Willow in W’illow

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

It might be ‘just’ a baby cardigan, but this is my most complex knitting project yet, and I LOVE the result. The yarn feels beautiful, the stitch patterns and construction add texture and interest, and Willow looks so sweet in red.

The pattern is the L’illo cardigan by Susan Power, published in Knitty, and the yarn is Merino Soft 4-ply Baby Wool from Skeinz. My Ravelry project page has details of my minor modifications.

Willow + L’illo = W’illow!

The construction with saddle shoulders is not one I’ve tried before.
I promise that seam is actually straight :)

I had to hand over the lint roller to get a close-up without having the camera grabbed…

I made my own closures using i-cord, after failing to find commercial buttons I liked. Each of the buttons is a 4cm length of i-cord tied in an overhand knot and sewn down, and each loop is an 8cm length arranged in an infinity shape, sewn on one side and left free on the other. It holds together quite well and I love the look with the ribbing and the slightly raised collar.

While I had Willow corralled on the table, with a camera in my hand, I took the opportunity to cajole her into counting so I could capture her world’s-cutest pronunciation of “eleven”. Success!

I have many more videos to upload, when I get the time. Willow’s all about demonstrating her new knowledge now, and every day is a non-stop stream of numbers and letters and colours and shapes and animal noises and questions and songs. She amazes me every day with things I had no idea she knew. It’s magical, and definitely makes up for the tantrums and mischief and squashing six bananas onto the lounge floor :P

Beach Baby W’illow

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

Willow and I spent last weekend in Whangamata with Mum and Coco-the-dog. To be honest I spent a lot of the time lounging about reading and taking naps – I hate the sun! – but Mum and Wil did lots of splashy water play and sandy beach play and doggy ball games and playground jaunts.

Babies in elephant-print ruffled swimming togs: TOO CUTE.

Today is JSR’s second day of a new job. He hasn’t been working since a prolonged illness last September, and Willow and I have loved having him home so much, but of course months without income have been stressful. His first day seemed to go well, and I really hope he enjoys the work.

I decided this was a good opportunity to reboot my daily schedule, so now we are all getting up with JSR’s alarm at 7.30am, as opposed to the, er, 10-11am rising Willow and I have been doing lately. We’ll have to see how this changes her sleep times, but I’m hoping for either a return to afternoon naps or an earlier bedtime. I know a time shift doesn’t really affect how many hours I have in the day, but I do feel much more productive when I get through all the laundry and chores before lunchtime!

I cast on for another toddler sweater this morning. I’m making Knitty pattern L’illo for Willow in a bright red wool. Perhaps I will call it W’illow! It’s quite a complex textured saddle-shoulder cardigan and I’m looking forward to the challenge. So far I’ve just got a little piece of sleeve but the stitch patterns are fun already. The only change I plan to make to the pattern is an alteration to the grafting at the centre back, since the half-stitch jog in alignment is rather obvious and looks sloppy to my eyes. I’ll see what other kind of join I can make when I get there – either a tidy seam, or a little strip of stockinette which will graft neatly.

Willow’s Second Christmas

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

Willow’s second Christmas!

She received two great Duplo sets from my parents, and immediately started to build: “TOWER! TOWER!”

(video)

I am lacking in words at the moment, but will share some of my Christmas knitting soon! I hope everyone is having pleasant and relaxing holidays.

Oh, and, here is another video from a couple of weeks ago I haven’t posted yet. When we’re at my parents’ house Willow loves climbing in and out of Coco’s crate :)

(video)

Ducks and Daisies

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

Since getting Willow out of the house is critical to maintaining my sanity, and we have Absolutely No Money at the moment, we’ve been visiting either a park or playground or the library virtually every day.

To be fair we’d be doing much the same thing if we weren’t broke, since I don’t think children need to be presented with commerce as recreation, but I feel awfully lucky to live somewhere we have plenty of opportunities for free activities when we need them!

Yesterday we had a few stale bread crusts lingering on the bench, so we went to a local park that has lots of ducks.

