• What is up with the traffic down to Portland? We were in solid bumper to bumper traffic from Seattle to Olympia. Geez. Where was everyone going, the Olympic Peninsula? I mean I know it’s the capital and all, but surely Olympia isn’t that interesting.
• I am in love with Portland’s MAX light rail. It’s amazingly good. So easy to get around and of course entertaining for the child who loves all things train. Why doesn’t Seattle have anything like that? And no, the SLUT doesn’t count because it doesn’t go anywhere useful. Although, could someone tell the Trimet people that the little brochure they have on the trains called “How to Ride” would be much more useful by the ticket stations than inside the trains? Thanks.*
• I decided to be brave and take the MAX to the zoo with the kidlets. The Oregon Zoo’s new dinosaur exhibit is really good. Really, really good. Incidently, my child can go up two flights of stairs and down a really steep slide at least 40 times and still not be tired. I cannot keep up with that child. Anyway, we stayed at the zoo all day. Good fun.
• The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry was also good. I had a bit of a flashback to Atlanta where we went through a museum really fast and I thought “uh oh, what are we going to do now?” and THEN we find the kiddie room. Holy moly, OMSI has the best kid’s room I’ve ever seen. We stayed there over 6 hours. I’m not kidding. They had the biggest sandbox ever, with awesome pipes on the wall for pouring sand through. The Bean is quite fascinated by sand right now. And children, for that matter. He hardly slept a wink in there! Oh, and precious moment: Boo was pretending to be a cashier in the little kitchen/restaurant area,so I “bought” a pineapple, and then there were like 3 kids in line all waiting to buy things! He was SO happy. Good times.
• We also did some other things while there, including visiting my friend Gen’s new house outside of Portland. She has lots of pets and the Boo was particularly enamoured with the birds. Who knew cockatiels were so cute and friendly?
• We also met Gen and Michael at a fantastic breakfast spot: Cafe Du Berry. Best french toast EVER. I think it had lemon in it. So good.
• Speaking of food, someone suggested to H that we visit a doughnut place called Voodoo Doughnuts. It was entertaining to say the least. And also extremely good. I’m glad the lad can’t pick up on suggestive pictures or phrases yet! A penis shaped doughnut is nothing special to him. Yet, I suppose.
• Of course I had to visit a yarn shop: Abundant Yarn and Dyeworks. I knew this place was kid friendly since they have a playgroup on Friday mornings. How cool is that?! I wish I could go, but getting to Portland for a Friday morning would be challenging. The shop was beautiful, I wish I had had more time to wander. The staff was also extremely nice and forgiving, considering the Bean was screaming his head off for the latter part of our visit. Charmingly, the Boo wanted some souvenier yarn too, it’s not just me! I’ll have to take a picture of what he picked out, I’m quite proud!
• Let’s see, what else? We found time to wander the Saturday Market (on a Sunday, ha!) with H, which was nice. I’m not into buying much right now so didn’t get anything, but there were some nice things there. I could do some damage if I had the money and inclination.

I guess that’s about it! The drive back was much better time-wise than the drive down, although the poor Bean, who did very well on the drive down, cried almost the whole time the drive up. Gah.

Truthfully, I’m rather enamoured with Portland. I love how compact the downtown is with many places I’d love to wander through (mostly spied from the MAX, I didn’t stop much with the kids in tow). I’m in love with the light rail and how easy it seems to be to get around. Portland has many of the features I love about Seattle (namely the northwest temperment and weather), but it seems smaller (this is a good thing) and friendlier. The one thing I’d miss if we lived there, I think, would be easy access to beaches. Growing up on a river, myself, I’ve been surprised at how much I adore going to the beach here. Seattle really does have it all!

Mostly, though, I’m just impressed we took a mini-vacation with two kids, one of whom is still a baby. When the option of accompanying H to Portland came up, my initial reaction was hell no I’m not travelling with the kids. (Er, well actually that’s not true, I tend to have an initial reaction of Yay! Let’s travel! And then remember we have children and everything is different now.) But then I thought, I really want to go, and why not? Otherwise I’ll be in Seattle all by myself, which has the potential to suck a whole lot more. So sure, let’s try it.

