Okay.

I think the worst might be over.

I am knocking on wood, now that I've typed that.

For three days, now, I haven't wanted to just fall over dead rather than continue to deal with my stomach. I'm still have nausea waves, but not this all-encompassing, life devouring, agony of the soul, sickness.

That's really really good.

One of my bestest friends -- B, who commented a few weeks ago that I was doing this creating a child thing "all wrong" -- came to visit. She decided that I had been buying enough for this little creature in my body -- now thumb-joint-sized, if you're interested -- and that she was buying things for me.

First place we hit? You guessed it. Yarn store.

I'll post the pictures as soon as my camera batteries charge up, but here's the total.

One Colinette Absolutely Fabulous Afghan Kit in the Antique colorway, with the intention of making the shawl.

One skein of Lorna's Laces Black Purl in the worsted weight, for socks for me.

Malabrigo for slippers for me.

Two skeins of Cleckhelton Studio Mohair 8ply for a scarf that I've always loved in the store's display.

A skein of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Martha's Vineyard, probably also for socks.

9 skeins of Rowan Calmer for a lovely Reynolds' pattern sweater that I've been admiring for an age and a half.

And, the store had restocked their colors of Baby ULL, so we got a better colorway set for the ladybug sweater.

And, without my noticing, she paid for the Addi Lace needles that the store had gotten in, that I ordered months and months ago. I *meant* to have ordered two pair of the 1s and 2s, realizing how wonderful they would be for the lacy socks I loved at the time, because it's not often I'm going to knit proper lace on size 1 needles, but with the huge backorders of these online, it may just be that I get to stroke them from time to time, and that's fine with me. :)

It's nice to be spoiled rotten, from time to time, just so that you remember what it feels like.

Then we carried on to the local Pier 1 clone and got rugs, new baking sheets, a cooling rack, etc. It was highly fun.

And of course we skeins all the AbFab yarn and I'm heavily involved in making myself a shawl. Superfun!

Pictures when the camera is up to speed.

Sick sick sick

I've knit four rows in two days.

This is progress.

I understand now when the doctor said that the first trimester is a wash.

Oy.

This isn't fair.

I feel so lousy I can't even concentrate enough to knit.

Chinese food is out, apparently.

Think good thoughts for me, please. I feel -- to quote my best friend's 8 year old -- like poopy.

FO Report: Royal Set

I think it looks like a perfect fit, don't you?

The pattern is the Royal Baby Set from Blue Sky Alpacas. The yarn originally called for is their Royal, a completely gorgeous, 100% alpaca yarn that just makes me coo to touch it. But my LYS only had skeins of Alabaster, Petticoat, and I think Cafe Au Lait, so I went for the less expensive Alpaca Silk in Kiwi. If they'd had Primrose or Seaglass, all bets would have been off, and I'm still tempted by the Seaglass. But this yarn is not washable, and it is not cheap, so I will think long and hard before clicking that order button.


There's a little hat that matches, isn't it cute?





I changed nothing noticeable about the pattern, but there may still be a big change coming up. The pattern calls for ties that wrap around Baby and tie at the side of the sweater to hold it clothes -- the essence of a wrap sweater. I might be being paranoid-pregnant-lady, but this doesn't seem terribly safe or convenient to me. I'm imaging trying to tie a squirming newborn into this and having a rough time with it. I'm thinking of coming up with a way to place buttons, instead of the wrap tie. Thoughts?

Also, slowly getting a handle on the rampant nausea. What seems to help is sweet things and spicy things, and all the bland stuff that people were telling me to eat to calm down my stomach make it distinctly worse. I don't know if that means anything painfully significant, but there we are.

On to the Newborn Welcome Set in Cashsoft DK.

Also, random fun -- Robb says he doesn't see why I'm not knitting in purple, as "purple can be manly. On a baby." But pink, in case you were wondering, is never manly, no matter what these guys say. So says my boyfriend, and he's the one with the gear that allows him to comment on this issue.

I need to find some deep plummy purples. In baby or Dk weight yarns. Oh my.

The thing about superstitions, or, Yarn Fumes cure mood swings

the thing about superstitions is this: they're supposed to make you feel safer, more in control. Don't break mirrors. Avoid black cats. Don't walk under ladders. Stay away from the number thirteen. Don't knit anything for your baby before three months, and you won't miscarry.

But what if the superstition doesn't help? What if it makes you feel worse? What if it makes you focus on the bad thing, that COULD happen, instead of the miraculous thing, that is happening?

