Dogs Steal Yarn

Billy's calling it the Yoda Sweater.

I don't know exactly what to call it just yet. It's done, though. Baby's first sweater.

It was hard to get a decent photo of this yarn, for some reason. I'm much happier with the sweater than with the photos I took of it. I drew a sketch of the baby sweater that lived in my head on a particularly hormonal day, and knit up it actually turned out just as I'd wanted it to. Very, very pleased with this little thing. I used three balls and a little bit of a fourth of Mission Falls 1824 Cotton. (June baby = cotton sweater, you see.)

There's an internal tie to keep everything in place.


I'll write up the pattern next week and post it for anyone who's interested.

Next up in baby knits is that Dale of Norway Sea Lion sweater. I bought the yarn for it a while back, and it taunted me from the stash while I did all the holiday knitting.

Happy New Year's, everyone! Be safe.

Gratuitous kitten photo

Because who doesn't like a kitten? Even an attack kitten. Well...Diego, for one. But in photos you can't feel the needle-like claws and teensy razor teeth.

So a bit of Oscar for his very patient fans. And also to distract you from the lack of knitting photos lately. But not for long! I have some i-cord to make and some ends to weave in, and then the sweater I designed in a panic for the baby will be done and ready for viewing. And I'll write up the pattern...um...soon. Watch this space. I'll probably post the sweater tonight or tomorrow. Baby's first sweater! Woohoo! No worries about a cold baby coming home from the hospital. Um. In June. Yeah.

There's been a bit of a shift in blogging focus here since I fessed up about the impending baby. Lots of pregnancy talk. A bit of knitting talk. Pretty much nothing about writing or the first novel or the second novel. Have you noticed? Go on. You can admit it.

The reason? The first novel, Drowning Practice, is still in the shopping-around-to-publishers phase under the expert supervision of my fantasticwonderfulIloveher agent to beat all agents. I'm still waiting for word. Why such a long wait? Well... A) That's the process, folks. Yeah. It kind of sucks. It's torture. B) No one works in book publishing during the holidays, or really in the weeks leading up to the holidays. How do I know this? I'm sitting right now in the more than half-empty office of a major book publisher. (No, I didn't break in. I work here.) Or, that is to say, very very few acquisitions editors work during these weeks. So I won't be hearing anything before January. And then there'll be a backlog of work so....

Basically, I sit around very nervously and try not to think too much about the book or wonder who is reading it right now and loving it or hating it.

No, I haven't been terribly successful at not thinking about that. Though the baby-in-progress has been a good distraction. Nothing like pregnancy to put other major and minor life issues in perspective. But the book is still a very big deal to me. And I'm nervous. Oy vey.

The second book? The novel that I started at Ragdale? Haven't done much writing at all since getting back from Ragdale. I could blame the editing work I had to take on, or the distraction of the impending kid, or the way my sudden need to go to sleep at a reasonable hour has cut into my writing time, but really I think it's the not knowing what's going to happen with the first book that has me thrown off my normal writing schedule. I want to get back to it this week if I can. I finished my last editing job for the next little while yesterday, so that means Friday I'm free to go back to my writing schedule. And I will. Gulp.

And maybe next week I'll have some good news about the first book? Or maybe not. Or not yet. But one can hope, yes?

A nice traditional American Christmas...

...means lots of family, too much food, and all of it ending in tears, yes?

A word to the wise: If someone you love is pregnant, and her face is breaking out like a teenager's as a result of said pregnancy, chances are she's feeling self-conscious about it. If the acne is worse than she's ever had in her life before, chances are she's not feeling all that pretty. Do not. I repeat, DO NOT tell her, "Hey, you look great except for all the zits."

I'm breaking out like crazy. There's an angry red ring around my mouth. I look in the mirror and I swear I see Fred Flintstone's five o'clock shadow, rendered in teeny red bumps and raw red skin. And zits on my forehead too. And the rest of my face so dry it feels like it will tear if I don't moisturize. When I'm not pregnant, I'm lucky enough to have reasonably clear skin. I didn't even get much acne as a teenager. So now I look in the mirror and, frankly, want to cry. I had no idea I had so much invested in my appearance. Apparently I do. And it's not so great these days. Where's this pregnant-woman glow one hears so much about? Cause I'm not glowing.

