Here she is, a big 6 month old wearing her new sweater.  The pattern is Camilla Babe from Quince and Co., but I used a cotton blend yarn by Berocco called Weekend.  (Brenna’s was Weekend Chunky.)

I love knitting wool yarn.  I love the thought of wearing sweaters knit with wool.   I, however, do not really like wearing wool in real life.  It itches.  Alpaca, cashmere, mohair, angora, sheep’s wool– they all make my skin crawl even if I have a turtle neck underneath.  I can stand super wash merino, but it gets so pilly and fuzzy.   Does that make me a bad knitter?  The purist in me says yes, it does.  Only wool yarn is REAL.  I almost feel like it is akin to my feelings about whipped topping.  Cool Whip is not real food and will never enter my lips.  It’s real cream for me or nothing.  I really feel so torn about the real yarn thing.  Part of me feels like if it is part plastic or acrylic or whatever you want to call it, it is not real yarn and should not be knit.  BUT I do not like to itch and I do not like my children to make me itch.  So, I am trying to come to terms with my notions of REAL knitting and loving and wearing the things I knit.  I’m trying to embrace a little acrylic in my yarn because it is soft and doesn’t torture my nose hairs.

Now, back to this cute baby of mine.  She can sit up!  I weighed myself holding her yesterday and she’s about 20 pounds.  I think that means that tomorrow I will be pulling out the 9-12 month clothes.  Geesh.

I knit the 6 month size of sweater and it will fit her for a good long while, which is fantastic at the rate she is growing.  The neck is a bit bigger than I would like, so I’m waffling about ripping the last fan repeat at the neck back and adding in more decrease rows.

The color is super cute on her, but then again, she is just super cute.  All. the. time.

I didn’t get a post of Eva made on her 5 months birthday like I have every other month.  Now that she’s nearly 6 months I better get with it!

The truth is, Eva’s 5 month birthday was a really emotional day.  A good friend of mine had a baby the weekend before who died just 2 hours after he was born.  They knew it would be that way.  He was diagnosed with trisomy 13 when she was about 20 weeks pregnant, but still it was so sad and so hard.

Eva’s babyhood has been so emotional for me.  I am so keenly aware of how miraculous her little life is, how lucky I am to have her safe, whole, so perfect.  I know so many people who struggle to get pregnant, who desperately want children but just can’t seem to make it happen.  The week after Eva was born my sister in-law nearly died of preeclampsia, her baby was delivered at 32 weeks, and that tiny baby’s little lung collapsed on her second day of life.  There I was with a perfect baby, memories of a peaceful home birth, and tears running down my face constantly thinking of my sweet sister in-law who could barely even touch her fragile little one.  (My  niece is fine now, growing and perfect, but she had a scary start.)

Here I am with 6 perfect children, 6 easy pregnancies, 6 uncomplicated births.  I am so blessed.  I have had 2 miscarriages that were intensely sad, but a year to the day after each I was nursing a sweet little boy and as I look back I realize those trials were so small in comparison to what so many go through.

I hope I can live up to this miraculous privilege that is mine.

I have 6 perfect babies.

Have you ever sewn leather?  It’s always seemed a bit scary to me, but my sewing machine has a special button for sewing leather and every time  I’ve sat down at it I’ve wondered, “Could I really sew leather?  What would I make?”  It was an itch I needed to scratch, so the other weekend I ventured to Denver Fabrics.  It’s a crazy HUGE place that is completely overwhelming for me, but I knew I could find pretty leather.  That I did.  I bought a supple brown lamb skin and brought it home.  I made 2 projects with it, but today I’ll just show you one.  (The auto focus on my main camera lens is dying and I only got okay photos of one of the things I made.)

Behold the little shoes:

Aren’t they perfect?  I love them.  They are such a cute shape, with a wide toe.  Robeez are cute, but sometimes the decoration on them is a bit much for me.  I used this pattern with a few modifications.  Since I was using leather instead of fabric I didn’t make the heel or sole two layers.  I did line the toe part with some fabric, though, so I had a little channel for the elastic to go through.

I used the suede side of the leather for the sole and a decorative flower stitch to topstitch them.  The actual sewing was just like sewing regular fabric.  I made sure I had a leather needle in my machine and that was it.  Piece of cake.

And because I can’t resist it, here are some pictures of the other end of my little shoe model.

The camera clicking woke her up.

How will I survive when she’s not a baby anymore?  I need to freeze time.

Eva has taken to sucking her finger and we think it’s the cutest thing.  She holds her blanket up to her face with her right hand and sucks her left pointer finger.  None of our other kids would ever really suck on a pacifier, let alone a finger.  It’s so adorable.  (I know it might not be when she’s 5 years old, but it sure is now at 4 months.)

It’s a good thing I made her some more blankies for Christmas– one side snuggly flannel and the other side silky voile from Anna Maria Horner’s Little Folks line.  If I were a better blogger you’d know that I LOVE the voile that several Free Spirit Fabric designers have prints on because I have made several things out of its silkiness (a School House Tunic, a shirt for Brenna, a shirt for me), but only about a third of the things I make ever get blogged about, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.  I love that fabric and I love that my sweet little girl likes to tickle her face with it as she sucks herself to sleep.

Our little princess is another month older.  Her new favorite thing to do is hang out in the jumper.  It’s so much of a favorite that she will jump for over an hour at a time.  That is a  l o n g  time when you’re just 4 months old.  We loaded her up today and Logan wanted to be the photographer.

Most of his photos turned  out like this:

which gives you an idea of the vigorous hand flapping and bouncing that was going on.   (The rest of the photos I took.)

