Theoretic Gal ~ Textiles ~

Peacock Blue

Just had to share.

Outfit from Featherbaby

Shoes are Blue Inch

Baby: ME

A Little Knitting

Yes, more knitting content. Gasp

I love C's Pure Baby vests,  they are great dribble catchers and  fantastic for cooler days. So I decided he needed more.
First there was the great pattern hunt on Ravelry, through my library and online.
I decided on this cute one

 
From Sirdar 323 Baby Bamboo Knits :

on Ravelry

It is the right size/shape to knock off this one

 

Which still fits but I am making the new one a little larger.
Since I am aiming to use stash as much as possible and DH suggested a grey tweed vest I went for a grey alpaca  which I had purchases a few years ago at a craft fair in Hobart. I combined it with a mustard Jo Sharp DK ( called Gold!! ) for a few rows of contrast on the ribs. I plan to knit some matching mittens, socks and hat but we'll see how far that plan gets ;-)

So Far So Good

I am enjoying knitting the alpaca, especially on the Bryspuns but I have no idea whether C will find it ok to wear.

I must be having a bit of an orange thing going at the moment because  some found it's way into an Elann order recently too. Along with Chocolate and Biscuit Esprit and a few other supplies.

More of the same

Ok so he's cute

  but he's still a little terror.

After the fabulous weight gain he slipped back to a measly 120 gms the following fortnight.
Luckily we have our long awaited Paed visit  coming up and we can see how worried she is about it all.
He's rolling over front to back whenever he feels like it, which is preferably when we aren't looking ;-)
He  seems to enjoy launching himself at things including any food that is close enough!
And following in the footsteps of his Big brother he likes to stand at all times.
Which basically means  you have to hold him up and play with him all day long, which would be fine if I have a housekeeper to do all the boring domestic chores.
So far he dislikes his Baby Bjorn and although he loves the Hug-a-bub  it takes a bit too much effort for round the house stuff so I'll try another sling to see if he likes that.

We also cracked it with him the other night.
After 10 nights of him being awake from 1-2am until 6am we decided that waiting until he was 6 months old to try self settling was a joke. So this week has been interesting. Lying next to a grumpy baby at 2am trying to get some sleep isn't fun but it seems to have worked, so far so good. He is gradually learning  to go to sleep himself and since he is in our room it makes everyone happier. The good bit was he never got to the hysterical stage, he only grumped, no screaming at all !.

I am dying to do some crafting but the best I can manage is a few rows on booties when waiting for MB to finish school. Nights I am too tired and have other stuff to do. But hopefully I can get back into it as I have so many projects ready to jump into. mI mean these are so cute.

I have been thinking ahead about getting a port-a-cot to leave in the studio as a playpen for C, once he gets bigger he will probably be a block building aficionado like MB.

I did manage to make a quick emergency ironing board cover when the old one got some yukky stuff on it. It's daggy but it was a nice sturdy drill from the stash

It's all about feet

Covering baby's tootsies is serious business, their precious toes need to stay toasty warm and as every mum knows babies don't necessarily agree. So in a desperate effort to keep everyone happy, a mother will resort to tricky tactics. 
Exhibit 1: The Novelty Sock:

Or when that fails the quest begins for

Exhibit 2: The perfect fitting sock:

Oh how I would love to have been able to include a picture for you of this holy grail of sockdom but alas the bugger doesn't exist.
So what does a die-hard crafter mum do when such an occasion arises?
Well they figure I'll make one myself in all that spare time they have from 12:01-12:03 when their cherub closes his eyes.

First stop is the knitting library for a pattern for the perfect sock/bootee

This lids a few possibilities

Stop 2: Goggle.  Do you have any idea how many baby sock/bootee pattern are out there? A  freakin' lot!

Stop 3: Ravelry/ Blogland to check out how these bootee pattern stack up IRL

Pk so I find a likely  suspect. I mean how could I go past Ruth's "Perfect" baby booties (her quote-marks not mine) on ravelry here   So I grab a pair of  Brittany birch DPN's  and quickly whip up a bootee in a fav yarn Elann's Esprit .

