FO, sort of!?

So, I have this huge finished object I've been working on for most of this past year. I even finished a bit early. Only, I never thought of this as a FO, until someone mentioned something when she looked at said object. A good friend looked down at my FO and said in a very pleased voice, "You made a human!" So, I present one of the most beautiful and amazing finished objects I have ever been involved in, our baby girl, Rose Marie.

This was taken 5 days after she came 2 weeks early in April. You can read more about this here on my family website. There are some sewing items and knitting items on that site as well.

Rose is now almost 2 months old and my husband and I can't imagine life without her. And yes, I realize this is only the beginning for this little one and our part in her life, so really, she isn't quite a FO.

Happy knitting and fibering.

I exist

Yes, I really do exist still. I've just been a tad busy lately, getting ready for baby, finishing up a lab at work, recording lectures for "just in case", and being tired and pregnant. I have posted on my family blog, and there are projects on there. Most are sewing projects, but there are a few knitting related ones.

Anyways, today is my birthday. What am I doing for my birthday? I'm going to IKEA I believe to help hubby pick out a desk that he's been waiting for, very patiently I might add. What else am I doing? I don't know. I think I'm also taking my dead car to the battery shop to put a new battery in it. Yup, that's how my birthday may go. I'm off today, so I could be doing other things, but some of this plan sounds good anyways.

Happy fibering everyone!

Been a long time coming . . .

No fiber content in this one. This is for family members and friends mostly.

I'm around, but things have been very busy around here. Life is going to get even busier in the next year as we are expecting. That's right, we're finally expecting. This is our first, and we have waited a very very very long time for this little one. My parents were out visiting the last couple of weeks and got to be here for the 20 week ultrasound. That was pretty cool. I have not had a chance to scan in the little one's pics. My husband's favorite is probably the one with the baby's mouth open.

What gender is our little one? Well, the baby was not cooperating completely for us and had her legs crossed. I say "her" because the technician initially said she thought it was a girl and gave us an 85% chance of the baby being a girl, but by the end of the ultrasound, the technician was pretty sure we were having a girl. My husband, well, he's been calling the baby "she" and "her" since the beginning and feels the fact that her mouth was open is a good sign it's a girl. Before anyone gets all hyped up, this is a man who fought for women's rights and currently stands beside me in my own career, so he just jokes about things like that because he knows I get riled up. Boy do I get riled up about comments like that.

I had no clue it would be so interesting being pregnant. Seriously, it is fascinating and I'm loving the whole carrying our baby thing. I can't wait to hold our little one. It's just simply fantastic. I also had no idea how many safety concerns I would have to deal with at work. Since I teach biology, both lectures and labs, I deal with chemicals and microorganisms throughout the semester. I had to sort of tell people a bit earlier than planned due to chemical exposure and concern about others who teach in my lab leaving items or solutions out that I have a problem with. I also had to talk with my chair about scheduling for spring semester labs since there are a couple of labs I should not be teaching due to chemical safety and one lab I wanted done in the first 8 weeks due to standing for 3 hours. Phew. Everyone was very supportive and we got it all worked out. But, being a scientist and pregnant is interesting, to say the least. I did all my nasty chemical work early on in the summer to make sure I wasn't going to be exposed during the pregnancy to the nasty smelly chemicals. Good thing I did too.

Alright, so, what do I look like now? Well, here's a slightly blurry pic my mom took of me. I have a baby bump that is sort of visible and sort of not. Those who know me will probably see it. It's right near my right hand with the butter knife in it.



As I said, it's slightly blurry.

I have been knitting. I also worked with my mom to help sew me a diaper bag, which is totally awesome. Mom did a wonderful job. My parents painted the baby's room with me following behind and helping with the trim. The room is taking shape and color. I'll have pics soon so my parents can see the curtains that mom helped pick out fabric for. They have to be sewn first. I'll have more pics soon and may move this over to our main website since this isn't fiber content.

Happy fibering and happy holidays everyone!

Vacation Anyone?

I'm back from a vacation in sunny, not humid, California. I went to visit family and help my mom out with her sewing room. She promised me she'd take pictures, but the room is huge. Absolutely huge!

