Hearts For My Grandmother

One year ago today, I was on the road, driving north from spending Thanksgiving in San Diego with family. We traveled down primarily to see my grandmother who we knew would not be with us much longer. On Thanksgiving Day I awoke to an exciting email that my very first design had been accepted to be published in a magazine. But later that day I went to see my grandmother for what I knew would be the last time.

As we travelled north the day after Thanksgiving, I began experimenting to see what stitch would work best for the design I had in mind. We made a couple stops to visit family and friends in Los Angeles. During the last stop, I received the call that my grandmother had passed away.

Throughout the rest of our three day journey, I thought about my grandmother and crocheted reversible intarsia hearts. I made them in single , half double , and double crochet. I tried them upright and at an angle. I finally settled on half double crochet as it created the smoothest lines, and at an angle so that beginners would only have to worry about one bobbin for the entire heart.

Although these hearts became a baby blanket, as I wanted a small project to introduce a "new-to-just-about-everyone technique", I really designed them for my grandmother. She was a marvelous woman who touched so many lives, and even self published her own book. I hope she would be proud to know that my first published pattern was designed with her in mind, and that I also self published my first book.

Boobies for Haiti!!!

I spent the past few months frantically working on several big crochet design projects, which I cannot post about until they are published. Not talking about the exciting things I am working on is possibly the most difficult part of my new career as a crochet designer. But now I finally have a crochet project I CAN post about, and I need your help...

A Lactation Consultant friend of mine asked me to help her make/collect Crocheted (or Knitted) Breasts for her upcoming trip to Haiti. She will be teaching Breastfeeding to hospital staff, and wants to leave these crocheted breasts as models for teaching hand expression and latching to new mothers. She would like at least 20 breasts to take when she leaves in just a little over two weeks.

Here is a quick pattern I whipped up for anyone who would like to help us by making a Boobie or two to help (note: I needed to post this, so please let me know if you catch any errata). If you are able to, please whip up a couple "boobies" and send them my way by Monday, June 18th. If you are not local, you can email me at crochetedcreations-rowan at yahoo dot com for where to send them. Thanks! Laurinda

CROCHETED "BOOBIE" PATTERN
Designed by Laurinda Reddig
(photos coming soon)

MATERIALS

Worsted Weight cotton and cotton blend yarns in dark brown and light brown (or any colorful worsted weight yarn, just remember not caucasian flesh tones), polyfil stuffing, E or F hook.

GAUGE

Rounds 1-7 of base should equal approximately 4 1/2 inches in diameter. However, gauge is not too important here, as breasts come in all shapes and sizes, just so long as the stuffing does not poke through.

TIPS

• Work first 2 rounds with wrong side facing out, then push center up so right side is facing out before working round 3.
  
• Hold yarn ends under stitches as you work. Stitches should be tight enough to keep the ends hidden and save time weaving them in.
• Use a stitch marker to mark the beginning of the rounds.
  

PATTERN

Top:

With Dark Brown Magic Loop, ch 2.

Rnd 1: 5 sc in second ch from hook, pull magic loop tight, join with slst in first sc. (5 sc)

Rnds 2-3: Ch 1, sc in each st around, join with slst. (5 sc)

Rnd 4: Ch 1, 2 sc in each st around, join. (10 sc)

Rnd 5: Ch 1, (sc in next st, 2 sc in next st) repeat around, join. (15 sc)

Rnd 6: Ch 1, (sc in next 2 sts, 2 sc in next st) repeat around, join. Finish off. (20 sc)

Rnd 7: Join Light Brown with slst in first hdc, ch 1, work entire row in back loop only, hdc in next st, (2 hdc in next st, hdc in next st) repeat around to last st, hdc in last st, hdc in same st as first hdc, do not join. (30 hdc)

Rnd 8: Ch 1, (hdc in next 4 sts, 2 hdc in next st) repeat around. (36 hdc)

Rnd 9: Ch 1, (hdc in next 5 sts, 2 hdc in next st) repeat around. (42 hdc)

Rnd 10: Ch 1, (hdc in next 6 sts, 2 hdc in next st) repeat around. (48 hdc)

Rnd 11: Ch 1, hdc in each st around, join with slst.