Honestly, bedtime was a bitch. And I am incredibly tired. Being out all day is so taxing, especially when you spend most of the day searching for public restrooms with diaper changing stations (do you know how hard that can be?) and places to breastfeed the baby where the 3 year old won’t run off. We spent a lot of time in the car. I’m still really glad we went, though. Portland is great and I’m looking forward to going again!

* I have to inject a mini-rant here. I love trains so much more than busses. Trains hold more people, have multiple access points, have a much smoother ride, and are not as cramped (well, as long as it’s not rush hour). I really hate riding on busses. I could take two kids and our stroller on the MAX with no problem. I’d never do that on a bus at home.

Isn’t it fabulous? I’m so happy to have it!

The story with my mom’s mom is a bit sad. Her name was Polly and she had my mom when she was 40 (an accident; my mom is a lot younger than her siblings) so my grandparents were already pretty elderly by the time I came along. My grandma looked after me when I was a baby, and apparently took really good care of me. My mom says she never, ever let me cry and loved me dearly. But then she died shortly after I turned one, so I have no real memories of her. Apparently I’m quite a lot like her so it makes me really sad that I don’t know her. Is it possible to miss someone you never really knew? Well, I do miss her and I wish I knew her. It seems like she was a pretty cool lady.

My grandmother and my aunts apparently did a lot of embroidery during “the war”, in the evenings when they weren’t allowed to have lights on. Some of the contents of this box really are old — metal hoops and such. The floss, though, is fantastic and I love all the colors. I can’t wait to sort it out and use it!

The other thing in here that’s particularly charming is my grandmother’s darning egg. Since I now know how to darn socks but don’t own one of these, it’s nice to have hers. The handle comes off. Isn’t that funny? It’s been well used too.

Somehow these sorts of connections make me really happy, like I’m participating in some history I didn’t even know I had.

Anyway! Just like my dad giving me his mother’s dressmaking shears made me exceptionally happy, I’m now thrilled to have my mom’s mother’s embroidery box.  I am one lucky girl.

These are great for two reasons. 1) They’re really cute. Dontcha think? 2) The cotton yarns are leftovers that Liane was getting rid of, and that’s always a good thing! Oh and 3) They were really quick. That’s a bonus, these days!

There’s no pattern for these. The square one is evidently a Mason Dixon pattern but I don’t have the book and really, how hard could it be? Garter square with something to go around the neck. CHECK! These are 28 stitches across.

The other one I decided to curve it a little but the gauge was really a bit too big to curve nicely at the top, so the square one looks better. But oh well. It will still catch drool so I don’t care. Incidently that’s two different yarns changed every two rows. Love how that turned out :)

OH and I did something clever. The Boo outgrew his bibs pretty quickly so I made these adjustable in that there are two buttons and two (or three) buttonholes so that there can be a variety of sizes. I think they will work just fine.

This is a pattern from One Skein. I think it’s cute, but to be honest it was a ridiculous amount of work for a bib. And tying the i-corn will probably be annoying so I’m not going to make any more of these any time soon. Plus I had a hard time getting the short row count right. It was probably just me, but everything seemed to be off even though I corrected every single time. The ends also curl up something fierce. But considering it’s a bib that might be a good thing :)

This one uses leftovers too. I ran out of the colored one but I think the brown looks nice, so there you go. We can discuss putting pink flower bibs on boys at a later date!

First I started some booties, had some gauge issues, finally settled on itty bitty booties, and finished those. Then I thought… what else can I make? This is a baby in California due in the middle of July. Her talented mama has already made a whole layette of fabulous things, so what else could I make to contribute? More hats or sweaters are probably not going to be all that useful.

Then I thought.. TOYS! I’d been wanting to make that Puzzle Ball from Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. Bingo.

Just let me say this pattern can make your head spin. Twice now I’ve sewn things that have seams crossing at three points and I still don’t understand how they’re supposed to make a point when you turn them inside out without undoing one of the seams a bit. Once I got going though it was pretty easy and once I gave up understanding the directions for sewing it together and just did my own thing, that went okay too. I LOVE the colors in this and obviously want to make one for my baby too!

Here are the booties. It’s the Herringbone Bootees (why am I the only person who thinks that is spelled wrong?) pattern from 50 Baby Bootees to Knit.