Now, my mother owns several sewing machines, including 4 Pfaff sewing machines (2 embroidery machines, including the new Creative Vision, 1 quilting machine, and 1 serger), 1 Brother embroidery machine (with Disney characters, which is probably why it's still in the room), and 1 class sewing machine/granddaughter sewing machine that is small and light. What she actually has in the room and set up are the 2 embroidery Pfaff machines (2170 and Creative Vision), the Brother, and the serger. The Creative Vision sits on a desk that is about 59 inches or so wide as it is huge when completely set up. Unfortunately, we were busy busy busy and I didn't get a chance to try it, but next time I will. We played with desk positions and where best to put her three desks with all the machines on them. We figured on a sort of U-shape that looks like it will work well for her. In this room is also a huge Koala brand cutting table, fully extended. She has enough room beside this cutting table to walk near her design wall. Oh, the room is wonderfully huge and now nicely set up.

While out there, I also participated in the 10th Annual Southern California Quilt Run and got to see lots of quilt shops and buy lots of fabric. I went to over 20 something quilt stores and saw lots of different quilts. We did all of the San Diego run, which was lovely. They have some really awesome quilt stores over there. I especially liked Quilter's Cottage in Fallbrook, Quilter's Coop in Temeculah, where I purchased tons of contemporary fabric for a picnic blanket, and Cozy Quilt Shop in El Cajon, which gave away tons of freebies and had a great collection of fabric.

And of course, after all this traveling around to quilt stores, we still went to another major quilt event. And yes, the timing of my trip was set to coincide with these events. We went to the new annual International Quilt Show in Long Beach. The line to get in was over an hour long on Friday, which is the day we went, of course. I have no idea what it was like on Saturday. And no, we didn't have to wait an hour, we had exact change and a new line opened up while we were in line. So, we got in very fast. Oh boy, that was fun. There are other reviews out there of this event.

Needless to say, I didn't buy much at this show, since I went to all those quilt shows, but I did buy some pretty neat things and saw some neat things. I bought a Carol's Zoo kit, to make a giraffe family. So cute! They were so soft, in a different fur than on the pattern. I'm such a sucker for toys.

Happy fibering, whatever you are doing!

Canada Trip

I've been back since the end of the first week of June, but haven't had a chance to post yet. However, seeing as how Canada recently celebrated Canada Day, and the US is celebrating the Fourth of July, I thought it appropriate to mention my little trip to our neighboring country. I went to Mississauga for a biology teaching conference and had a great time. It's not far from Toronto, so I got to see a bit of downtown Toronto too. In fact, I joined the group heading into Toronto for a taste (literally and figuratively) of downtown Toronto with a really great tour guide, Bruce Bell. I also went there with friends during the week, and they tried to get me to the yarn store before it closed, but that didn't happen. Oh well, I wasn't there for yarn.

Back to the tour of Toronto. If you are ever up there wanting a tour, I recommend Bruce Bell. He was wonderful. We started in St. Lawrence Market, where we got to taste some of the samplings from the vendors. Then he took us around the city and showed us many of the historical landmarks. It was great. He talked about the history of the city and the buildings, and I learned a lot about Canada during the tour. It was only 2 hours, but it really was worth it.

We got a little bonus on our tour as Woofstock was occurring at the same time as our visit, so we got to see lots of doggies and a few competitions. It was pretty cool.

After lunching near the market, we headed over to the Royal Ontario Museum, where we got a behind the scenes look at the dinosaur exhibits and the work that takes place to get those bones out of the rock and earth that they are taken from. That was pretty cool. Unfortunately, I developed a massive headache and just wanted some water to take an advil. I felt bad about that as the bones really were impressive and the graduate student was giving us a great look at an area I wouldn't normally ever see.

After the tour behind the scenes, and getting water for the headache, we headed back out to see what all of us were excited to see -- Darwin: The Evolution Revolution. That's right, the Darwin exhibit was there, with real herbarium specimens Darwin made and lots of information, including some interesting personal information about Darwin and his family life. No pictures were allowed and I wasn't impressed with the souvenirs -- no pictures of the displays or anything like that, but lots of great books.

After touring the museum for a while, we wrapped up our visit by heading over to Chinatown for dinner. Don't ask me which one as apparently there are four within the city itself.

No yarn, but it was a wonderful trip. However, I have to admit, downtown Toronto reminded me a lot of downtown Los Angeles, especially Chinatown. The number of homeless also reminded me of that area.

Alright, I'm off to visit Robin tomorrow and hope to take a picture of her with one of two rugs off the loom, and maybe her at the loom. We'll see.

Happy fibering!