30 Weeks Down, 10 to Go

Picture taken sometime in the last week so not quite 30 weeks there. I have tiny tiny stretch marks, but they're extensions of the existing, faded, ones so I'm not worried. I don't want a batch of stretch marks in new places, but adding to the ones I have isn't what one could call a problem. I am thinking of removing my belly ring, though. I bought one of the flexible, plastic ones which I've been wearing since my 12 week scan (the plastic doesn't interfere with the ultra-sound) but the skin above it is looking red and stretched. It doesn't hurt at all, it's not tender to the touch, but it looks unhappy so I'm debating taking it out, letting the hole close, and possibly getting it re-pierced at some point in the future. I'm not sure how likely it is that I'd ever get around to it, though.

My hair has stopped falling out. I used to get handfuls of hair when I wash it and now I get maybe two strands. It's a pregnancy symptom I've been expecting so mostly I'm just surprised it took so long. It'll all fall out with a vengeance once Little Djinn is here and then I'll have to protect little fingers from being strangled by almost invisible hairs. Yippy?

Little Djinn is starting to run out of room and is kicking like a mad fiend. I don't mind the little movements, and I'm getting used to them as a running background to my life, but I really don't enjoy getting kicked. It's starting to hurt, and Little Djinn is quite territorial, protesting any time something pushes against my belly. I know it's cramped in there, but it was my body first and we have to share. I had my 28 week checkup last week (yes, at 29 weeks - I was working all of my midwife's regular office hours weeks 27 and 28) which included having bloods drawn and getting a flu shot. One of the tests getting run on my blood was for diabetes and, if my midwife had mentioned that rather than just a general "blood will be drawn" I would've gotten up earlier and eaten breakfast. My blood pressure continues to be excellent and protein levels in my urine are unremarkable.

We - and by we, I mean Chris - finished painting the nursery. We plan to go look for a dresser (chest of drawers) and curtains this weekend. And travel to the next town over where the delivery company left a parcel they couldn't deliver because neither of us was home yesterday. They couldn't leave it at the little post office up the road or the sorting center from which we could have it re-delivered (or just pick it up, it's right in town). No, they had to take it to the post office in Inches which is very awkward to get to what with us not having a car and all. It's close to the hospital where I will be spending a lot of time later this month, when my pre-natal (ante-natal) classes start (next week for the couples classes but those are late at night, end of November for the "mother" only classes during the day). Not that you can leave a parcel waiting until it's convenient for you to get there in a fortnight. On the plus side, a large craft (hobby) store opened near the post office so I can go take a gander and see how bad it will be for my wallet (pocket book).

Once I have a dresser, I'll have a place to sort out Little Djinn's clothes and see where the gaps are. My mother has been relaying requests for a gift registry and it'll be a lot easier to put one together when I know what I actually have. I suspect the parcel in question has more baby stuff. Part of the problem with building a registry is that I really don't know what all we need and at what point in Little Djinn's development we'll need it. We've only just started looking into it, now that we're in the third trimester. My mother has already made comments about some of the things I have on the registry like a tops and tails bucket ("just use the sink!") and the only onsie I added, "Keep Calm and Cuddle Me" in a summer size ("Is that going to be warm enough?" Yes and if it's not we'll put a sweater (jumper) over it. Same as I do with my t-shirts.). Oi.

I've been knitting and finishing up things that were almost finished. I have two baby cardigans (the burgundy one and the teal one) and one pullover with ends woven in and buttons attached. I have another cardigan that still needs buttons (the yellow one) and another one that I think is premie size and thus hopefully will go straight to the doll wardrobe. Note to self: acquire a doll. I also wove in the ends on some baby legwarmers and a blanket that I knit for other people's pregnancies and never got around to finishing up. The blanket has been sitting in a cupboard for a good 5 years, knit in the days before I was comfortable weaving in ends. I also knit a newborn hat with the leftover yarn from Chris' Greece socks, being modelled by my very patient husband. Mind you, he wouldn't let me use Ginger Kitty as a model which I figure is the same thing as volunteering.

Autumn watch continues. We're down to 8 hours of daylight (7:45-4:15) and after two months of unusually cold weather, we've had an unusually warm week with temperatures around 10C (50F). I wore a scarf chosen for its aesthetic appeal, not it's warmth and had to put the aircon on at work because the shop was too hot for me in my shirt sleeves, let alone the customers in their coats. The picture bellow was taken on Halloween, the orange leaves have turned russet and the yellow ones are starting to drop. Because it was a question, that is the view from our bedroom. Our garden (yard), which is shared with the housing association, ends at the hedge and then it's the river and the island with the trees. I love our garden and our view.