I believe it’s Rowan 4ply cotton and size 0 (!!!) needles. I don’t know why it’s curling up at the edges. Perhaps they need to be blocked ;) The only concern I have is that the cotton won’t hold the ribbing on the inside and they’ll fall off. I hope not though! It’s very similar to the recommended yarn (Jaeger 4ply cotton I think) so it’s not like I was being reckless or anything.

I didn’t manage to send these before the baby was actually born, but that’s okay. She’s so cute she totally inspired me to finish things up and get them sent off! I do think they make a nice pair for a baby gift :)

Congratulations, Liane, and happy babymoon! Do try and get some sleep ;)

It’s a dasdardly cycle. A few weeks ago I took the boys on an extra-long walk and my feet hurt afterwards.

You know how we’re taught that your body heals when you sleep? Well, your feet tend to relax and “point” when you’re sleeping. The irony here is that your body heals the plantar fascia in that position, so when you get up in the morning and put your weight on your feet, it stretches that fascia and hurts like hell, re-injuring it. I hobble around in the morning until things warm up but basically my feet hurt all day.

So I’ve been stretching my feet and putting ice on them when possible, but last night I finally took my bro’s advice and wore boots to bed. Doesn’t that sound silly? I mean, really. Shoes in bed. My feet are hot enough as it is!

The thing is, apparently you need your body to heal your feet in the position you walk in, so that you don’t re-injure your feet when they bear weight in the morning. Therefore a splint is necessary to hold your feet in that position — or if you’re cheap, boots!

It felt silly, but it also totally worked. My right foot feels fine now and my left foot just hurts a little. More ice and boots for me, but I hope to get this malady healed up soon! Because seriously? I have to be on my feet to look after these kids. Staying off them really isn’t an option.

In fact, I sort of forgot I had it.

Until I got a sinus infection a week or so ago. First I called my doctor relatives to see if I should bother seeing my GP here seeing as 1) I didn’t really want to pay to go to a doc if the thinking these days was that antibiotics didn’t do anything, and 2) I didn’t want antibiotics anyway unless it sounded really bad. They thought I should give it a few days to see if it went away on its own.

Then I called my mom, and she reminded me that the Neti Pot was intended to treat and prevent sinus infections. Oh yeah! I forgot.

It totally worked. Within two days I was back to runny nose, and your bog standard cold (which keeps coming back — yet another story).  I still can’t stand to do it every day, but every few days seems to be a good idea. Hurrah for holistic solutions!

This is a pirate eye patch, requested by the Boo. It’s super cheap and dirty. Crap felt, velcro at the back, sewn together hastily. He was a happy camper though! I should make a better one with elastic at the back so it has more life to it.

This wool felt crown was my idea. I originally got the idea from the Creative Family book, but the pattern in the book requires enlargement on a copier and I don’t have ready access to one of those. So I went web surfing and found a pattern on the Balancing Everything website. Yay!

This crown is made from wool/acrylic felt, actually, and he doesn’t wear it for long. I wonder if it itches? I should make one for myself ;) The boy picked out the buttons himself, which is why that one on the side is not the best choice since it doesn’t lie flat. Oh well, he seems to like it, despite ripping it off after 5-10 minutes.

I am proud of one thing — I didn’t have to do the cloth covered elastic at the back. I somehow managed to save some really thick elastic that I cut off some pair of trousers or something a while back, and it was the PERFECT size! So that was handy. Also,  these would make great gifts for parties :)

Now, if I could just figure out why my pictures are so crap lately! Is it me or are they out of focus? Hmm.

P.S. Now to figure out how to make a spiderman outfit. Ay yi yi.

Until recently I had never used a handmade washcloth, and I used to wonder why people bothered making them. But seriously, they’re quite good! Liane gifted us two as part of a baby gift and they’re awesome. Boo and I both love them. Clearly we need more!

This one is actually special and not for general purpose use. I think el bebe is starting to teethe a bit and I thought it would be nice to have an organic cotton washcloth to do the whole “freeze a wet washcloth” trick for him. Except I don’t have an organic cotton washcloth. But I do have some leftover scrap organic cotton yarn! (From the Boo’s baby blanket — eons ago!)

So yesterday I dug it out and it’s turned out to be more than enough. Maybe even enough for two! Very cool. Going to wash this quick and get it in the freezer.