So I walked into my family's holiday gathering yesterday, and an uncle who claims to love me started teasing me about my skin. I ignored him and tried to have a nice visit with my family. And then it was time to leave and he made the same crack again. Maybe it seems like a small thing. A safe thing to tease about. Well, it's not. It was the worst possible thing to say. I usually don't get into such specifics here. I don't really blog about my family. But I'm pissed. I shouldn't have to walk around my family gathering--supposed to be the safest place in the world, right?--feeling embarrassed because the act of creating life is making my face break out.

Grrrr. So I called him a jerk. And I didn't cry until Billy and I got home. And now Billy wants to punch my uncle. Why is it that being with family turns us all into 12-year-olds?

And all you moms and moms-to-be: Any idea of safe treatments for pregnancy acne? Because I think I'm reaching the end of my ability to just live with it.

transit strike, day two

I'm not feeling trapped at home yet, but if the strike goes on much longer I anticipate a bit of cabin fever setting in. Luckily I have handknit socks to soothe the sting. Look what Monica made me!

They're beautifully made and very comfortable. And they fit perfectly! Thanks again, Monica. I really love them.

(And that bit of fluff on the toe isn't part of the socks. It's...um...part of my floor, I guess. Or was on the floor until it decided to hitch a ride on my sock. I didn't notice until Billy the Sock Photographer had already rolled out of here on his bike, so the photo with evidence of floor fluff will just have to do.)

By the way, the cravings have shifted. Orange juice was SO first trimester. Over it. Now it's all about pineapple juice and apple cider. No, not together. And knishes (spinach potato knishes. mmmm) with fresh saurkraut. And salty potatoes in all forms. And tostones. TOSTONES!!! Oh...and here's a weird one. Today I'm dying for some jelly beans. Hunh? Who ever actually, specifically wants jelly beans? Let's hope I'm not carrying the next incarnation of Reagan here. Isn't it a little sad that I associate jelly beans with our former evil emperor? And isn't it sadder that Bush has made Reagan look a little less evil in retrospect? But anyway... jelly beans. The point is I really want some jelly beans. Let's hope Billy remembers them on his way home. Let's all think thoughts of jelly beans and direct them toward Billy as he rides his bike through the gridlock that is now our fair city, shall we?

Jelly beans....jelly beans.... Ooh! And maybe some french fries? Jelly beans...Jelly beans...

Well...crap...

Yeah. Transit strike.

Pregnant women do not walk 8+ miles each way in the winter cold to get to their jobs in midtown, thanks. Nor do we ride bikes. Or rather, my doctor has forbidden me from riding a bike and I think she's right. So if you need me, I guess I'll be at home. I really didn't think they'd strike. Crap. Fingers crossed it ends soon. I work three days a week at a publishing house. Today isn't one of my work days anyway. If the strike is still on tomorrow, I'm hoping they'll messenger work to me at home. Everyone else in the department lives in Manhattan, within reasonable walking distance of the office, or comes in on NJ Transit, which is still running.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to dig up some warm gloves for Billy to wear. He's biking it today. Normally he refuses to wear gloves, which means he doesn't own any. And I'm not sure I have any that aren't red. So a-digging through the winter gear I go. Anyone have a good mitten pattern that knits up in...oh...twenty minutes?

Knitterly karma, the easy way

Man, did I get off light with the ambassador's sweater repair.

Behold, the sweater in question, knit by previously mentioned dead knitting mum, in what feels like a very scritchy cotton blend:

And behold the damage needing repair:

Yep, that's it. I can probably do it just with the yarn already there. Good thing, since I can't even begin to guess at what yarn she used. The first picture shows the color and...um...sheen accurately. Said sheen wouldn't allow me to get a detail of the damage while using the flash, though. Maybe cotton coated in teflon? Who knows. It's not pure synthetic but it's definitely not wool or any other animal fiber. I could do the burn test to determine the fiber used, but something tells me the ambassador wouldn't appreciate that.

I really hope I'm lucky enough that my kids will care enough about what I knit for them that twenty years after I'm gone they'd be willing to enlist their physical therapist's spouse to fix a little tear at the neck seam. Not that I'll know it if they do. But still.