Hmmm compared to his current hand knit sock it looks a tad small

Ok so back to the drawing board I go. Take 2 try bigger needles. 4.00mm rather than the 3.25's I had used on #1. I also skipped the eyelet for the cord, added some garter stitch to the top, and changed it to be knitted seamless.

How did it go?

Well it looked like it should fit but now they are on the monster's feet it's obvious they are a l little bit too small 

Resulting in the typical lost sock syndrome

So it's back on the hunt.
He does have a pair of luna ninos that fit great but I think they are knit on too loose a gauge to be very long wearing IMHO and at $20 a pop a little too indulgent for everyday wear.
He also has a cute pair gifted from a dear friend which stay on ok when done up. I should track down that pattern too. I can always try changing them to a snug ribbed cuff.

Three cheers for chubba bubba

Well not quite
BUT after the disappointment of the dismal gain of 170 gms in the previous 4 weeks it feels like it.

Mr C put on a whopping 292 gms in 10 days!!!

Yeah I know he's christening the top but it's just a little one. The real ones are measured by the handful :-0

So it was either the double feeds which have helped to reduce the vomit volumes or it was all the giraffe leg in the diet


Hopefully the blog can slowly revert to a craft blog rather than a chuck report.

More crafting soon but  first some eye candy. A lovely fair-isle hat made by a talented friend. Thanks Sal we love it.

4 months

4 months and only 4864 gms
-- crap he only gained 172 gms for the MONTH

So we are back to:
-- weekly weigh-in's,
-- max dosage of motillium,
-- dairy/soy free diet and
-- re-offering feeds around 30 mins after previous feed finished to try and get more liquid in with less loss ( i.e reduce the chuck)

I am quite beside myself at this happening again, so I drag out monsterboys old yellow book
at 4 months he weighed 4744 but he started off 320 gms heavier, so C is not quite as bad.

Just like Monsterboy, he is reaching all developmental milestones and nothing appears obviously wrong with him. No eczema, no infections he looks like a healthy, although a bit underweight, baby.

But he's so bloody cute

The only real signs anything is not quite right is shocking sleep and crap weight gain.

Lets hope we find a solution like we did for monsterboy

Speaking of Monsterboy he's recovering well. Back as school today so hopefuly he'll get used to all those stairs fairly quickly.

Ouch

Poor monsterboy
He managed to greenstick his tib and fib at 13 months old and due to his(over)active lifestyle it never set straight so he went in last week to have his ankle de-rotated. Which is a nice way of saying they opened him up sawed through the bones and twisted everything back into alignment. Talk about OUCH!

He'll be on crutches for 6-8 weeks and in a boot for around the same period. Due to the nature of the surgery they only give him a half cast so no pressure can be applied to the joint making it very limiting so he's stuck at home until he masters the crutches enough to handle the flights of stairs at school. Somehow he managed to miss out on his mothers athletic abilites( yeah yeah stop laughing I was actually quite good back in the day)  so he is left with his father atrocious blance making it even more difficult for him :-)

Gifts from the heart

You have to love blogging
I had Sydney knitter Lara bookmarked and I checked her blog regularly then I discovered she was not only pregnant but considering cloth, so we started chatting about that.
Then I found out that she was friends with someone on my old sewing list, who was a long time friend of my Hobart sewing buddy, Babette.  It is amazing how small the craft world really is.
Anyway Lara has been having a really tough time with her lovely cherub,  Inigo. Failure to Thrive is really tough on parents and I can totally emphathize after what we went through with Monsterboy.

Baby C is a slow weight gain but not FTT and that can he hard enough to deal with some days. You second guess yourself constanly and begin to doubt your ability to properly provide for this precious child you have been entrusted with.