My first feeding spot beside the pond was not particularly successful, as Willow kept making a beeline for the water, but then I noticed a pair of handsome white ducks heading into a stand of trees and followed them under the canopy only to find a DUCK PARTY!

It was lovely and shady, and I distributed the rest of our bread to much quack-quacking. Wil was far more interested in eating the crusts herself and playing with sticks, but at least she wasn’t running for the water :)

We also spent a while on the other side of the park – away from the duck poop, hee! – carefully examining bugs and looking at the clouds and rolling about on the grass.

We play in the back yard at home, too. I made a daisy chain and managed to get Wil to wear it for a good ten minutes! So cute I could dieeeeeeee.

Unfortunately she is currently in a clingy, whiny, MUM MUM MUM MUM MUM phase (i.e. being a toddler!) which I can handle cheerfully when I’m well rested, but my reserves of energy run low in the late afternoon and evening, and most days it all goes a bit pear shaped. If she takes a nap I get some temporary relief, but then she stays up very late and bedtime is even more difficult, so it doesn’t really help the big picture. Frustrating!

On a happier subject, I’m excited about the new Urban yarn from Skeinz – it’s 100% wool, DK weight, machine washable, New Zealand made, and the initial reviews on Ravelry say it’s quite soft too. Oh, and really well priced! Those are perfect characteristics for crocheting blankets. I have a Skeinz gift voucher that expires in a month, so I’m going to order some to try out. Now, which colours to choose…

Willowpics

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

Having started and deleted an entry many times over the last few days I think it is best if I catch up by way of photos of Willow. There was a patch where I was too strung out to think of picking up my camera so the record has large gaps around 17-18 months, but I’m getting back into the habit now!

Very interested in shoes!

Fun to put on, fun to take off.

Mum bought Willow this little car, which is ridden around the house every day.

At a local park, picnicking for Father’s Day.

Gentle pats for Pippin.

I put Wil in this funny little padded elf suit and she had undone all the domes and removed it within five minutes. Ah, well!

CUSTARD!

This is the ONLY time Willow has EVER fallen asleep on the floor. Other kids take guerilla naps all the time, but not ours. She must have been very tired, gumboots and all.

Enjoying a fine day.

Sorting stones is serious business!

Willow looks so small at the end of the garden.

We visited MOTAT last weekend and they had a little farmyard set up for the school holidays. Willow patted sheep and lambs, piglets, a goat, a calf, a donkey and a bunny.

This is her extra happy squeezy face.

Lounging around, watching some Wonder Pets.

Something about this hunched pose and weird puffy pants makes me think Willow looks like a tiny fashion blogger. Also, look at her HAIR! It’s suddenly getting so long and curly, almost like a real style. I even had to trim her fringe a few days ago to keep it out of her eyes.

I’ve just installed a more advanced comment system here, which should have threading for conversations and (optional!) email notifications of replies and/or new comments. Let me know if it does anything odd for you. I’m excited to be able to reply to comments more clearly :)

The Coat of Hate

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

I finished knitting the Tomten coat for Willow yesterday!

She… she kinda hates it.

As soon as we put it on her she tears it off again. It’s actually quite hilarious as she’s never reacted like this to a piece of clothing before. The wool is very soft, not scratchy or itchy at all, and she wears plenty of other knits, so I’m not sure what the problem is!

I managed to get a few photos with my mum to help hold her today:

Our best effort…

…then some frantic grabbing…

…and it’s coming off!

I will put it in the wardrobe for a while, and see if she forgets about her loathing. There’s plenty of room in the sleeves, and if it gets a bit tight I can always pick up stitches and make the front bands wider as I have a couple of balls of yarn left over. We’ll see how it goes next winter… I’m not upset, these things happen when you craft for children, and I had a good time knitting it – until the second sleeve, at least, by which time I’d really had enough garter stitch.

I won’t be able to blog about knitting progress for a while as the next seven (!!) projects in my queue are gifts for various people who may be reading this, but I will have lots of reveals in the coming months!