Dogs Steal Yarn Knits for the UN

Yeah. You read that title right. See, it all starts with a phone call from my darling husband the other day.

"Hey!" he says. "I gave one of my patients your phone number."
"What?! Why?"
"The house number. I gave him the house number. He has this sweater that his mother knit for him like twenty years ago and it's starting to fall apart."
"Yeah...and? Tell me you're kidding. You're kidding."
"I'm serious. Look, he's a really nice guy. He used to be the ambassador from [nation not to be mentioned here for patient confidentiality purposes] to the UN. I thought maybe you could fix his sweater?"
"I'm not here to solve the world's knitting problems. I won't do it. And stop giving our home number to patients. If you want to reach me today you'd best call my cell phone because there's no way I'm answering the house phone now."

And we kind of left it at that. And then the former ambassador DID call. And he left a message. And in a very polite, kindly voice he proceeded to tell the answering machine about how his mother had knit him this sweater and how she had died twenty years ago, and how he would love to have this sweater repaired. He brought a dead knitting mother into it. See...now I HAVE to try to fix this sweater.

So I said I'd give it a try. And I also told Billy that if he does this again, he's dead meat.

Sabotaging myself, just to keep things interesting

Things people who know me in the real world could tell you about me:

1. I'm very independent. Fiercely, grumpily independent.
2. I'm stubborn.
3. See numbah one.
4. I have a somewhat exaggerated sense of what I can accomplish in a twenty-four-hour period and will forego rest to meet those expectations.
5. See numbah two again. And numbah one, while you're at it.
6. My schedule is insane, as a rule. Mostly I like it that way.
7. I'm a New Yorker for a reason. I move fast. I cram a lot of things into a little space, cram a lot of activities into limited time. (Slow-moving tourists walking five damn people across at a slow stroll as if no one in the city had any damn where to be because YOU are on vacation? Yes, I will explain the error of your ways as I push past you. Excuse my shoulder. Of course that was an accident.)

What I learned the hard way this weekend? None of these things really go well with pregnancy. Mothers around me have told me my body is no longer my own. Many of you kind readers have told me the same. Yes, makes perfect sense intellectually. Emotionally? I've cringed every time I've heard it. My body no longer being my own means giving up a lot of control. And yes, I'm sure this is only the beginning of all the control I will be giving up through the pregnancy and then as a mother. And no, I'm not adjusting to that gracefully.

I'm thrilled about the baby (and terrified). I'm thrilled that I'm going to be a mom (and friggin' terrified). Let's just say I'm not taking to the whole thing with Earth Motherly grace. Good for those of you who did or are doing so.

I've been a vegetarian for seventeen years, and have always eaten very well so that didn't require any real changes (except giving up my beloved moldy cheeses. Sniff). I don't drink at all, so didn't have to give that up for the baby. Until last week, I still have a cup of coffee a day. There really weren't that many changes that I'd had to make so far. Yeah, I've been really tired, but otherwise... First trimester looked an awful lot like my pre-pregnant life--except that I was living it in roomier pants and finally getting to sleep at a decent hour.

Well. The universe and the baby joined forces to give me quite the wake-up call this weekend. I worked all week, both at the part-time day job and the freelance work. I went to three doctor appointments, ran a million errands, and did holiday shopping. I saw friends for holiday dinner-type obligations. I stayed up too late a few times. Normal stuff. On Saturday morning I went to a prenatal yoga class. I'd practiced yoga for years, as well as martial arts. Went to the gym (yawn). I'm a reasonably active, fit person. Except for this one thing I failed to take into account: I hadn't done any exercise at all, except for two measly gym visits and a good amount of walking, for the entire first trimester, because I'd been too tired. Guess what happens when you take an hour and a half long yoga class after three months of nothing?

Felt great all through class. Got home feeling tired. Lay down on couch. Stayed on couch for six hours, unable to get up to go to the dining room for the dinner Billy made. He brought the dinner to me in the living room. Get this: I couldn't even knit. I crawled up to bed after dinner and stayed there until nine Sunday morning. Nine a.m. Sunday morning and I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. Little voice from somewhere beneath my belly button crept up into my brain and said, "Excuse me? Mom? One of us in this body is supposed to be the responsible adult who takes care of both of us and I may be a fetus but I'm pretty damn sure it isn't ME who's in charge. So...uh... could we stay in bed today?" And then the voice muttered something about karma and having hoped for a more sensible mom.

