Roly Poly, eatin' corn and taters

My granddaddy grew up in Texas in a houseful of women. His Aunt Allie and his mother, Bennie May, my mother's Mimi, doted on him by all accounts, and made him lots of little (or not so little) baby clothes. When we found out that we would be having a baby boy, my mom brought these precious clothes up to me to examine.
Two things stand out about these clothes. First, there's an awful lot of pink for a boy baby. I grew up with my mother and grandmother telling me that pink used to be for baby boys while blue was for girls. The colors got switched sometime in the intervening years, I guess.

The second thing about these clothes is that they're incredibly wide. W-I-D-E, almost as wide as they are tall. I can think of a couple of reasons for this, I guess. This was before the advent of stretch fabrics, so you would want things roomy for a wriggly baby. And also, people probably wanted really fat babies. Not that we don't *love* fat babies now, but I guess a fat baby would be a real advantage in the days before truly modern medical care. Maybe by making the clothes extra wide, these women were willing this roly-poly baby to be hale, hearty and healthy!

No matter when I try to take photos of these, the pictures always come out a little dark and grainy, so these will have to do. The embroidery is incredible for things that were meant for a spit-uppy baby.

Missing from my photos are a pair of green velvet overalls with the most amazing interlined pockets and a store-bought navy blue velvet cap with a wooden button and a jaunty grosgrain ribbon. That velvet just swallowed the light, making them very hard to photograph, but they're both incredibly cute. Click through on the photos for a little more information on each item and a couple more photos at flickr.

Classy

I haven't blogged about knitting in quite a while! In late October, I ordered several different colorways of Dream In Color Classy yarn with the intention of making some Christmas gifts. But knitting always takes longer than you think it will, doesn't it? Or am I the only one? Anyway, now most of this beautiful yarn will be made into other things. Mostly for me. Above, in the Dusky Aurora colorway, is the beginnings of the paneled Ribby Cardi. This is going to be a great sweater.This one actually was a Christmas gift for my husband. I just have about a million ends left to weave in. This is a really cool pattern. It's a Red Cross pattern published in December of 1941 for a "Man's 'V' Neck Sweater Sleeveless" that was distributed to the Red Cross' "Production Corps," a volunteer group that knitted for soldiers in the U.S. Army, Air Corps and Marine Corps. Their motto was "knit your bit". More information here. At the end of the pattern, bold letters state: "Do not start another garment with left-over yarn. Please return all unused yarn to Chapter." Every little bit counted.

The vest is knitted in one piece from the bottom of the back to the bottom of the front and then joined up the sides. I used Cascade 220 in color 8013 for the brown tweedy stripes and more Dream in Color Classy in color Good Luck Jade for the green stripes. This project took less than a skein of the Dream in Color and a little more than two skeins of the Cascade. Plenty left over and no finishing except for the side seams. Of course the original pattern didn't call for stripes, only for "sweater yarn, olive drab".

And the third recent project in Dream in Color Classy, this time in the Black Parade colorway. This is the February Lady sweater. After I made one for the little guy, I thought it would be nice to have one for myself. Plus it's a very pregnancy-friendly pattern. I wish I had a photo of it on my body, but on the tree will have to do for now.

More beautiful yarn-- this photo shows the color more clearly. It will be hard to resist buying more in the future!

Happy New Year! And the pregnancy ring

Happy New Year one and all! We ate the traditional New Year's day meal of black-eyed peas and greens last night when Brian was home from work. So yummy with some over-sweet cornbread and butter.

I'm really looking forward to the new year. I'm so incredibly excited to meet the newest member of our little family next month (or late this month!). I do have a couple of back-logged baby-related posts to put up later this week.

But today I bring you the pregnancy ring. Up until the holidays, I was doing pretty well with the symptoms of gestation. Good mobility, not a lot of weight gain, not a lot of tiredness and almost no swelling. Then came holiday travel and multiple Christmas dinners. My mom noticed that I had taken off my wedding and engagement rings at the table and invited me to wear this ring until the end of my pregnancy.

I love it. It was my great-great-grandmother's wedding ring. Inside, it's inscribed: "E.D. to L.W. Nov. 16, 1892". It's so comfortable and large, worn thin on the edges and beautifully patina-ed. Plus, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to think of this 116-year-old ring worn by that long-ago mother and grandmother now being worn by me, a soon-to-be mother.

It was windy today

And a cold blue-grey. Gusts up to fifty miles per hour knocked over fences and flower pots. Branches littered the dirt roads. Almost like God was sweeping the earth clean of dead wood in preparation for the new year. Ready for a new start.

Thanks a lot

Today I'm thankful for:


Our warm little home and cozy basement;


These beautiful birds: the bald eagle who came back to the farm to roost on the dead tree in the hill field on his way South for the season and the red-tailed hawk who followed us with his eyes until we saw him and then swooped low in front of us, showing off, as we walked this morning;


My husband's good job;


Bittersweet and falling leaves;


My family, and getting to see them for the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow;


A big white dog who will sit! from fifty feet in the face of a bounding deer or a nervous mama cow, but who will go absolutely bananas ("le chien est bananes, b-a-n-a-n-e-s") with a stick in his mouth running down the driveway;


The sweet boy in my belly who kicks when I sing along to Hank Williams on the car radio.

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving tomorrow!


(Now I have to go listen to the Raffi song that inspired the title of this post or else it will be in my head all day-- we sure did listen to a lot of Raffi in the minivan when I was a kid...)

Christmas Knitting

So, long time no blog. Life has gotten in the way. My days have been filled with long walks in the country and baby shopping. A little baby worrying, too, but only because I'm a worrier by nature. Everything is fine. I've been practicing my yoga breathing (right nostril in, left nostril out, ahhh) and singing my ubi caritas in line at the doctor's office and the grocery store. And the boy is growing and kicking inside.

I've also been doing a little Christmas knitting. If you're expecting a gift from me, don't look too closely! Yarns from left to right, for my reference: Socks That Rock lightweight from 2007 Rockin' Sock Club (it looks a lot like Monsoon), Koigu KPPPM, STR medium XMas Rock, some more Koigu KPPPM, STR mediumweight in what could be Lapis (I'm terrible at keeping up with ball bands), and some Silkie STR, also from the 2007 sock club. I think most of the knitting for people with big feet is out of the way. It's amazing how much sock knitting you can get done in the first trimester if you can't get off the couch!

For My February Baby

This little sweater goes part of the way toward explaining where I've been all summer, and why there haven't been any foxhunting reports lately. Our first child, a son, is due at the very beginning of February. I couldn't be more excited!

Knitting on this sweater was a way to keep my hands busy and my mind quiet during the tense and sick first trimester, which seemed to last all summer. I seem to finally have gotten the fabled second trimester energy surge, so hopefully there will be more crafting (and email responding-- I've been absolutely terrible about that all summer; sorry friends) on the horizon. I'm disappointed to be missing the hunting season (as I was telling a hunting friend on the phone this morning, there's really nothing like that feeling), but I'm happy to do it to protect my little one.

Anyway, this is Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Sweater on Two Needles (Ravelry link), also known as the February Baby Sweater, from her Knitting Almanac, done up in Rowan Wool Cotton that I had on hand. It was a dream to knit, neither the pattern nor the yarn could have been nicer. I still need to sew on the rest of the buttons, but I can't wait until it helps to keep a little winter-born baby warm in a few months!