My Everest

dancing in the street

Never in my life have I been so glad to get a project off my needles and out of my hair.  Never have I had a project feel like it was just dragging on and on like this one.

This was supposed to be Iain’s birthday sweater for last year, when I came up with this sweet, sentimental idea that for their 13th birthdays my children should be allowed to design their own sweaters.  We had a couple of design meetings where it was determined that he wanted a solid bright green, zip front vest with pockets that buttoned closed, made from a worsted weight yarn.  I dog-eared my stitch dictionary marking off patterns that appealed to him.  At some point in the process he decided that he would like for it to be at least partially a surprise (it’s also entirely possible that he just wanted me to stop asking him so many darn questions and that he was just too polite to say so!) and so he left the details up to me.    Wanting to please him, I may have gone a little bit overboard, trying to use as many different stitch patterns as I could.  This boy is all about the texture.  He likes cables and bobbles and things of that sort.  I think I ended up using 10 different stitch patterns in all, switching patterns as often as seven times a row.

As I said at the start this was supposed to be his birthday sweater for last year.  But that was the winter I got really sick and stopped knitting at all.  When I finally picked up my needles again, I couldn’t face anything but the simplest, most mindless type of knitting.  I just didn’t have anything more in me at the time.  And so this sat…and sat.  Other priorities came and went, but as his birthday approached this year, I knew it was time to do something.  I seriously considered ripping back and starting over, possibly with a simple, quick and easy, already written vest pattern.  But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Of course the sizing and the amount of yarn were really a year off.  I was able to add length, but not width, which made it a little awkward.  I did in fact, run out of yarn and had to finish the edging with a different color.  And then in my fervor to really show off the stitch definition I over blocked it, especially at the neckline.  Looking back, there are several things I would have done differently.  But it was completed in time for his birthday this year.  That first picture was taken as it lay blocking in the middle of the night before.  Maybe not as nice as it could be, but at least I kept my promise, made when no sweater appeared on his birthday table last year, and he seems content.

By
Kids, Life, my knitting patterns, Yarn Crafts
Leave a reply

Feeding Our Families ~ Postpartum Meal Planning

When Iain was born there was just the two of us to feed and absolutely zero thought was given to planning food for the postpartum period.  Steve would come home with plastic cups full of prepared fresh fruit salad from the grocery store and we’d eat baked potatoes and pasta in bed and I don’t believe it felt like a strain at all.

By the time Elijah came along I had made some serious dietary changes.  Our kitchen life wasn’t quite so easy anymore.  We had just moved and the situation over-all wasn’t ideal.  It was really Steve’s first time caring for Iain alone and I think that was kind of over-whelming.  It’s not that he wasn’t an involved father before, he’s always been that.  It’s just there was no real need for him to be involved in the day to day caring aspects.  He would come home from work and everything would be under control.  There might be a couple of dishes to do, but otherwise he was free to devote his time to playing with and reading to our little guy.  This time around things felt stressful.  We ate a lot of prepared food the first couple of days, that did not do well by our bellies and I really felt pressured (not at all by Steve, just by the situation) to be back to “normal” much sooner then was reasonable and I seriously paid for it health-wise.

I was ill for much of my pregnancy with Galen and very worried about being able to care for everyone after.  With the memory of our last experience in mind I went manic- Type A and prepared a binder full of several weeks worth of food schedules.  Every possible detail was in there, right on down to how to prepare the herbal baths and infusions from the blends I had made during my pregnancy.

With Màiri our life circumstances were such that I couldn’t have possibly done anything in advance to prepare.  Every day was full to overflowing with just the tasks that needed to be accomplished to survive that day.  Luckily we had a wonderful community around us that organized around 3 weeks worth of home-cooked dinners for us, for which I will be forever grateful.

And here we are again, with more dietary restrictions then ever and more mouths to feed.  We have no real community nearby to speak of at them moment.  From the beginning I’ve felt that I would need to be really thoroughly prepared if things are to run smoothly after the baby comes.  And I thought the timing of this post would be just perfect because by the beginning of March, surely I would have just about everything in order.  While I’m not truly expecting this baby anytime soon (I tend to have very long pregnancies), the fact is we’re at the point where any time is fair game.

And so, as of yesterday this is what I had to share with you….

Pictures of snowmen.  Do I get any kind of credit for the snowmen having carrot noses?  These ones were supposed to be our family, in snowman form, on an unfortunately melt-y day.  Some of us didn’t make out too well.

And this one appeared outside my window to cheer me up on a day when I wasn’t feeling well…

Complements of Iain and Elijah, dear sweet souls.

In other words I was pretty much no where.  I believe I had two meals in the basement freezer.  Which is enough to get us through all of 2/3 of a day, provided nobody needs a snack.