I had to miss Valentina's baby shower, which I'd really been looking forward to. But I did it. I rested yesterday. And today I feel mostly better, and just a normal level of soreness from the yoga class.

Yes, I've learned my lesson. I think.

What made a morning without coffee much more pleasant...

If you please, go to failbetter and check out the right sidebar...where it talks about the upcoming issue.I have to say that it absolutely thrills me to see my name within two inches of Mary Gaitskill's.

What cruel new twist is this?!

I love my coffee. You know how I love my coffee. The first three days after the positive pregnancy test, I went cold turkey with the coffee. Intense pain and anguish ensued. Wasn't worth it. It seemed that withdrawal was worse for me and the baby than a wee bit of caffeine, so I decided to allow myself one cup of coffee a day. This was down from three or four cups a day in my carefree pre-fetus days, mind you. I've been enjoying my one cup in the morning since then and all has been well.

Until the last few days. Okay, maybe a week. That single cup of coffee has been leaving me all jangly and nervous. Feeling like I'm on the edge of a panic attack nervous. No good. I love my coffee. I love love love my coffee. And there are so many other very good reasons in my life for panic attacks right now. Seemed premature to blame the coffee.

Experiment. This morning I had tea instead. I feel fine. Calm. Reasonably energetic and no caffeine headache. No jangly nerves, either, though none of the other anxiety agents (waiting to hear from publishers, impending parenthood, impending LABOR and DELIVERY that leads to parenthood, stalled on the new novel because of freelance deadlines, etc etc etc) have been removed. It's the coffee. Sigh.

What's next? Intense aversion to baked goods?

In more positive news, a new baby knits book arrived today. The very thoughtful and generous Maeve gave me a Knit Happens gift certificate, which I used to buy Rowan Babies. So...yeah. The baby knitting list grows and grows and grows... This kid will be so sick of knitwear by the time she or he is five. (Do I even get five years before they start to reject the clothes I choose?)

So that's what back pain feels like...

I'll admit it. All you folks with bad backs who would groan or complain as you gingerly lowered yourself into a chair or slowly shuffled across a room...I never really got it. I thought I did, but I didn't. I'd never hurt my back. Had never felt anything worse in that particular body part than that lower-back fatigue that comes from too much time parked in a chair working.

I get it now. And I'm sorry you feel this way often.

Damn dog. It's Diego's fault, you see. Well. Not really, but let's blame it on the dog. Diego has had trouble going up and down the stairs lately. (Billy diagnosed it as a sprained hind ankle. Yes, he's only licensed to treat humans, but Diego is family.) We've been carrying him up and down the stairs to give the ankle a chance to heal. Yesterday, attempting to carry my breakfast in my left hand while bending to scoop Diego up with my right, I tweaked my back. I usually pick Mr. D up while he stands next to me. Yesterday he was standing in front of me and even though I know better I still bent right over and lifted him. Ignoring not only good body mechanics but also the fact that my abs are not as strong as they were, thanks to the renovations the baby has made to my body (and continues to make. Will there come a morning when I DON'T wake up to an entirely new body?!).

So yeah. I hurt my back. And now it's me lowering myself gingerly into chairs and grunting and shuffling slowly. Fun. Billy says 50% of pregnant women develop back problems. Somehow this does not make me feel better.

Billy made a rather interesting observation the other day. See, I was very happy with my pre-pregnancy breasts. Very happy. I'm a bit...overwhelmed...by my pregnant breasts. They're...um...well, let's just say I've gone from a single letter to a double one. Same letter, but twice as much of it. They're heavy. They get in the way because they stand up. And out. So Billy (who likes them VERY much, though he was also a fan of the earlier version) said the other night that the look that breast implants mimic is actually the pregnant breast. And you know...he's right. It's not the youthful, perky breast that implants look like. It's that big, round, full-at-the-top look of pregnant breasts. Not that anyone is thinking this in their conscious mind... But it does say quite a bit about why men are attracted to large fake breasts. (And don't tell me women get those big implants because THEY really like the way they look separate from a desire to attract men. I don't buy it.)