Actual Knitting Content

I was finally feeling well and inspired enough following my 20 week scan (ironically the worst day of my cold which continues to linger) to knit again, casting on and finishing a little baby sweater in a week. I say "finishing" but it is still waiting for the perfect buttons and an I-cord button-hole band to be attached once they're procured. I have my eye on some adorable ones but need to wait until I get paid later this week to acquire them. Decent pictures will have to wait until there's a nice sunny day: as you can see, my current attempts are all dark.

The pattern is Garter Yoke Baby Cardi by Jennifer Hoel and I knit it with one skein of Ripples Crafts Sportweight in "Red, Red Wine". Not the most gender-neutral colour in the world, but I love that maroony-purple. Chris wants me to knit baby sweaters in mustard and moss but they're not colours I enjoy looking at. I highly recommend both the pattern and the yarn as they were a delight to work with.

Having started and finished an entirely new project, I decided I should really finish some of my languishing projects, if for no other reason than it shouldn't take long and I was out of project bags. First up were my Narcissus Pseudo-Narcissus (daffodil) socks from The Knitter's Curiosity Cabinate by Hunter Hammersen, knit in Old Maiden Aunt's Superwashed BFL colourway Emerald City. Again, a delightful pattern and a lovely yarn which together created a fairly eye-popping pair of socks. They were supposed to be a pair of spring/early summer socks as I started them back in March as soon as the e-book came out and I acquired appropriately coloured yarn but I am enamoured of them enough to wear them as often as they're clean even though I'm otherwise feeling very autumnal.

My current project resurrected from the bottom of the of the UnFinished Object (UFO) pile was Royal Blue Zum Dirndle socks I cast on a year ago. They're a Yarnissima pattern being knit with Wollmeise Twin 80/20 (no link as the page is all flash and in German). I ran into problems when my yarn cakes, wound without the assistance of a swift or ball-winder, started getting tangled and then I realized I didn't have nearly enough yarn and wouldn't be able to find more from the same dye-lot and I couldn't bring myself to work on them. I've since made my peace with having crew socks, not knee-highs and they're growing again.

I went to the knitting night* at Eden Court, my local performing arts center (Tuesdays, in the cafe) last week as it was also Chris' monthly Web Developers group meeting (Normally somewhere in the Bishops Palace but that night in the Green Room). It was a small gathering, only five other people while I was there, which was actually really nice because we were all able to participate in the same discussion and I felt very welcome and included. My enjoyment of previous knitting nights I've attended has largely depended upon whom I found myself sat next to and the accessability and inclusiveness of their conversations. There have been nights when I've been sat between two conversational groups, part of neither, and those aren't much fun. For mindless, conversational knitting I chose Husband Pullover from Interweave Knits Holiday 2009 issue, knit in Jamieson & Smith Shetland Aran in a mossy green. We're starting to have temperatures where Chris could actually use such a warm jumper. I'm not overly enamoured of all the garter stitch but I'm almost ready to split for the front and back, at which point it should be interesting again.

Chris' sweater is one of my New Year's Resolution knits (knit a sweater) and that my resolution to do so for myself is postponed owing to my rapidly expanding waistline. But I've got my eye on some interestingly constructed socks to continue the other half of my resolution. Speaking of my rapidly increasing waistline, because there's been interest expressed else-net, here's me at 23 weeks:

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* I say knitting but only two of us were: one woman was using a sock "machine" and I use the term loosely, and another two were cross-stitching

Things I don't have the energy to expound upon

A blog post of mine from last November currently has the highest page views because of a footnote where I mention a halloween costume as seen on The Big Bang Theory that's adorable and, based on googling, doesn't exist. It seems lots of other people are googling for this costume as well and get my lament instead. Oops.

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My father is in hospital. There's a whole thing but I'm exhausted from my first day back at work after our honeymoon (4hrs and I'm dead on my feet - how did I used to do this 40hrs/week?) and I can't be arsed to rehash it all again. His condition is currently stable and the prognosis is optimistic. I'm soliciting well-wishes for him and especially for my mother but request that they not be wasted on me.

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My FiL's 88th birthday was Friday (my husband's birthday was Thursday) so we had him over for Sunday dinner. I made a beef mince shepherd's pie served with mashed carrots, and a treacle tart with ice cream for pudding. It was my first treacle tart, both making and eating and while it's not something I would go out of my way to eat, I can't seem to stop nibbling at it. Odd.

