dark humor, and a delicious (pun intended) kind of vampire hypersexuality, the Harper Connelly books have a milder, more serious tone.  Harper is a more or less regular woman with a very irregular ability.  Though she occasionally meets other people with different types of extra-sensory perception, Harper’s world is not populated by vampires or supernatural monsters—only the occasional human one.  The books are well-plotted, with each volume working as an independent mystery, while still feeding the overall arcing story of the series.  There are no uber-villains, just crimes and mysteries to be solved, skeptical and downright mean people to be faced, and relationships to be negotiated.  My favorite character is the much-pierced and tattooed young man who shares some kind of intuitive awareness about people with his flamboyant grandmother.  All of Harris’s books grab me by the ears and don’t let go.  I always read them in a day or two, sneaking pages here and there throughout the day.  The fourth volume in the series is due out later this year.  Great beach/vacation reading. 

Storm Front (The Dresden Files Book 1) by Jim Butcher

Fool Moon (The Dresden Files Book 2) by Jim Butcher

Harry Dresden is Chicago’s only openly practicing wizard.  His world looks a lot like ours, only there’s magic and monsters, and an enigmatic place called the Nevernever.  The tone of the books very much echoes hard-boiled detective fiction.  Like the Harper Connelly series, I can’t put these books down.  Well-plotted and well-paced, every chapter ends with a hook that won’t let me go.  I find Harry’s character charming without being smarmy.  There are moments of sarcasm and levity, but also some pretty grim scenes as well.  The series numbers at least twelve books so far, with more in the imaginings by the author.  Another great choice for beach/vacation reading.  

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

I loved this book right from the start.  A multi-perspective, multi-generational, multi-country story about Oscar de Leon, an American of Dominican descent.  A literary gamer-geek to the nth degree.  Diaz gives us an epic narrative that both educates on the history, politics, and culture of the Dominican Republic (with the aid of copious footnotes), and the personal history of the life of Oscar.  No matter how different he seems from everyone else in his family and neighborhood, Oscar is both the product and the victim of his cultural history.  I found each new section a bit jarring as I tried to identify the narrative voice, and become oriented to what part of the story was unfolding.  That disorientation, I think, added to the sense of confusion and alienation that many of the characters feel.  If I neither belong here, nor there, where are my anchors?  Oscar’s sister Lola is a compelling character, but in the end, the sections narrated by Oscar’s friend and Lola’s boyfriend, Yunior, were the most thought-provoking for me.  Yunior and Oscar shared more similarities than Yunior is willing to admit, though they are dramatically different in terms of their demonstrations of masculinity and intellectualism.  I wonder in the final pages of the book whether Yunior is telling the story of Oscar as a way of understanding himself better, whether Oscar is a sort of manifestation of Yunior’s own personal struggle.  Diaz won many awards for this book, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. 

Books I read Out Loud to the Children

Drizzle by Kathleen Van Cleve

We loved this book.  Polly Peabody lives on a magical rhubarb farm where it rains at precisely one o’clock every Monday afternoon.  Some people think there is a logical and scientific explanation to the rain and the chocolate rhubarb, but when a life-threatening illness strikes Polly’s brother and the rain suddenly quits, Polly begins to discover for herself what makes the farm tick.  Full of literary allusions (a central trope involves a volume of Emerson), this book resonated with our young to middle-grade kids without being condescending.  The emotions portrayed are raw and honest.  Polly explains what happened and how it felt when her grandmother died, and is faced with the possibility that her brother will die as well.  Polly feels alienated in her new middle-school and has a hard time making friends.  Van Cleve creatively finds ways for Polly to act-independently, navigating a confusing set of realistic family relationships and one perceived betrayal as well as the mystery of the farm.  A really charming book about self-discovery that demonstrates that the magic inside is what really moves the world.  

The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

The kids loved this one almost as much as I did.  Check out my comments on it from last September here.

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

We laughed out loud at several points in this book.  What happens when a  modern writer tells an old-fashioned story about four old-fashioned children with atrocious parents?  Throw in a charming and capable Nanny, a lonely, mourning industrialist, and an abandoned baby, along with a fair dose of mischievousness, kid-humor, and an extended candy bar joke, and you get The Willoughbys.  Another smart, snappy book full of literary allusions, complete with a cheeky glossary of all the big words, and an annotated bibliography of other old-fashioned stories that inspired Lowry.  Deeelightful.  The kids quote this one extensively, but if I share their favorite quotes with you, you’ll think they’re crude.  Or you might just think they’re giggly kids.  

Sonar X9 Read a few things too!!

The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Book 1) by Michael Scott

The Magician (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Book 2) by Michael Scott

Attack of the 50 foot Cupid (Franny K. Stein Book 2) by Jim Benton

Ghosthunters and the Incredibly Revolting Ghost (Ghosthunters 1) by Cornelia Funke

Ghosthunters and the Gruesome Invincible Lightning Ghost (Ghosthunters 2) by Cornelia Funke

What We’re Reading Now

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson  (me) This is the second try for me.  I quit after fifty pages the first time.  I was assured it will get better, and it did.  Nearly halfway through now, and I must know what happens.  

The Sorceress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Book 3) by Michael Scott (Sonar X9)  Won’t call him that much longer. Last time, in fact.

The Mysterious Benedict Society (MBS Book 1) by Trenton Lee Stewart (out loud)  A fun book so far, full of puzzles.  Fun to read a story about gifted kids to gifted kids.  Every few pages we stop because they want to talk about something.