I found myself in a terrible mood yesterday. One of those terrible days when nothing is right, nothing is good, and I was ready to just explode with frustration. Making it worse was the fact that the mood was based on nothing. Chemicals in the brain only.

Normally, to fix that mood, I go and breathe deep of the yarn fumes, but I knew that if went to the yarn store, I'd get sucked into the baby knits, and then I would buy baby yarn, and then I would knit baby things, and I was being superstitious about this, remember?

A couple of friends gave me a good kick in the ass and reminded me that a.) if the absolute worst happens, and I miscarry (which is unlikely, really, if you look at my familial history and Robb's, and you don't need to tell me if the fact that my mother never had a miscarriage doesn't relate to my chances, thanks), will I really be sadder because I knit a baby sweater or some socks? No. I'll be truly miserable, but knowing me, I'd feel slightly better, because there would be proof that, once upon a time, there was a baby growing inside me. It would help give me the strength to try again. And when I was ready, I would have a little blessing to give to another child of mine, if that felt right, or another child in the world, if that were appropriate.

So I went to the yarn store, and I didn't even have an accident. If I'd had an accident, I would have spent significantly more.


I got Blue Sky Alpaca & Silk in the light green for this little set. This is the one that struck me as the "take photos and then whisk it away to hide somewhere as an heirloom" set, since it's not so machine washable, but I could surprise myself. It's an adorable wrap sweater, and has a matching hat and booties.

The blue Cashsoft DK is for this adorable little set.

The goldenrod Jaeger Matchmaker is for another little wrap sweater out of the Natural Knitters book, which also has an adorable "bump" sweater, the kind with ties on the side that you can let out as your bump gets bigger.

Not pictured is a bag of Dale ULL for that little sweater all the way in the bottom corner, with the ladybugs. How completely adorable?? The colors are going to be slightly different because their offerings have changed since the book was put out, but I'm still in love.

And I feel better again. Go figure.

Thanks very much

for all of your congratulations. :) I love it when new people find my blog, and I love it when they have nice things to say.

I must say, though, that the euphoria of all of this wore off this morning. Now, instead of some glowy mother-to-be, I think I'm just a nauseous, exhausted, pregnant lady. Well, people at work still say I'm glowing. But that's neither here nor there. And the, uh, twins are killin me. Owie.

The most fascinating thing about all of this so far is how it's forcing me to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n. I work in retail, you know; the goal is move as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Not yesterday; yesterday, the goal was to work without any dizzy spells, after the one time I stood up too fast and nearly tossed my cookies all over the mass-market table. Better than the new Hardcover table, but still.

I had asked the doctor (my GP, I'm calling the OB I've heard great things about tomorrow to make a first appointment; cross your fingers that I get in!) for her best advice on Friday; what she said? "Get ready to be humbled." And I was feeling that yesterday, in the biggest way. Today, I was less dizzy, but more nauseous. I think I prefered dizzy, all things considered. But I'm weird.

Even my knitting has slowed down. Normally, I'd be done both the third season of 24 and the first German stocking by now. But, since almost all of my energy is going towards work and the couple of little things I'm trying to do around the house (although Robb is being great and picking up a lot of the slack without complaining while I nap away the day on the couch that I still haven't had the energy to put the cover back on since I washed it last week), I fall down on the couch, knit five rows, and then my eyes are closing...friends don't let friends knit while exhausted or drunk.

Not that I'm allowed to be drunk. Until, like, next fall. Of course, that's probably when I'd next crave a beer anyway; I got most of my partying out of the way the summer of sophomore year of college, much to my relief.

So I turned the heel yesterday, I'm playing with the gussets today...I think I'm making the foot smaller than Cookie says I want it to be for my foot measurement. All down the leg, the sock is...it doesn't "fit" so much as it "skims" which is fine for the leg of the stocking -- I want wool pretties, not pantyhose -- but the foot has to fit firmly or it'll make me crazy.

And -- although I still love Louet Gems -- I'd forgotten how much less forgiving it is to work in solid colored yarn. So many of the yarns I've been using lately have been variegated or handpainted sock yarns, and you can get away with weird decreases, or "oops, I ssk'd instead of p2tog'd, no one will ever notice!"...I'm picking back and fixing more things with these.

And tomorrow, when I might have more energy (go ahead and laugh, it's okay), I'll try and post a picture of how far I am on the German Stockings. It'll probably require some help from CameramanRobb in order to get the pretty cable that goes down the leg, so we'll see what we can do.