Well somehow she managed to make the cutest welcome to the world gifts for Mr C. Handknitted hats and washcloths, Embroidered singlet and trackies, a funky chenille bib and she even threw in some microfibre cloth for boosting nappies. I just cannot express how much the gifts mean to me knowing what she is going though.

Thanks so very much Lara . I know that Inigo will get through this and he'll end up being a complete sweetheart like Monsterboy. Our family sends you all our love. You are in our thoughts constantly and we wish you lived closer so we could come around for big hugs and a hot cuppa on those days when you really need them.

fluffy mail

Time is short so I decided that instead of trying make C's entire MCN stash myself I would indulge in a little online shopping. Surprise Surprise. ( Actually I would have loved it if there was a bricks and mortar MCN store for me to visit so I could see the sizing/shape/fabric IRL before buying them)

So in the last few days my friendly neighbourhood parcel man delivered me some lovely fluffymail.

First up some Baby Beehinds. Old style Magic-alls  which were on ebay for $AUD15 shipped. I tried a small and newborn. Although the NB fitted snugger, C will only be in them for a while so I got another 4 smalls. Then I grabbed a Deluxe trial pack which included a new style magic-all, 2 bamboo fitted, one Wool and one PUL cover, an overnight booster and a pack of cloth wipes.

They washed up nicely and the magic-all have been added to the rotation.
The bamboo OSFA are just a little bulky for my liking on my pipsqueak but once he get's a few kg bigger I am looking forward to using them.

I also grabbed a Mandy Mac hemp off ebay but I can't say I am enamoured by it (top right in pic) whereas the Nuture nappies order some real sweet stuff.

Contents:
Tots Bots PUL cover turquoise star
Tots Bots Bamboozle, Size 1 Turquoise
bitti d'lish snap-in all in one,  small, red
loveybums organic wool jersey cover  newborn/cornflower
itti bitti boo fitted nappy Electric Blue Small
Baby Greens Growing  Greens, night boosters
Imse Vimse all in one nappy newborn
bumgenius all in one, add a stay dry booster, Small, Grasshopper Green
itti bitti bamboo snap in inserts, bamboo mini booster, microfibre mini booster,

It is amazing the difference in the sizes. EG Imse Vimse NB is middle of right hand column and it seems huge especially compared to the itti bitti's.

I have to lanolize my wool covers before I use them but the rest are in the wash getting the full pre-use treatment. Here's hoping C isn't sensitive to wool like his mother.

This doesn't mean I am giving up on DIY'ing it's just that I am being realistic about my current free time and crafting priorities.

Week 12

Wow 12 weeks that went quick.
Bootcamp went well. C  is sorted on some meds to help the reflux and that combined with a bit better sleeping habits has made for a much happier chap.
He totally freaked  us out by dropping weight whilst we were there but he gets weighed again today at the MCHN so we'll see what she has to say about how he's going.  He looks healthy enough.

He has started doing cute stuff like grabbing toys and interacting with them and he's rarely without a toy or fist in his mouth.

I was quite sad when I had to retire some of his newborn clothes,they were all washed ironed and folded read to be packed away from some other child to wear :-(

We are having some clothing issues he has a heap of 000's  0-3 month items which just don't fit yet but he's outgrown a heap of smaller items so we are left with slim pickings. Maybe I should just put him into the bigger/looser fitting stuff.

He had a great weekend with the grandparents giving the loads of smiles and chatter but I keep forgetting to take pictures So instead of leaving the camer all tidy in it's case I am going to mleave it ready for action on the coffee table adn see if that helps my picture-taking ability. I also grabbed a cheap portrait lens, a 50mm F 1.8 with no fancy additions like usm or is but it;ll give me something else to play with.

Update:
weight: 4.69 kg ( 10 lbs 5ozs) length:57cms putting him around the 5th percentile for both so he's still just on the charts but not by much.On the positive side he's still in proportion :-) Not like my 90th for height and under the chart DS#1 at the same age. Suppose that should make me feel better but it doesn't