Rnd 12: Ch 1, (hdc in next 11 sts, 2 hdc in next st) repeat around. (52 hdc)

Rnd 13-17: Repeat Rnd 11. After last Rnd, sc in next st, join with slst in next st, finish off.

Base:

Rnd 1: 8 hdc in second ch from hook, pull magic loop tight, join with slst in first hdc, do not join. (8 hdc)

Rnds 2: Ch 1, 2 hdc in each st around. (16 hdc)

Rnd 3: Ch 1, (hdc in next st, 2 sc in next st) repeat around. (20 hdc)

Rnd 4: Ch 1, (hdc in next 2 sts, 2 sc in next st) repeat around. (28 sc)

Rnd 5: Ch 1, (hdc in next 3 sts, 2 hdc in next st) repeat around. (36 hdc)

Rnd 6: Ch 1, (hdc in next 4 sts, 2 hdc in next st) repeat around. (44 hdc)

Rnd 7: Ch 1, (hdc in next 11 sts, 2 hdc in next st) repeat around, hdc in next st, join with slst in next st. (52 hdc)

Rnd 8: Ch 1, holding edges of Top and Base with wrong sides together, sc through last Rnd of both most of the way around, fill firmly with polyfil before stitching last few stitches of the Rnd. Finish off. Weave in ends.

Now She Is One

Today my sweet baby girl Willow is turning one. It has been a challenging few years to get here. Nothing went as we planned. But we would not give up the past year getting to know this adorable little person for anything.

Born 9lb 12oz, she is now a petite little thing still under 19lbs, in spite of nursing and eating solids almost all the time. She has been walking for over a month now and gets very insistent to get down and walk when we are out and about unless she is actually tied to someone's back.
She is saying a few words, mostly "Dada", "Hi", "Dis" (when pointing), "NighNigh" (when signing "Sleep"), and "Nanas" (which started meaning milk but now means milk, water, food, or anything edible she can put in her mouth), and is finally starting to say "Mama" but mostly just to practice the sound.

Willow is also using a lot of ASL signs, or her versions. She regularly signs "Daddy", "Griffin" (her favorite), "Milk", "Cat","Sleep", "Tired", "All Done", and "No". Sometimes she signs "Play", "Food", "More", "Dog", "Hat", and even "Diaper" when she needs a change. Then there is all the other hand waving where she is clearly trying to tell us something but we have yet to decipher what she is saying.

With a mouth full of teeth, she eats pretty much everything, as long as it is cut small. Tooth #12, her fourth molar, is just working it's way through this week. She has never eaten a jar of baby food and had no interest in baby cereal, preferring foods she can feed herself and plenty of mommy's milk.

Willow's toothy grin is her "default expression", smiling unless she has a reason not to (much like her mom), and charming all who meet her. She is so full of personality that shines through her bright blue eyes. It is amazing to watch as she explores the world around her and to see how she interacts with her big brother Griffin who adores her, if sometimes a bit too much. You can read everything she is thinking on her sweet little face.
Of course there are always the wistful moments, when she reminds us of the little girl we never got the chance to know and will never get to watch grow up. Those moments are fewer now than they were in the early days when rocking her to sleep in the wee hours of the night often brought tears to my eyes. I still struggle to release my dreams of what might have been as I (quite literally) embrace what IS.

I am excited to see who she grows into but wish life would slow down just a little so I can enjoy and remember every minute. My baby is barely one year old and already charging ahead, ready to run into toddlerhood. Happy Birthday my sweet Willow!

Nesting!... It's about time.

In my first two pregnancies, I went through the usual "nesting" phase. For me it does not kick in until the last two weeks or so. In the two weeks leading up to Griffin's due date, with my Mom & Sister there on baby watch, we tried to CLEAN SWEEP my craftroom. We dragged everything out to the back patio, purged, sorted, and organized all that yarn and craft supplies (note: the craftroom now is about 1/3 the size of the entire house back in LA). Two weeks before Rowan's due date I was in charge of the MOMS Club garage sale. So I madly purged bin after bin of craft supplies, yarn, books, and cleared out quite a bit. Then the week before her due date, I found myself sitting on the floor of the bathroom one evening, surrounded by bags and bins of bathroom detritus that had never been unpacked when we moved in three years ago.