I started off well.  In autumn when we were putting up the bounty of our garden, I did a lot of baking to preserve food with this time in mind; zucchini bread, chocolate zucchini bread, roasted pumpkin muffins.  One day I got well into making a large batch of apple sauce, only to discover I was out of canning lids, and so I made batch after batch of applesauce muffins instead.  The problem was that between then and now there have been more then enough occasions where we’ve just needed to grab something quick when running out the door or I was in need of an easy middle of the night snack, that, well every single last one of those things is long gone.

Trying to get back on track now, yesterday I spent the entire afternoon making Beef Bolognese.  I used the recipe found at the bottom of this page, times six, switching out coconut milk for the cream.

Currently there is a double batch of Carrot-Ginger-Coconut Muffins cooling on the counter and headed for the freezer.

I’m making lists.  I’m a great one for making lists you know.  I can plan and plan until the sun comes down, it’s the follow through that is sometimes lacking.  I have a list going of easy to prepare foods.  A list of food the kids don’t mind cooking and a list of foods to try to freeze.  I’m measuring out all the ingredients for our Wednesday morning hot cereal and storing it in jars with cooking instructions, making sauces and freezing chicken in them so that it can marinate and be ready to cook as it thaws.  We’ll have baking day twice this week, eating just a bit and freezing the rest.  And whenever I can I’ll be doubling the meals I make and freezing half.

I would love to hear other people’s experiences with postpartum meal planning.  What worked for you?  What didn’t?  Any fabulous meal suggestions?

Expect posts this week by:

By
Feeding Our Families, Food, Housewifery, Life
21 Replies

brown may be the new blue…

Nursing dress # 3 in chocolate brown (you can see number one here and number two here).

It looks better on.  I’ve yet to figure out a good way of padding out the bust of my dress form.  Because of course it wasn’t made in the shape of a postpartum nursing mama, but in the shape of someone who’d last given birth four years prior.  There is a difference, it’s not a small one, and if you have kids you probably know this already.  Anyhow, that’s the reason that it doesn’t lay quite right. 

For a pattern I used a little bit of the Empire Dress pattern that I talked about here, parts of this tutorial and a whole lot of ingenuity.  My first attempt did not turn out as I had hoped.  I adapted the skirt from the dress pattern and used the Twist Top tutorial pretty much as written for the bodice.  It was rather baggy and awkward looking, not at all fitted, which I suppose makes sense, you can see from her photos that her version has a fairly loose fit.  But my inspiration was actually this form flattering dress, which I knew had in turn been inspired by that tutorial.  Many alterations later and I got a lot closer to what I was looking for.  Due to all of the taking in/taking apart/re-doing the whole thing did not come together as cleanly as I would have liked.  I do have all of the alterations marked out on my own personalized pattern now, so fingers crossed that the next attempt should go smoothly!

And for the babe… Picky Pants, a Pilot Cap and Ruby Slippers all in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes “Brown Sugar”.

The color puts me in mind of sugaring off, a weird nearly spring type of association for me.  The tiny booties are my favorite.

And just for a change of pace…

a little green.  Another pilot cap, toddler sized this time, in Valley Yarns Northampton “Apple Green”.

I have been woefully negligent in sharing my various knitting and sewing escapades lately.  While we wait for this little one to decide to arrive I’m going to try to play a bit of catch up.

By
baby things, sewing, Yarn Crafts
5 Replies

Celebrated

An eighth birthday in the midst of an ice-storm…

There were mama-made gifts and a brother made gift and the gift of visiting family from far away.

I put the chords to “Happy Birthday” in his Wonder Book, which inspired a full out sing-along of every song he’s ever played.

There was a special dinner and gingerbread…

and one splurge of a very cool gift.

He’s been wanting a camera for ages and this year we set out to see if we could find him one.  Nothing that we came across was very satisfying…that is, until we found the Bigshot build it yourself camera kit, which also happened to be way more money then we wanted to spend.  The problem was, after we saw that, nothing else came even close to comparing for this boy of ours who truly needs to know exactly how everything works.  Finally we asked a couple of other people to chip in and went for it.

Of course it absolutely had to be built right away…

Self portrait from this morning.  He’s really enjoying the timer setting!

By
celebrations and festivals, Food, Homeschooling, Kids
2 Replies

about a nightstand

I have a friend who during her pregnancies sets a deadline for when her husband has to be done any and all home improvement projects.  She wants to be sure that he’s not working on anything at all in those last couple months/weeks, no stress, just as much relaxing together as they can fit in.  I’m kind of the opposite…more the rub my hands together with an maniacal gleam in my eye while saying, “so, what else do you think we can get done????  huh, huh, huh???” type.  Which is kind of hilarious since the me part of we is pretty pathetic in the renovation department at the moment.  Under the best of circumstances I can be pretty hardcore.  I’ve installed dishwashers, fixed washing machines, laid flooring, hung joists, hung drywall, poured concrete, scaled the roof to fix second story screens.  I’m game for just about anything.  At the moment, however, I can’t do any lifting, can’t be around paint or finishes and consider the physical act of climbing out of bed a somewhat daunting challenge.  Last week I had to ask Elijah to tie my boots for me.  So, yup, I’m a big help.  Picking out curtains, hanging pictures and maybe a bit of light sewing is pretty much my speed at this point.  Oh, and directing everyone else in what to do.  That’s totally in my wheelhouse.  Which doesn’t at all stop me from wanting to get things done.  Call it nesting if you like, but the truth is I’m pretty much always this way.

