now she’s 6 months and has a new sweater

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.

the 5 months post I’m just now getting around to

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.

Brenna’s Camilla

I’ve had these pictures on flickr for a week at least and still haven’t gotten around to posting them. Remember my Christmas sweater and skirt ambitions? Well, I did get Brenna’s done. I was weaving in the yarn tails late Christmas Eve and she wore them to church on Christmas day.

She’s also worn her sweater a lot since. I’d say on average 2 times a week. It is super cute and comfy.

I could have made it one fan repeat shorter, but oh well.

Isn’t she looking so grown up. She only has half an inch to catch up to me in height and her hands and feet are just slightly bigger than mine. She’ll be 12 in May. Yikes!

Love her, and love that she loves her mama made sweater.

Eva’s is done too, so stay tuned…

vote for me!!

Spoonflower has a weekly themed contest, so I decided to enter this week. The theme was “Art Deco” and designs were limited to 4 colors. There are a lot of great designs in the contest. I think it would be so cool to be up in the top ten. I think I’ll try to enter the contests semi-regularly as I work on honing my fabric design skills.

Will you go vote for me? I think voting ends tonight or tomorrow.