This week I set up a use-it-up shelf in my pantry. It’s dedicated to various grocery items that I have purchased for one reason or another but don’t normally use – the ones that get pushed to the back and end up being thrown out five years past expiry. I put half a dozen things on the shelf, which is right at eye level, and I am making a concerted effort to craft meals to finish them off, replacing each one with something else as it is used up.

The shelf currently contains:

rice stick noodles
small tin of sweet chili flavoured tuna
seameal custard (which we do eat, but I’ve ended up with three boxes)
cornmeal (bought to make cornbread; it turns out JSR doesn’t like cornbread)
orange jelly crystals
vegetarian stir fry sauce (quite mysterious as we’re not vegetarian!)

In the last few days I’ve used up half of the rice stick noodles in a Vietnamese chicken salad, some of the cornmeal in muffins for Willow and I, and a package of strawberry jelly crystals, so I think I’m doing okay! There are plenty more oddments, doubled-up packets and things nearing expiry so I won’t run out of items for the shelf any time soon.

I also used some of the cornmeal to make an Orange Cornmeal Cake on Wednesday. I found the recipe while searching for other things to do with cornmeal, and since we also have a tree full of oranges it was very convenient. The only alteration I made was glazing while hot with a mixture of icing sugar and orange juice, instead of sprinkling granulated sugar over the top, which looked like it would get very messy.

I probably wouldn’t bother with this recipe again. The orange zest made it a bit too marmalade-y for my taste, it wasn’t very sweet, and the bottom got brown while the middle was barely cooked. But it was still a cake, which I will not turn down, and it looks nice in the photo :)

Oh Oh Overalls

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

Willow’s just had a growth spurt, and seeing her trouser cuffs up around her knees prompted me to dig through the boxes of hand-me-downs and sort out a whole new wardrobe. Much of it was previously worn by her cousin Brydie, but there’s a few things from generous friends too. Most excitingly, I discovered three pairs of overalls! Babies in overalls are amazing.

Snazzy plaid:

Hilarious garlic-shaped clown stripes:

And classic denim (aw, post-walk pushchair snooze!):

OK, the denim ones are already a bit short, but they’re also rather wide so she couldn’t have worn them much earlier. The concept of specifically requiring long, narrow clothing is SO ALIEN to me I can’t really wrap my head around it.

I also found a pair of little gumboots, perfect for stomping around in the garden or at the reserve across the street:

Willow’s getting quite good at spooning now, and can feed herself yoghurt and other squishy foods with a very respectable ratio of food-in-mouth to food-on-self:

And a couple more of her little face, because it makes me happy:

I’m experimenting with my brain pills this week to see if I can cope with a slightly smaller dose, in the hope of improving my sleep. I’m so tired (literally!) of spending every night sleeping in a few short bursts with long restless periods in between, and having to nap every afternoon when Willow goes down really cuts into my work time. So far I still feel quite good and I have not melted down, though I am not allowed to make any decisions until I’m sure I’m on an even keel, and JSR has been strictly instructed not to listen to me if I start making odd declarations. It is strange not being able to trust my own thoughts, but at least after a year of this I know to be cautious.

I’ve had the spring cleaning bug lately – or spring clearing, at least. I’ve sorted the kitchen (and now have four empty cupboards, whee), pulled winter debris out of the garden, weeded my closet and bookshelves, tidied the business and craft supplies in my office, and refreshed my memory about what’s tucked away in the storage cupboards. I’m getting a bit itchy now because there isn’t much more in the house to go through! I attacked the garage a few months ago, but perhaps I could give it another pass… anyone need help with their clutter? I am quite ruthless!

Willowpics

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

We are all under the weather with head colds, so there’s not much news to report, but it’s a good time to catch up on Willow’s 15-16 month pictures :)

I left my knitting bag on the couch by accident and came back to find this. She was very carefully tapping the tips of the needles together – and she didn’t drop any stitches either :)

Ha ha ha! She’s got a screwdriver, for some reason, and Monty doesn’t like it.

