Hedgehog Knits

Adventures in knitting from the eastern edge of Canada.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Introducing Stella

A couple of weeks ago, we welcomed wee baby Stella into our family.


She gave me a very rough time on her entry into the world, but she is absolutely worth every bit of pain and suffering. We love her to bits.

Coming home from hospital.

Everyone agrees that her looks all come from her dad's family so far. She is a relatively small baby, so she's swimming in most of her newborn-sized clothes. The cloth diapers, covers, and soakers that I had ready for her are also too big, so I'm about to start knitting wee soakers in even smaller sizes. I haven't picked up the needles since she was born, but we're finally starting to settle into a somewhat predictable routine so I think I can squeeze in a few minutes here are there during naps.


Our families are very excited to have the first little girl of this generation, and the first grandchild for Nick's parents. We've had loads of visitors, and thankfully lots of support at home. Yesterday, we made it out for our first walk to the park, the first of many new adventures. I think that parenthood agrees with me.

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

And the baby wear continues

Thank you to everyone for the well wishes. It's certainly an exciting time. It's hard to believe that I'm now at the five month mark, and September is coming faster than I ever imagined possible. I've been feeling great so far, and having a relatively easy time of it.

So far, the baby preparations have been limited to getting a room finished (flooring and a new closet, which quickly mushroomed into some serious structural renovations involving ripping out the kitchen ceiling below - oy!), and some knitting and sewing. That's it so far - I've been holding off on shopping for baby furniture and all the other "stuff" that one needs. It's been hard enough to keep myself clothed lately with very little choice in maternity shopping in my city.

I've updated my Ravelry page with some of the latest knitting, including this Sweetheart Cardigan:


I've also been dabbling in sewing a bit lately, and have been playing with baby patterns as a fun and low-cost way to work on my dress-making skills. This is 1950's reproduction pattern (Simplicity 2392) that I made up out of some discounted quilt cotton:


I haven't done embroidery in so long that I had to hunt a while to find my box of floss. The gathers along the front, combined with sewing the scalloped edges with lace was quite a challenge for me, but for once I took my time and did a fairly tidy job with it. I'm really happy with the result, and will probably eventually get around to making the matching bonnet and some bloomers to go with it. I know it's an extremely impractical outfit, but surely we'll find a special occasion to wear it!

I also started a baby quilt months ago that I need to get around to finishing, and several other knits are in various stages of planning and knitting. Further updates as I have time! I'm off on a business trip next week, and the minor post-renovation touch-up projects at home are still eating up my "free" time.

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Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Becoming a Mom

I'm delighted to announce that sometime around early September, there will be a new addition to the Hedgehog Knits family.


Nick and I are expecting a baby, a daughter actually. We're very excited first-time parents-to-be, and our families are just over the moon about it. This will be the first little girl on both sides of the family (with several little boy cousins already). Now, the real question is what to knit first?! To be fair, I have already knit and put away a Cardigan for Merry:



But, it's size 18 mo, and I made it before I found out the gender. Now that I know that I can knit girly things, I have a lot more patterns to choose from. By happy coincidence, a new LYS is opening up in my neighbourhood in the coming days (bringing the total in the city to 2), so I will be heading over there this weekend to pick up something fun, and possibly pink!

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Sunday, December 06, 2009

Still here, still knitting

Wow, I've become a very bad blogger. It seems that over the past year Ravelry and Facebook have been meeting my needs for documenting my knitting projects and staying in touch with friends, and as a result, I just haven't had lot to say on here. I have been considering shutting down altogether, but I thought that I would keep the blog for sporadic updates when the mood strikes me. Who knows, I may even get around to writing up the patterns that have been languishing in my notebooks one of these days and post them here.

Life has been very busy these past few months. Paid work and volunteer work have been keeping me running around quite a bit, and I've been trying to keep as active as possible, though the snowstorm that we're experiencing today probably marks the end of the outdoor running season and the start of regular gym going instead. This time of year when the days are so short and it's dark so much, I find myself going in to hibernation mode, sleeping as much as possible, and curling up knitting at home in the evenings.

In the meantime, if you're a knitter who would like to keep in touch and you haven't found me on Ravelry yet, please add me as a friend and say hi. I'm "kbh" in the Ravelry world.

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Thursday, October 22, 2009

Double the fun

Just a quick post today to show a couple of baby sweaters recently finished. There are for a friend who is expecting twins. I had a lot of fun mixing and matching different colours of Bernat Cotton Tots. The very cute pattern, which I altered a little bit to change up the colour schemes and to add three button holes on the band, is available for free at f.pea's blog. A top-down raglan, this is a really easy and fast baby gift. These are my second and third sweaters from the same pattern, and there will probably be some more in future.


Now I just need to find some ultra-cute buttons.

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Friday, October 09, 2009

Have a few minutes?

There's a neat thing going on over at the Girl Guides of Canada website. It's an online film festival of short films centred on the experiences of girls in today's world.

Worth checking out.


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Monday, October 05, 2009

Grey and Soggy

We've just lived through an extremely rainy and cold week in eastern Newfoundland. "Well, there can't possibly be much more rain up there to come down, can there?", I thought to myself this morning as I trudged to the office in the mist and the fog.

No such luck.

(Depressing image, courtesy of Environment Canada)

Fall was a beautiful time of year when we lived in Ontario, and I always wondered why I hated the fall so much when I was growing up. Now I remember. Well then, I guess it's time that I gave up on outdoor running and went back to the gym. Hrmph.

We did get a bit of a break from the rain (but not from the freezing cold) on Sunday for the Run for the Cure. I organized a team at my workplace this year, and 20 of us, including some family and friends, participated. Nick and I both ran the 5 km. It was his first organized run, and I beat my previous best time by a couple of minutes, so we're both pretty proud of ourselves.


Since the weather has turned so chilly, it is a good time of year to have a newly completed woolly vest. My Ivy League turned out just lovely, a perfect fit.

Ivy League Vest from Interweave Knits Winter 2007, knit in KnitPicks Pallette in colourways twig, cream, tidepool heather, blue note heather, brindle heather, and mist.


I knit it exactly as written with no modifications, which worked well for me because I'm short. The vest is a very nice addition to my fall work wardrobe. I definitely like this Fair-Isle business, and there will certainly be more of it in my future. Steeks aren't so scary - you just have to show them who's boss.

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