So, naturally I expected to eventually have the urge to purge come upon me at some point during Willow's pregnancy. It never did. I would look around, and know I wanted to do something, but could not get motivated or figure out where to start. I finally concluded that after losing our last baby, I would have no nesting instict.

Now, with a healthy six week old baby, I am finally nesting, literally. Today I bought 15 baskets, 8 decorative storage boxes, and new clothes hamper. Enough containers to build myself an actual nest. Not to mention the bucket with tons of pockets for all my gardening tools I picked up yesterday. I really do have a specific use for each of the baskets (and most of the boxes).

I know, I know, I should get rid of more stuff rather than buy more places to store it. But I really do need containers for those places which always accumulate clutter (which is everywhere at this point). Since we have not actually decorated our house since we moved in, I decided to start with boxes and baskets to coordinate with the wall colors, furniture, and new blinds.

Special Delivery...

photo by Marie Pham Photography

Happy Valentine's Day. Our new baby girl is 3 weeks old today!
Willow Elizabeth. Born Sunday, January 24, 1:45pm. 9lb 12oz, 22 1/2lb.

Willow's Birth Story
After several weeks of early contractions I was not sure I was really in labor. Griffin and I baked one last batch of "Cowboy Cookies", which I had been baking every other night since the contractions started. I wanted to have plenty of cookies for my midwives and support people. The contractions started to get stronger about midnight, when I was planning to head to bed. So my Mom and I watched a movie as the contractions continued. I finally went to bed about 1:30am, but just after 2am I got a really strong one and thought, 'if this is really it then this was the first really strong one.'

I continued to doze between contractions and trips to the bathroom. When I got up to go to the bathroom about 5:10, I had to stop several times on the way for contractions. I laid back down for a few minutes, but the next couple were so strong I knew I was not going to be sleeping anymore. I went to the living room for a few more, and realized that if I had to drive anywhere, I had better do it soon. I woke up Mike and started making phone calls.

With the first call to my midwife Katherine we discovered that all of the rooms at the Portland Birth Center we were supposed to deliver at were full. The only open room was at the Tualatin Birth Center, where I gave birth to Rowan in 2008. None of us wanted to be in the same place we lost Rowan, so we had to come up with another location.

Throughout my pregnancy, Katherine kept saying at my appointments, "I keep thinking you are going to have a home birth." To which I would respond, "How would that work? I'm in Washington and you are an Oregon midwife." In the end, we ended up delivering at the home of a friend who lives very close to the birth center and OHSU, in case there were any problems. She is expecting a baby in March, and planning a homebirth. So our birth was a trial run. Once we found an alternative, I felt really good about the idea because I knew it would be completely different from both Griffin's hospital birth and Rowan's birth center birth, so there would be no reminders of losing Rowan.

We loaded up Griffin and headed down to Portland, closely followed by my Mom and Sister, as well as my massage therapist Elisa. When we arrived about 6am, my host's husband and son, were heading out to Walmart (only place open at that hour) and Home Depot to gather supplies for setting up an inflatable birth tub in their living room. For a planned homebirth, all of those items would be gathered ahead of time. But this was unexpected, which turned out to be perfect for me.

We settled Griffin in the guest room with my laptop and some DVDs, but as I moaned louder, he would come in to check on me or help Elisa press the pain pressure points. Another perk to giving birth in a home environment is that Griffin could come in and out, and sit on the couch right next to the tub to read a story or cuddle with Daddy. My sister was there to help Griffin, and the midwives even took turns reading him stories.

I continued having regular, stronger contractions among the hustle and bustle of midwives gathering supplies, setting up and filling the tub. I alternated between sitting backwards on a dining chair, the birth ball with someone putting pressure on my lower back, and the bathroom. I wanted to be sure I was done using the bathroom before I got into the tub. Once I was in the birthing tub I refused to get out. Everything that went wrong with Rowan last time started just after I got out of the tub. So this time, I did not get out of the tub. But now I know why they say to boil water when someone is having a baby. When you spend hours in a tub of water, you need to replace the hot water fairly often.

