When I found out I was pregnant with Leif, I had a blast creating a basket full of hand made toys for him.  They are so fun and squishy! And something he can pass on to his children if he wants!!
Garden Mama is interviewing Down in the Meadow about her hand made toys and having a contest to win some!! Check it out!
The Family Photo
Mother, Father, Daughter, and Son Slugwing can often be found playing in the garden. Mother and Father enjoy long slow strolls through the pumpkin patch, while Daughter and Son can often be found flittering about among the flowers.
Mother and Father met among the greenery and it was love at first sight. Mother will often say that there was no way she could have resisted father’s charms, his luscious lips and tight tail!
Mother
Father
Mother and Father, though both flying slugs, had the perfect mix of genes to produce a sweet and delicate butterfly Daughter, and a firey but laid back dragon Son.
Daughter
Son
Soon the Slugwing family will be taking off to travel the world. I can’t tell you any more than this. Hopefully I can reveal more details in the month to come.
I finally finished his piggy pants!! I love how they came out. They should fit for a few winters. He’s already 20 pounds (and 4 months old!) so as he lengthens out, I imagine his belly won’t get much bigger for a few years :-) Kaia is 6 and fits the pants (though they come down to her knees).
Here they are! Leif’s new fancy pants! Can you see he’s very excited!
He also wanted to pose with his new sweater, even though it’s too big. Doesn’t he look dashing? I’ll knit up a longer pair 9or 20 🙂 for winter.
And his new fancy pants can be casual too. Here he is posing with the cat. Right after I took this photo, he grabbed her ear and wouldn’t let go. Toby thinks Leif looks a bit like a hobbit in his shorts, so we’ve been calling him Longbottom Leif.
Leif found his giggle tonight!! It had us all laughing up a storm! I’ll see if I can upload the video for you!
I also finally finished his kimono for next winter. It’s a pretty easy pattern, I just haven’t had a whole lot of hands free time. I’m going to knit some pants to go with it.
(Sorry for the horrid color, the lighting sucked!)
Oh, and the strawberries are coming in! YAY!
Though we had a big snow fall this past week, the chickens are telling me that spring is on its way! They have really picked up their laying and our little Welsummer, Rosie, laid her first egg today! It’s the dark speckled one… isn’t it pretty?
The top pink egg is from our Easter Egger, Biscuit, (supposed to be an Ameraucana). Clockwise, the next egg is from Buttercup, our Buff Orpington. Next is the small pink egg from (I believe) Vera, our Salmon Faverolle. It’s a really small egg, but I don’t think our silkies are old enough to lay yet, and I saw Vera sitting on one of the small ones…
The fourth, and largest brown egg, is from Rudy, our 2 1/2 year old Black Australorps. The 5th egg is Rosie our Welsummer’s egg. And the Blue one is from our 2 1/2 year old Americauna, Sweetie.
We’re still waiting on the two silkies to start laying… probably in the next month or two.
These are from the last snow we had… aren’t the icicles lovely!
And Leif in his starring role as “the Littlest Gnome”
You are probably thinking, “What are you doing on the computer, Lady??!! You have a new baby!! Go sleep or something!” But, the midwives have ordered me not to leave my room until tomorrow so that I have some time to heal (small tear). I’ve had all my food brought to me, I sleep, snuggle the baby, relax, visit with friends and family, and well… play on the computer when I get bored (which really isn’t too often, ’cause Leif is such a total cutie that I can’t stop kissing on him!!) But, while I have some time, I thought I’d post some pictures of my most recent knitting fun:
this is a hat that I gave to Toby just after Leif was born. His little Birth Day Present of sorts. I knitted it last month but had to keep it secret. Isn’t it awesome?! I may have to knit up more for each member of the family! Here’s the pattern.
And here’s a cowl I made for myself. I really like it, but I think I may do another one with a chunkier yarn so it stands up better.
And some little toys I’ve been working on. I really like the idea of having a basket of soft, hand made toys for Leif, so I’m working on filling the basket.
And of course, the snuggle pictures:
I don’t know if you could really call it nesting, ’cause my house is in shambles and I’m not really ‘creating a nest’ for the baby, but all I want to do is sit on my butt and make things. Really, it’s been going on since last Fall. So, I think this baby has some serious crafty genes that are coming out through me!
