Help me out here, gang. I’m working on a new project (besides the baby) to keep me busy and I need some help. What’s the craziest “woo”/old wive’s tale/crazy theory you heard while pregnant? Hit me up via Twitter @tothepoints, or below in the comments.
For those of you who aren’t clear on what “woo” is, here’s a good definition from Skeptico:
“ideas that are irrational and not based on evidence commensurate with the extraordinary nature of the claim. These are ideas that usually rely on magical thinking, are rarely tested to see if they are real, and are usually resistant to reason and contrary evidence.”
For example, I was told (by a nurse, no less) that babies who won’t breastfeed turn out to be “wierd” in the long run.
About three weeks ago, I finally finished the Op Art baby blanket I’d been working on for the baby. The pattern is totally beautiful when completed, but the actual process wasn’t one I’d like to do again any time soon – a lot like pregnancy, now that I think about it. Don’t attempt this blanket unless you:
a) Really, REALLY love doing rounds and rounds of both knit and purl (blanket is knit in the round, and to get the garter stitch effect, you have to do alternating rows of knit and purl)
b) Go against the pattern and do it in stockinette stitch.
c) Are ready to be working on it for quite some time.
I never thought I’d finish it, and finally, I made the executive decision to cut it short – I stopped about 4 color change rows prior to the patterns end. Good thing I did, as it is HUUUGE! It would have totally dwarfed the baby had I gone ahead with it.
In progress...
Before Weaving in the Ends
Weaving in the ends took forever, and was totally not the thing I wanted to do after knitting this guy.
The gently-blocked final product
About a week after I finished the blanket (early, due to stopping pre-pattern end) I got a case of something called PUPPPs, a skin rash that only 1 in 150 pregnant women get. (Note: I am not linking to anything on it, and I don’t encourage you to Google it. Let’s just say it isn’t pretty or fun, and leave it at that. We’ll all be happier for it.) It spreads rapidly, and ends up being miserable. My doctor encouraged me to induce labor, so on the 27th of May we decided to induce on the 2nd.* We actually ended up going in a day early, thanks to the busy schedule in labor and delivery. Long story short, after 27 hours in labor, we decided to do a c-section**. The result? A 7 pound, 14 oz baby boy named Alpheus John Oberdin. We’re calling him AJ. Isn’t he cool?
AJ & Me - 3 hours after surgery/birth. Surgery caps do wonky things to your hair.
The night he was born
AJ @ 5 Days
I’m just getting the energy to blog and knit and move around again – not only was this my first baby, but also my first surgery (unless you count the time they popped a cyst in my hand, which I don’t). Happily, I’m getting better and he’s getting bigger.
*Best decision ever. By the day I got induced, the rash had moved from my stomach to my arms. During labor, it had moved to my back, my legs and my feet. I don’t know how I would have gone another week.
**Second best decision ever. AJ was in cockeyed, couldn’t drop down and after the surgery they realized he’d not have come out the normal way.
Every weekend, I spend a little bit of time just playing online – looking at different things that are interesting, inspiring or cool from a design, crafty, or visual perspective. It gives me a little bit of focus for the week to come, and adds some ideas for things I’d like to try. (Of course, right now, everything I want to try is superceded by “Getting the baby out of me” – but I am keeping a list for things I want to do in the future.) Here’s some cool stuff I came by this week:
This No-Sew Jersey Scarf makes me want one. Even though I have 18 million knitted scarf, now I want a jersey scarf. ( Altered Cloth)
This recipe for Citronella Soap recipe on Craft Gossip has me wanting to try soap making. And I don’t even like the smell of Citronella!
I tried salted hot chocolate, which was VERY good, so I’m going to try salted coffee, just to see if I like it. However, the commenter at the very bottom reminded me that I want to make some vanilla sugar, so I can change my regular sparkling water to vanilla creme soda (minus the storebought yuk taste).
Really want to use some of my random wool roving to make a felted vessel. The rest of her blog just went on my “must read” list as well (HomeWork)
If you haven’t been following The Object Project, you totally should be.
When I was a teenager, and we first moved back from Germany to the US, I remember flipping through channels and finding CSPAN. Realizing that it was a channel devoted to watching members of Congress talk to each other (remember, this is 1988 people) I just thought grownups were wierd and boring.
Now I’m the wierd, boring grownup, because I cant get enough of NASA’s Youtube chanel. Here’s the Hubble getting released from Atlantis:
Last summer, Jason and I went to South Dakota, where we got to visit an alpaca ranch. It was awesome, and I bought something like 2 pounds of alpaca, straight off of an award winner named Tiera. I’m planning on spinning it once the baby is born, but since this yarn is my special snowflake, I bought some Alpaca from Rich-Nes Alpacas when I was at Stitches Midwest (4 oz of roving) last year. I figured I’d rather test my alpaca spinning prowess on an alpaca I don’t know, than my Tiera fleece.
I spun this from the fold, since alpaca feels more slippery than most of the sheep’s wool I’ve worked with. It was an excellent method, and resulted in some nice, fluffy yarn. I’ve been wanting to try spinning from the fold anyway, since I thought alpaca deserved a technique that created a less dense yarn. I typically spin something DK or sport weight, and this is much thicker than my usual spinning efforts, and I focused on making it look sort of “handspun-y” rather than trying to make it look balanced and perfect.
I will totally be purchasing some more roving for Rich-Nes too – the stuff is so much fun to spin, very easy and oh so pretty. I kind of just want to hug the yarn, not actually make anything out of it, because after thowing it into soak, it ended up being super soft.
After I was done plying the alpaca, I had a little bit of yarn left over and decided to try my hand at core spinning/coil spinning. I plan to do another post on this in a bit, because I had so much fun doing it, but if you aren’t familiar, check out this example from Spin Off from Spring 2008. I used my leftover alpaca and some of my very first spun silk hankies. I like the contrast, and don’t plan on knitting this because I really like the way it looks just sitting there – kind of like something you want to eat. Maybe someday, I’ll figure out what to do with it.
Anyway, more to come on that at a later date as I plan on doing this again….