This jumper was mine when I was a baby, then used by my 4 brothers, and now all 6 of my babies (and a nephew too).  It is THE favorite baby toy of all the babies I know who’ve tried it.  The amazing thing is that they are so quick to figure out just how it works and are jumping and flapping away in no time.

This baby of mine is such a cutie.  She’s a big rolly-polly cutie.  At 3 months she was 15 1/2 lbs, so I’m guessing now she’s probably about 17.  That’s about the same as all 4 of my boys at this age too.

I brought out the tub of size 6-9 month clothes today.   It’s fun to have new things to dress her up in– and much easier to get bigger sleepers zipped.  Just look at those rolly-polly arms.

Eva is 3 months old today and we are on the road for our Thanksgiving trip. I can’t even put into words how cute she is! During this last month she has been much happier. I guess she’s realized that life on the outside is fun– there are so many people to smile at and talk to.
I’m blogging from my phone somewhere on the highway in Utah. Oh, the marvels of modern technology– one of the countless things I’m thankful for this week. Here’s to good weather, safe travels, lots of knitting ( thanks to Barry for doing all the driving), and time with good friends and family!
Happy Thanksgiving all!

The very first knitting I finished for Eva was this pilot cap and these little booties.  It was actually my road trip knitting from our trip to Idaho in June.  I intended for them to be the first thing we put on her after she was all dried off from being born, but the hat ended up being too big for a fresh newborn.

It fits great now, at 2 1/2 months.   On our way out the door to go grocery shopping yesterday I snapped a couple of quick photos of it in use.

The booties, on the other hand, are almost too small now.  They’ve seen a whole lot of use.  I love booties that tie on because they STAY on.  Socks just never do the trick.  These have been in constant rotation since the day she was born, along with the pink booties I ended up knitting to be her very first.  (You can see them in this post.)

I used the Lil’ Midi Bean pilot cap pattern (found through Ravelry, of course) .  The booties  are Christine’s Baby Booties which is such a wonderfully simple pattern I think I could do it from memory now.  The yarn is a bamboo/silk/merino blend made by Crystal Palace that is so soft.

I guess you’d say I’m in the knitting mood.  I have my green Febraury Lady Sweater nearly done! (I’ve been working on it since January.)  Hopefully it will make it on the blog soon.

This week I finished knitting this pair of pants for little Eva.  They are oh so soft and oh so cute.  I used the Picky Pants pattern from Little Turtle Knits and Malabrigo Worsted Merino yarn (which I also used on her newborn diaper wrap a while back).

I made a size medium hoping that would be the right size to fit her through this winter and it looks good.  They are pretty big now, but she will grow.

It’s bittersweet, this growing thing my baby is doing.

On the one hand it is so much fun to watch her open up to this world– to see her eyes light up when she looks one of us in the eye, to hear her squeals of delight as we coo and talk to her,

to see her serious concentration as she bats at her toys.

On the other hand I just want her to stay tiny– just a tiny sweet smelling little lump I can hold up to my cheek.  Growing is good, though.  There is no way to resist all the chins and the rolly thighs…

and the smiles and giggles!

But I digress.  This post is about pants, right?  I really want to tell you about the waistband.  The Picky Pants pattern gives 2 options– and elasticized waist or a drawstring waist.  I got a wool diaper cover knit by a friend and she did this genius thing.  She put elastic inside her i-cord.  I love how it looks, so I thought I steal her idea and do it on these pants making them a pair of drawstring-elastic waist pants.  I just made a 4 stitch i-cord the length I wanted the waistband to be (in this case about 16 inches) and threaded a 16 inch piece of 1/4″ wide elastic through it with a safety pin.  I wove that in and out the eyelets in the waistband, sewed the ends of the elastic together, then closed up the i-cord around it.

Love it.

(And for those of you who are wondering, Eva is playing with the baby gym I made Hunter and she loves it.  She bats and bats and bats away and often just wiggles herself to sleep.  Super cute.)

Eva has been with us for 2 whole months and I’m tired.  I think I’m the most tired I’ve ever been in my whole life.

But look at that face… that makes it all worth it.

And I have a lot of help.

I love that Jonah has taken to just carrying Eva around and hanging out with her.  It makes me thankful that I homeschool and that my big kids get to be HERE for this babyhood that goes by so fast.  Sometimes the baby is the lesson- a lesson they can only get by being home.

My freshest baby is already one month old.  It’s been a whirlwind and feels like she’s always been a part of us at the same time.  I love holding her with her soft little cheek against mine, feeling her baby breath, and thinking that this is my very most favorite thing I’ve done in my whole life.  I LOVE having a newborn.  I love the treasure of having a little person that is both a part of me and its own at the same time.  I love soft skin and fuzzy shoulders and whispery sneezes.  I was going over old posts about my other babies and love what I said when Ian was tiny:

I just look at him and say to myself, “Remember this–how he looks, how it feels to hold him. He won’t remember this time– it’s all mine. These short months of tininess are God’s gift to mothers. The sweetness, perftection, complete dependence are just for me– to treasure, to see everytime I look at him, for the rest of his life.”

I don’t know how to say it any differently.  I love having a baby.

I thought I’d show you some handmade gifts from lovely friends on Eva’s 1 month birthday.  I waited until a bit too late in the day to have good light, but here are some more pictures anyway.

My kindred spirit April made Eva a super cute quilt.  (You can see better photos of the whole thing here.)

And the sweet gown and flower are from my talented friend Jodi.

Thank you friends for being excited about my little girl too.

And happy one month birthday tiny Eva.  We’re sure glad you’re ours.