So, inspired by a little felted gnome that I got from Kristine
I decided to make a leaf blanket for the baby. I got some green fleece (on sale! Yahoo!) and made a pattern on large construction paper. Then, using some of Kaia’s washable markers, traced the pattern on the fleece and cut it out. I also cut out a triangle to go at the top of the leaf for a little hood. Then I marked a vein pattern on the leaf and sewed thread on top of that. Came out cute, eh? From tip to bottom, the leaf is a little over 3 feet, so it should fit for a while. I have a magnetic snap that I might put on after the baby comes and I see where it will fit best… or I may use something that is more adjustable for the baby to grow with.
Of course, now Kaia wants one, but I’m tired of the needle work, so, maybe I can just make her a hooded cape like thinging without a leaf pattern….
And once you open up the leaf blanket to reveal the baby, you might see these:
I knitted up some baby leg warmers for the little one…. They turned out really cute, but much too big for a newborn (maybe 6 months to a year). So, I plan to knit a much smaller pair once I find the right yarn (man I love yarn 🙂
Kaia took the leg warmer and put it over her hands and said “Look mom! It’s a perfect hand warmer!” So, since I can’t stop, I knitted her a muff out of some fuzzy yarn from my stash. It turned out really cute, but man was that fuzzy stuff hard to knit with!
All else is cruising along here at the homestead. The chickens are all laying again (except the younger ones), the guest house is livable though not complete (needs finish work and for the water to be run), and my belly is getting ever larger! Anytime in the next month we will finally get to meet this little one!
Here’s my latest knitting project. I started working on it a few weeks ago and it was amazingly easy (considering how hard it looked). There was an insane amount on increases and decreases in order to make the feet, knees, shoulders, hips, etc. So, I couldn’t do anything else when I was knitting or else I’d mess up. I learned how to do a mattress stitch to sew her up for stuffing, and the patternonly used 2.5 skeins or yarn (not six like it called for).
Kaia picked out the yarn colors and asked me to add a horn to make her a unicorn. She hasn’t seen the finished product yet, though. I’m going to slip it in her bed with her tonight…
ready to be sewn up
getting stuffed
Unicorn meditating
Unicorn wary of cameras
Unicorn at rest
Modeling headshot
I found a fantastic baby bootie pattern from Knitting Daily and had to buy it. The info said it is ‘intermediate’ knitting level, and I’m definitely not there yet, but they were too cute to pass on.
I’m very happy with how they turned out and proud of myself for making them 🙂 It was a great learning pattern for me. I went to knittinghelp and watched lots of videos to learn some of the stitches the pattern called for. I learned how to knit two colors with ‘intarsia’ method, learned the difference between stockinette stitch and seed stitch, learned how to kf&b, ssk, p2tog through back loop, and how to make an I-cord. They knitted up really fast considering all the new stuff I was doing. I basically worked on them two evenings and a day.
Here I am… large and in charge:
This is what the pattern looked like before I sewed up the sole and back of the bootie:
Here they are… the knitting is done and they are ready to be felted.
I’d never felted anything before, but the ladies at the yarn shop told me you couldn’t do it easily in a front loading washer. I did a bit of research and found that, though it is possible to felt in a front loader, it takes 3-4 cycles in the wash…. seemed like a waste of water. So, I looked up how to felt by hand and that seemed pretty simple. We keep our water heater set on 120 degrees, and I wanted it hotter for the felting. So, I boiled water hot enough that my hands could still stand it, poured it into the sink (with the drain closed) added a tsp. or so of dish liquid, put on some rubber gloves and went at it. I kneaded and rubbed roughly for 5 minutes then took them out to see how they were doing. I also rubbed them up against an old cutting board that has lots of texture to it. Then I shocked them with cold water and put them back to the hot for about another 10 minutes of rough treatment, and they were done! They should fit the baby’s newborn feet.
Since Kaia and I took that knitting class at the beginning of the month I have been having so much fun knitting! I think I’ve really got it now! (And no, I don’t think I’m nesting yet :-))
First I knitting Toby some wrist/hand warmers. I got the basic pattern from a youtube video and tweaked it so that they were larger and longer to cover more of the forearm.
Then, I started on a rainbow set for Kaia (I got the pattern from here and decreased the size to fit a child’s hands). Isn’t the wrist ruffle cute??? After knitting one, which I thought turned out adorable, she decided she didn’t want them and now one of her stuffed animals wears it as a sweater. I may knit myself a pair!
Then I went on to a hat pattern. I knitted myself the red hat (that Kaia is wearing) from this site (on the side bar under “for you”). Toby liked it so I altered the pattern so that it didn’t have holes in it and was larger to cover his ears.
Then, I decided we needed some new dish cloths and used this cute pattern (the yellow one) to knit up a couple.
This is fun!! Unfortunately, I’m spending too much money buying new needles and cool yarn!!