In my previous labors, most of the contraction pain was at the base of my abdomen. I had a lot more back labor this time because Willow was already so far down and had such a large head. As soon as I got into the water, the pain in the front felt a lot better, but I still needed Mike or Elisa to put pressure on my back during contractions. Before too long, Mike got in the tub with me. With each contraction he put pressure on my lower back, and Elisa continued pressing the pain acupressure points on my hands. We continued like this for a couple of hours until I was ready to push.

Another difference from my first two births is that with both of them I did not know I was in labor until my water broke, and even then it took several hours for the contractions to get serious. This time around my water did not break until about 20 minutes before Willow was born. Soon after the water broke I felt Willow engage and knew it was time to start pushing. After just 3 or 4 long pushes, we welcomed Willow into the world. If I had not gotten Rowan out so fast in the emergency situation, I am sure it would have taken longer. But because of Rowan, I knew that I could do it when the time came.

Mike caught her when she came out and passed her to me. Up she came, floating out of the water, into my arms, eyes wide open and breathing. It was very surreal. She never really cried as she was still warm and comfortable in the water. Griffin joined us in the tub soon after so he could meet his baby sister. After we waited for the cord blood to pulse out, Griffin got to cut the cord, with Daddy's help. A few hours later, a room became available at the birth center and I was able to move there to be pampered while I recovered for a couple days.

The only complication was all of the blood that I lost. The same thing happened with Griffin in the hospital. So my energy has been slow to recover. They say it takes three weeks for your body to replace all the red blood cells, which has forced me to take it easy for the past three weeks and just enjoy our new baby girl.

Baby Cakes

A good friend was expecting her 3rd baby boy last summer. Her friends wanted to throw her a baby shower, but knew she didn't need most of the gifts one usually gives an expectant mommy. She already has it all! So they made her shower sort of a 'diaper drive', asking everyone to bring diapers (all brands and sizes). But I couldn't just give a plain old box of diapers, how boring. Just not my style...
I planned to give her some Mama Rose's Naturals baby products, made by a local Mom in Eugene, OR, and a pair of the Fuzzy Feet baby booties I make. Then I came across these instructions for making a diaper cake and got my inspiration. I realized I had everything except the diapers on hand. Gotta love a well-stocked craft room!
I collected diapers from a couple of my friends and realized the lids to my set of nesting hatboxes was the perfect base for creating each tier of the cake. I ended up with 2 cakes... a 4 layer cake alternating the 2 different types of diapers (Huggies Supreme and Target brand with cute blue & green polkadots, perfect for a cake), and a small single layer "whole wheat" cake, in case the baby can't handle refined flours (hehe). It was a great way to use all the tiny newborn brown Seventh Generation diapers my sister gave me.
Both cakes were wrapped in yards and yards of green and blue satin ribbon bows and flowers. I even glued the flowers onto binder clips and push pins so they could be used again. I figure the Mama can use some pretty flowered things with all those boys in the house! And the bottles of diaper care stuff in the middle hold all the layers together, all topped with the pair of pale blue Fuzzy Feet.

There's Something In The Water...

Babies, babies everywhere. Everyone I know seems to be pregnant. Four of us within a one block radius.

I am now 20 weeks pregnant with my second baby girl. I have not been blogging much this summer, as I was not ready to write about this pregnancy. Although we planned it, and were lucky enough to get pregnant right away, I was not sure how I would feel when we discovered the gender of this baby. We did not find out with Rowan, and the surprise was not all it was cracked up to be. So we wanted to do things differently this time around. I felt like I needed to find out to prepare myself either way.

We just found out Friday that this baby is another girl. I wanted this so much that I did not quite believe it until two different doctors confirmed it. Growing up with one sister and all girl cousins, I always assumed I would have girls. In the past five years, we four girl cousins have had 7 baby boys between us! I do not think I knew how much I wanted to raise a girl until I came so close with Rowan. I never even got to dream of what it would be like because as soon as we saw she was a girl, we realized she was not breathing.

I can admit now that I have a secret stash of baby girl clothes I have bought over the past year. A small "hope chest" which I knew might go to some other special baby girl than my own. It was one of the small things I wanted to do "for Rowan" that I would have done had she lived. I took pleasure in choosing adorable girly outfits in my favorite greens, blues, and purples. No pastels and pinks for my baby girls!