In the meantime, I leave you with this picture of my two kitties, Jilly (the greyish, huge one) and Keelie (the smaller, almost calico one) performing a feat almost unheard of:

Cuddling.

Sorry, sorry.

I've been absent all week, because work has been busy, and -- well, because I didn't want to say this until it had been confirmed by someone with an MD attached to their name, and until we'd let my mom and Robb's mom (who sometimes reads the blog) know.



Six weeks, one day. Sometime around December 8th.

I'm so unbelievably happy.

I meant to post this last night

but then I got caught by Seduction, and I wanted new socks for work today.

Anyway.

The first part of the story is on Alison's blog. Her daughter Jennie was ill, I played the part of the Digital Welcome Wagon when Jennie moved to the area last year. We hadn't ever met, but Alison emailed me the ice cream story, not asking, exactly, but just kinda saying.

Would you say no to a woman who made you this? Nope, and neither would I. Plus, how often do you get to send someone stealth ice cream, really?

So, after work yesterday, I went by the Ben & Jerry's scoop shop that is across from my work (it's the almost-original B&J's, actually, I can point to the original from the current one, but about ten?fifteen?years ago, they decided to move the shop to Church Street proper. Anyway.

I picked two pints of ice cream (Cherry Garcia and Americone Dream, if you're curious), and I drove out to the address Alison had emailed.

Only, I'm dyslexic. It doesn't normally get in the way, but the woman at the 174 address was very curious as to why I wanted to give her ice cream. She didn't mind, exactly, just...was curious. I might have interrupted her nap. So I got the numbers sorted out, bothered Jennie's landlord because I didn't know which door to use, and found my way upstairs to their door.

Poor Jennie's husband. I think Jennie at least might have guessed who I was and what I was doing there. The conversation between the husband and I went something like this:

Me: (holding out paperbag of ice cream) Hi. I'm a friend of Jennie's mom's, and I've been sent to give you guys ice cream as a get well present.

Him: ...um.

Me: It's okay, really. I'm a friend of Alison's. (at this point, I started babbling about the flavors and why those and I hadn't gotten the Cinnamon Bun and I found out I should have and suchlike).

Him: Do we even know you? (he had this expression...it was like someone had hit him upside the head with a two-by-four. Made of ice cream. It was fantastic.)

Me: Nope. Just a friend of Alison's. Have a great day.

Him: ...thanks.

I got home and told Alison to call them and tell him the ice cream wasn't poisoned.

It was tremendously fun being the ice cream fairy.

Pics of socks after I manage not to be ill during Easter dinner. Wish me luck.

I think I've gone simple.

I've discovered a sick pleasure in scanning socks. I don't know why I think it's so fun, and I am concerned that it betrays a certain frailty of wit. But, there we are.

The other sock is at the heel flap, and I watched six episodes of 24 this afternoon (Season 2, currently on sale for $19.99, how could I pass it up?) while making chocolate chip cookies (that came out too crispy, but I modded the recipe and used a new pan, so I'm just happy they weren't rocks. A hearty addition of vanilla ice cream made them lovely.

Tomorrow, there is stealth ice-creaming planned. It should be serious fun. I'll let ya know.

The rest of my life? Pleasantly dull. I kinda like it.

Relieved and Disappointed

Or disappointed and relieved. Hard to tell which order they're happening in, but I do know there isn't room for much else in my brain tonight.

So, rather than dealing with reality, I set up my brand-y new HP printer/scanner dealio, and played around for awhile.













It turns out that my scanner does a much better job catching color than my camera does, but obviously it's a little less accurate in terms of dimensions.

Those are the cable rib socks from Favorite Socks, and the yarn is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Seduction in the color "Blue Brick Wall".

Oh my but I love this yarn. It's 50% wool, 50% tencel, and it feels so soft and strong and silky. And the colors are exactly how I feel today. A little morose, a little under the weather, but still strong and vibrant. Somewhere underneath it all.

I am in love.

with the addi lace needles.

Seriously.

If I could marry them, Robb would be out of luck.

P5togs are a dream. They are no threat, no worry, no stress. I've finished another full repeat of lace between today and yesterday, which had taken me all last week to do one.

I'm too exhausted to type more.

The $1.50 cardi is giving me a headache. I may need to reinvent this thing some. I'm terrified that it won't fit at all. Grrr.

Much love.