Simultaneously enthralled by Blues Clues and sultanas.

This rocking horse was mine when I was little, now Willow plays on it when she visits my parents.

Beans eating beans!

Bundled up, ready to go out.

Willow at the Playground

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

Yesterday morning I took Willow down to our local playground. My mum often goes there and has been telling me about the amazing new things the bean can do, and finally this week’s stormy weather eased long enough for me to see for myself.

Sure enough, she’s an adventuring champ! If you pop her down on the platform on the far right of this photo one minute later she will have traversed the entire structure and be at the bottom of the blue slide, ready to go again!

She crawls across the swinging bridge…

… through the tunnel…

… executes a crazy yogic manoeuvre to get onto the slide …

… WHEE!

Here’s a video of the whole journey:

This playground also has a baby swing and a grown-up swing, so after pushing her for a while I jumped on myself and we swung together. So fun! I like a swing :)

Honestly, it was nice to do something with Willow outside our usual routine, because we’ve been having a scratchy time lately. It’s very tempting just to show you the cute photos and talk about her sweetness and light, but I’m conscious of how I feel somewhat substandard when I read perfectly edited mama blogs and I don’t want to gloss over the difficult bits.

I think this phase is all about frustration for both of us, as Wil clearly understands quite a lot of what we say to her but doesn’t have many options for expressing her own wishes. She can sign for food, and I can tell when she’s tired, but otherwise there’s a lot of attempts at communication we really can’t interpret. And she definitely wants things! All day long she seems to want to be simultaneously on and off my lap, which is somewhat difficult to implement. Pick her up and she struggles away, put her down and she clings to my clothing and tries to drag herself up again. All day.

She’s getting a lot more persistent about forbidden objects, and angry when she can’t get them. I put a baby-proof catch on an additional kitchen cupboard, because she was getting in there and spreading my utensils all over the house several times a day, and now she has a whingefest every time she tries to open that door.

She also gets cross about not being able to do everything herself. Here I hand her a plastic container she can’t quite latch shut, and she makes her toothy frustration face.

I admit, it’s kinda cute in isolation, but our days have a lot more grizzling and grumping. I understand this is all fairly standard behaviour for her age, and I think (hope!) it will improve once her vocabulary grows and she gains more coordination. Having JSR back at work means I’m dealing with her a lot more on my own too, which I’m probably not as well practiced at as I used to be.

And yet, it only takes a smile or giggle or adorable dance move and my heart melts again. There’s the reality of having a toddler: daily frustrations but overall joy :)

Comparing Baby Photos

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

I’ve been comparing photos of Willow with me at the same age. We definitely didn’t look anything alike to start with, but perhaps there is more of a resemblance now? Enough to believe we might be from the same family anyway :P

Here’s hoping she doesn’t end up looking too much like me. I’d love to compare her with baby photos of JSR too, but I’ve never seen any! I must ask his Mum if she can bring some for me to scan next time she visits.

Here’s a few other recent pictures of the nodule, who continues to delight in every way:

Very fond of clothes pegs. She has not yet pegged her face, but I’m sure it’s coming. It will be a Learning Experience.

Dimples! Still got ‘em!

I walked into my office a few days ago, and this had happened. The wooden trunk was swiftly moved to the other side of the room. She’s a steady climber, but my work desk is a bit too high.

Being Maru in a too small box!

Exploring the garden.

Pippin is shameless about stealing her food.

Everything gets brushed now! Her head, our heads, furniture, toys, and the cats. Pippin puts up with this with fairly good grace, though I’m sure she wishes she could jump that baby gate.

Soft Like Kittens

Idle life with yarn, cats and a small hu-man.

Tag Archives: willowpics

Willow in W’illow

Beach Baby W’illow

Willow’s Second Christmas

Ducks and Daisies

Willowpics

The Coat of Hate

Oh Oh Overalls

Willowpics

Willow at the Playground

Comparing Baby Photos

February 2012
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