For my birthday this year I asked Steve to help me get our bedroom closer to “done”.  As a part of this project he built me a little nightstand.  After intense internal debate on my part and a fair bit of indifference on his, we went with the Ana White Rolling C End Table adjusted to fit our space. I like that it can be pulled over the edge of the bed to be used for writing or eating or anything else of that sort that comes up.

For a finish I just picked a stain that we had around because I didn’t really want to invest much money in it.  It ended up being very close in color to the floor and our bed frame and the co-sleeper, but not quite the same as any of them.  And you would think that would tie it together with the rest of the room, but somehow it just made it look out of place.  I can’t really explain it, but it just looked strange and somehow wrong.

Also, I didn’t like how the wood filler showed through the stain…

Can you see what I mean?

But it was still much better to have a table then to not and I do like it very much.  Then, oh then…the lovely folks at General Finishes offered to send me some samples to play around with…and suddenly there was a whole new world of possibilities.

Except….

a previously stated, I’m not really supposed to be around such things at the moment.  But man was I itching to try those out!  It got to the point where I finally bribed persuaded my eldest children to help me in exchange for compensation.  Win-win.

These past few weeks have been so dark and dreary that capturing accurate colors has been difficult, but this is pretty close.  This is the same table after 3 coats of Milk Paint in Somerset Gold.  The milk paint has a really beautiful finish, I can see myself using it for a lot of projects in the future.

After the milk paint we sanded the edges a bit and scuffed it up a little to give it a bit of character (and yes, I actually helped with this part).  Perhaps it’s a bit strange to distress a piece of furniture that has such a modern shape?  I just really felt drawn to soft, muted tones in this space.

Next came a layer of Glaze Effects in Van Dyke Brown.  And this is where I would really have liked to been able to work on it myself.  I tried as best as I could to describe the look I was aiming for and they tried as best as they could to do what I asked, but I still think it would have gone better if I had been the one to actually apply it.  After the glaze, the whole thing was topped with 3 coats of High Performance Top Coat.  I think it’s going to hold up very well.

You’ll have to wait for final room pictures to see it in place, but I think I like it.  It provides a gentle pop of color but without being jarring.

By
before and after, The Healing Home, The Renovation Journal
Leave a reply

nursing dress take 2

This one is a winner, shown here layered over a nursing tank.  Yes, like the first one it more or less fits now, but in a much different way.  And yes, there was a point where I was close to tears because my clothes fit.  But it looks perfectly cute on my dress form, so I’m no longer worried about it.  I can see myself reaching for this one again and again, both the pattern and the actual dress!  The fabric is a baby blue organic jersey.  The pattern came from Meg McElwee of Sew Liberated‘s Sewing with Knits Craftsy class.  This is the Empire Dress, size medium.  I made a sleeveless version simply because I didn’t have enough fabric for sleeves.

A little tip: Several times a year Craftsy has a big sale and this class, which is usually $39.99 generally gets marked down to $19.99.  It comes with 5 excellent patterns for women’s wardrobe basics that can be combined and adjusted to make all manner of things.  I’m doing a lot of playing around with them these days.  Even if you aren’t interested in the class, which I’m sure is lovely, I just don’t happen to have time for it at the moment, that’s a pretty great deal just for the patterns alone.

p.s. My blog has been nominated for the Apartment Therapy “Homies” award, under the “Home Design and Inspiration Blogs” category.  If you are bored and feel inspired to vote, you can do so here.  My blog is listed under the name Bespoke.

By
pretty things, sewing
3 Replies

Week in the Life Saturday- in words

And not many of them.  Another snow storm on a very dark, grey day.  The boys worked in the morning.  Their boss described them as “whirlwinds” and said that she might have to nail their feet to the floor to get them to take a rest from time to time.  Elijah had a riding lesson in the afternoon.  Otherwise the day seemed like a lot of nothingness.  Steve’s trip to the hardware store was rescheduled in consideration of the forecast.  The kids played in the snow a bit.  I sewed, but only a little.  There were a lot of card games and many rounds of ping pong.  I kept trying to convince myself to go and take some pictures, then I would think how silly that was, as I had no desire to.  Why force it?  These few pictures of the garden from late, late in the afternoon are the only ones I took all day.  I abandoned my dinner plans in favor of comfort food; creamed spinach topped with fried eggs.

By
Kids, Life, photography, snapshots
Leave a reply