This I WILL blame on the hormones

On Friday I had more than enough to keep me busy. I've got two freelance jobs on the schedule right now, and I really needed to work on one of them all day Friday in order to stay on track with the deadlines. I also had about fifty loads of laundry to do (thanks to Sadie, but I won't get into THAT sordid tale right now). And a house that really really wanted cleaning. And if I were, horror of horrors, to choose to shirk these responsibilities...well...there's plenty of holiday knitting that still needs to be done.

But...see...then my brain went something like this: "The baby will be here in June. June! And I haven't even started knitting for the kid. June! It gets cold at night in June! The baby's going to be cold. COLD BABY! And I haven't started knitting and the kid's going to arrive and I'll have to bring it home from the hospital in a paper bag because I HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED KNITTING for the baby yet. I'm going to be a terrible mother. I can't believe the kid is going to be here in six months and it still doesn't have a sweater to wear and..."

Yes. I know. Not only is there plenty of time, and not only will friends and family be gifting me with infant-wear that is not made from paper bags, but...um... yeah. I know. Hormones.

What was there to do but start to knit for the child, yes? When we first found out I was pregnant, I bought four skeins of Mission Falls 1824 cotton in a fabulous dark grey color. I'm not a huge cotton fan, but I am a huge Mission Falls fan and, well...June baby = cotton for first sweater, yes? So I had to use this yarn for the first sweater. Because that was how I initially imagined it. The first sweater would be a wrap cardigan from this gray cotton, and if there was enough yarn leftover there would be a teensy little matching cap. It had to be this yarn. It had to be a wrap cardigan.

Could I find a pattern in my pattern stash or online that matched the perfect sweater in my head? Of course not. So what did I do, in spite of the piles of work and housework I really needed to be doing? I sat down and wrote a pattern for the baby sweater in my head.

Yes, if it works out, I'll share but that's not the point, is it? The point--good sweater being the result or not--is that I think I might be losing it.

Anyway. Here's half of the back of the Very Urgent Sweater.

I came to my senses Friday evening and switched back to holiday knitting. (And cleaning.) I didn't switch back to working until today, though, which is why I've been chained to this desk all damn day. Harrumph.

I went ahead and ordered the yarn for the sea lion sweater. I changed the colors, though. The blue will be orange, the light green will be yellow, and the dark green (trim) will be red. You know...just so people know the kid is mine.

You guys got me all teary...and it's not the hormones, I swear

Wow... Thank you all so very much for your congratulations and good wishes! It means so much to have heard from so many of you. And the lurkers! I love hearing from the lurkers!

Sniff. You guys rock. You really do.

I had another sonogram today. (I LOVE sonograms! So nice to get a peek at the little person in there.) The image I posted the other day is from 8 1/2 weeks. I hadn't realized how much growing and developing happened between then and now. I saw two arms! And two legs! All of them waving around! And a profile! For better or worse, the kid looks like it's (damn, I hate to use that pronoun. Reason enough to find out the sex.) growing my nose. Four weeks to the 16-week sonogram and hopefully we'll learn the sex then.

In the meantime, there are Dale sweaters to ponder. As I mentioned, I bought some Dale baby pattern books to knit with Baby Ull. Ready for a glut of pictures of cute babies in cute knitwear? Sure you are.

Let me know what you think. Anything shown here in "boy" or "girl" colors (whatever that means) can of course be knit in different colors so the patterns are all fair game regardless of who turns out to be growing a nose like mine. I'm cool dressing a boy in pink, but I think that would be stretching Billy's limits just a bit too much. So I'm not going to start any of these projects until we know who's in there. Because if I can knit with pink and red and orange and purple (preferably all in one garment) you know I want to. (And yeah, we can put pink bootees on a boy when Billy's not looking. I won't tell.)

Here's the sea lion sweater, which will be the first project because Billy and I both love it most of all:

And after that most wonderful sweater comes a parade of animals and stripes and checks and knitted goodness. They're not in order of preference. I really can't decide between them:

Obviously I won't be knitting all of these, but it's damn hard to choose. Let me know which ones you prefer! And if you've made any of these, I'd love to hear about it. Stinkerbell already did her best to put the fear of steeked ladybugs into me. ;)