Tres Chic Veronique

We are incredibly proud and exceedingly happy to introduce you to the most beautiful baby in the world. We have seen many babies, so we are not making this statement lightly. Check it out for yourselves:

Samuel Elliott was born in the birthing center on Saturday May 9th, 2009 at 5:37AM, just as dawn was breaking and after 10 short hours of labor. He weighed 8 lbs 4 oz and was 20.5 in long.
A few minor health problems necessitated his admission to the NICU, where he spent the first 3 days of his life.

We are now all home and have started the adventure that is our lives as 3 in earnest!

As Katie says, I am a ticking baby bomb.
Don't believe me? Check out the belly:

At 36 weeks, my waist had increased by 12". By 38 weeks, it was a lucky 13", and now, at 39 weeks, my waist has increased by a whopping 14"! This baby is GROWING. And kicking. And still hiccuping.
I'm starting to run out of time, crafting-wise, so I'm trying to do only quick projects.
Here is one from the Purl Bee blog:

Instead of making magnets, I clipped these sea creatures to my photo mobile. It only took a couple of evenings!
I also whipped up a quilted burp cloth:

I used 2 baby wash cloths for the back. I don't know why, but we've been gifted many bath items, and have about 20 washcloths! And the fabric is some leftover Heather Ross.

Having my hands busy keeps me from wondering when this baby will make the decision to come out! But he's going to come out at some point, right? Right?!

Two weeks left until my due date?! I can hardly believe it.
Our hospital bags are packed, and waiting by the door.

They are waiting rather impatiently. (By the way, I realize that I never blogged about the Weekender Bag that I made in December 2006. Oops!).

I finished my diaper bag, just under the wire :)

(Pardon the scowl, but this is the best shot out of many pictures). As I mentioned in my previous post, this bag is a variation on the Everything Bag by Amy Butler. It's slightly smaller than the original pattern, and I added a zipper at the top. I've had this japanese fabric in my stash for a while, and love the fake french. It's the french equivalent of engrish.

And I did indeed finish the smaller-sized Baby Garter Kimono.

And now I'm thinking that it might be too small. I guess I'll have to bring both to the birthing center and see which one fits...
Oh, and I snuck in a baby blanket! Can you believe I didn't have a hand-knit baby blanket?! I've had a few balls of Rowan Cotton Tape hanging out in my stash for a few years now, and I married them to the Garter Chevron pattern (February 26th in the knitting stitch calendar). I swatched with one whole ball, calculated the area (in square inches) I could get out of that one ball, then figured out how many stitches I needed to cast on to make a square blanket. Thankfully, on size 10.5 needles, it only took 3-4 days!

Labels: baby blanket, diaper bag, garter baby kimono

I'm still here! I just couldn't blog without having some kind of FO to show you...

This is Simplicity 5756, a super easy pattern. I can't really tell you which "view" I made, since I made the short sleeves from the shirt pattern, but followed the directions for the dress. I used a modern flower print from Purl. I finished this dress just in time to wear to what turned out to be a surprise baby shower!
I also finally made the second baby bootie.

This is a very clever pattern: it's knit from the sole up (I started with a magic 8 cast on), and it's done all in the round. I must admit that the translation (from german) was very confusing, but as you can see, I figured it out!
And, last but not least, I finally cut out the pieces for my diaper bag!

I'm basing it on the Amy Butler "Everything Bag" from her "Little Stitches" book. I had the idea to make a bag that was a hybrid of the Weekender bag and the Everything bag, but then I saw Fancie Pants Knits' version of the Everything bag... Well, it's so cute, I settled on making the Everything, with a zippered top!