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My friend and I finally exchanged Christmas presents on Friday - I made a pair of mitts for her, acrylic as she's allergic to wool, and I hope to actually write up the pattern at some point. She gave me a 1930's-esk, peacock feather-esk locket in silver and emerald. It's not something I ever would have bought for myself, but it's lovely and I've worn it every day since. I am really picky about jewellery and tend to wear the same couple of pieces and hate everything else (or think it's "nice but not for me") and this makes two things she's given me that have gone into heavy rotation.

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I bought a pair of jeans and a cardigan, both on sale, with my own money. This whole having-a-job-and-being-able-to-buy-things thing is nice. Not that my husband begrudges me his money, but it's not the same. The cardigan is a short-sleeve, hooded, knit one with one tog at the neck and open the rest of the way. It's cute and a nice colour, but not, I think, something I'm likely to wear out of the house. It's acrylic so not overly warm (hence, cheap) and I really don't get the button just at the top and hanging open the rest of the way thing. I'm sure it's flattering for some people but I'm not them and it feels like it's the only style sweater currently being made - both store-bought and patterns. This is right up there with "skinny jeans".

Today I knit a hat

Today I knit a hat while watching the Scottish Open, hosted here in my lovely corner of the Highlands. The golfer I was cheering for, selected randomly because I like his name, didn't do well but I think he's previously earned his invitation to the British Open next weekend, so I may or may not continue watching and root for him in an entirely distracted manner. It's worth noting that my only interest in watching today was to see coverage of my new home (and the swanky golf course everyone keeps talking about).

Did you hear about the freaky weather we've been having? I personally have no reference (I've wintered here twice but this is my first summer) but I'm told this isn't a place that gets oodles of rain or thunderstorms and this weekend we've had both - so much so that the golf course flooded and the surrounding hillsides slid down across the course. The thunder woke us both up shortly before 5am, Saturday morning, three or four miles off. It quieted down and we got back to sleep but it continued to rain and occasionally thunder throughout the day - especially over the golf course. We weren't going to watch the match but followed the news throughout the day as they kept postponing the start time before eventually calling it off altogether at 7:30pm. Very disappointing for the Highlands as getting this tournament is quite the coup. Fortunately the sun came out in the evening and things dried up a bit and, while it rained off and on at our place today, the course mostly stayed dry.

Yesterday, we went to the local garden centre and bought oodles of bird food, mostly b1g1, and an African Violet for me. We also got new water bowls for the cats as Chris is convinced that the reason they like drinking from the Christmas Tree stand (yes, we still have it out in July for Oliver and Libby to drink from, no we don't still have the tree) is that it's bigger and they can both drink at the same time. So we bought a really big bowl for downstairs, where the tree stand was (they seem to like it well enough even though it says DOG), and a slightly-smaller-but-still-bigger-than-their-previous-water-bowl bowl with polka dots for upstairs.

Today we slept in, cleaned (I hoovered downstairs and the stairs, Chris did the loos and kitchen) and watched golf. First I finished attaching sleeves to the sunshine sweater, knit the collar, and wove in the ends. I'm not a huge fan of assembling sweaters and think I'll seek out knit-in-one patterns for the foreseeable future. Then I cast on the matching hat and finished that over Top Gear. I started casting on the booties, modifying the knit-flat pattern to a knit-in-the-round pattern on the fly but I realized I did half the CO with the tail, not the main thread and frogged the whole thing. That'll wait till tomorrow.

Anyway, hat is finished, sweater just needs buttons, and the booties should follow quickly. Pictures will have to wait as they're a gift and the recipient should get them before seeing a lot of pictures on the web. I'm wacky like that.

Knitting in Pubs

My Fiancé and I joined a friend in a local pub last night for mixers (me) and pints (the boys). We grabbed the table as soon as the couple who had been sitting there get up, before it was cleared, and while the wait staff eventually cleared most of the dishes (they never got the sugar bowl or a random glass), they never took the tip money that was left on the table. It was only £3, but we spent most of the evening joking about how hard it is to get wait staff to take your money. I ordered some chips and, after last call, a girl brought me the tab - or at least she almost did. She got as far as our table, saw the tip money (sitting on a saucer with the previous occupants' receipt) and took it and my tab away. Now, the pile of coins to cover my chips was also sitting on the table, but when we'd left it was still there. I guess the moral of the story is that, if you want a tip, you should pick it up off of the table.

I brought the baby sweater as I figured a small, easy project would be best. As it is, I kept missing the changes for the basket weave (when it changed vertically) and had to drop and pick up the stitches correctly on more than one occasion. I am increasingly less enamoured of the Baby Rico. I really liked it when I bought it, and for both pairs of leggins and the teal sweater, but by the end of the red sweater, well, I guess the honeymoon was over. I'll finish these skeins and subsequent new babies will get fewer items knit from more expensive fiber.