Cloth Diapering

Wouldn't this be cute on Conor's little tushie???

We're considering trying cloth diapers. Most of my preconceived notions about the horrors of CD have turned out to be wrong. Multiples...and More! wrote a fabulous blog entry with an intro to the "new" world of CDs. No more wet pails, dunk & swish, sharp pins, or rubber covers. There's still laundry, and poop, but at least it's fewer loaded sposies sitting in a landfill for generations!

Conor's Room

Before we knew Conor was a boy, I found this bird cage on Etsy and thought it would be darling in a nursery. Needless to say it's a little feminine for a boy's room, but then I found this by the same seller:

It came today and I love it! Tim's response, "What is it??"

Some other things for Conor's room:

Also from Etsy.

More Etsy. (Etsy is very dangerous, especially when your credit card info is stored in PayPal!)

A new quilt is in the works, along with this rug:

Both will be made with the same fabric (Moda Sweet). Yes, there's some pink, but we'll throw some fire engines in the room to man it up a bit ;)

23 weeks

23 weeks, 5 days. Me and the baby, and Conor ;)

Halfway

It's a boy! Conor *no middle name yet* looked healthy and active at his 20 week ultrasound (3 weeks ago - yikes!)

I'm still trying to decide on fabric for his crib bedding. I've lost track of the number of half yards I've ordered but keep coming back to the aqua/green/red theme. These are my favorites:

For the bumper (outside):

For the bumper (inside):

For the trim and ties:

I'll probably go with a white (or pale yellow) sheet, white skirt with red trim and green inside the pleat. Or maybe I'll do red polka dots inside the bumper and green gingham ties and trim. Or maybe white minky dot inside the bumper, or maybe alternating polka dots and minky. (Or maybe I'll realize he's a baby and doesn't care as long as he has a place to sleep.)

8 week Portrait

Baby had its first picture last week. Looks good!

Block Party

All the blocks for my first quilt are finally finished! They're made of five fabrics from Tanya Whelan's Ava Rose collection. I can't get enough of this fabric - nursery bedding perhaps? I like that the pinks are a little more red, and love the robin's egg blue. There are also several greys in the collection, although I didn't pick any of those for this quilt. I do still have to choose a fabric for the backing - maybe grey polka dots?

The quilt instructions advise turning the blocks all different ways to give the quilt a "scrappy" look. I tried that, but prefer having all the blocks lined up.

It's almost finished - now I just have to:

• sew blocks in each row together
• sew rows 1 and 2, and 3 and 4 together
• sew rows 1/2 to rows 3/4
• cut and sew inner border (pink with white polka dots)
• cut and sew outer border (white floral)
• cut fabric for binding (not sure which fabric)
• order fabric for backing
• buy batting
• take front, back, and batting to Virginia (friend from work who knows someone who can do the quilting and possibly the binding)
• wash and dry
• nap with finished quilt!

Okay, so maybe I'm not almost finished after all.

Maybe Baby!

We're expecting! A baby. Apparently those Lady Tools are also working. He/she will be here in June.

I started knitting a baby blanket for said baby, inspired by SouleMama's baby blanket. It looks so soft I knew I wanted to use the same yarn - Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton. I chose the bone colorway (I like that word - colorway - although I'm not sure I'm using it correctly). I looked around for an easy pattern, but the Project Linus All Purpose Knitted Afghan pattern that SouleMama used was the "fast and easy" one I needed.

I also discovered that this is the same yarn suggested for Alicia Paulson's Tiramisu Baby Blanket. That one is crocheted, and although I know I could handle the main blanket the edging might be a bit tough for my novice crochet skills. If I have any leftover yarn, I think I'll start it and see how it goes.