The Pattern Slave

Do you know me?

AmyN said:

...SAFF should be great fun and I can't wait to see her sweater. Do you have your's done yet?

note to self: remember to rip tags out of this in time for SAFF. 

holy crap!

It's September!  It's been a heck of a summer.  Fripp Island was awesome.  As was the visit from my sister right before moving to sunny Seattle. 

(the lighting stinks, but Ranier was cooperating that evening.)

Yup.  I had about 4 weeks notice to empty a nearly 5000 sqft household to fit into an approx 1800 sqft. house.  I did not succeed.  The movers came and we were NOT ready.  That's what I get for stopping my medication in the midst of all this (it was an accident, I swear!) -- indecision and a lack of motivation.  Oh well.  It all got here.  I just have to unpack and donate/sell things as I go. 

The boys have transitioned well despite having to deal with starting at a government school.  It was so late and there were no openings in the secular private schools.  Dealing with the govt this much is practically giving me hives, though.  We got lucky with their teacher placement though and I'm impressed with them so far. 

In the meantime I'm missing the gang terribly.  ( Hey Snarkys!)  I haven't found a new knitting group yet.  I've been to one, but haven't started feeling the love.  That'll take time, though. 

I have to get started on Jillybean's SAFF sweater.  I decided on the Mandarin Collared Cardigan.  It's really cute but the downside is that it involves grafting.  Lots and lots of grafting.  I guess I'll have to get over it, huh?  I could seam it, but them there would be a big seam up the back.  not very comfy. 

 

Fripp Island

It was fabulous.  It was so fabulous that I didn't get to knit a stitch.  We were on the beach every day except one, and that day we went to the pool.  My MIL came and she watched the baby a good bit which was a big help.  I was able to take the boys out to the beach during Mr. Slave's golf lessons w/o worrying about being able to keep an eye on all three of them. 

The boys got to go crabbing one day - no luck there - and ocean seining.  We caught lots of little fish and even some shrimp.  There were deer everywhere.  Lots of young bucks in strangling distance.  Daddy, who used to go hunting every year in deer season, was jealous. 

A very important thing I learned that there is no way in hell I could ever live with a news junkie.  My MIL has the news, or some kind of mindless sport on ALL the freakin'  time.  I'm not kidding, unless the kids were watching cartoons, the news was on.  ANd half the time the volume was so low no one could hear it!  So what's the point with that?  And she was constantly talking about it and invariably, if it one the one story I wanted to hear she'd talk over it so I couldn't hear it. grrrr....   I love my MIL. It was fabulous to have her on the trip and I loved seeing how much she and the boys enjoyed each other.  But can't she watch a little fluff once in a while???  Not like my parents do, but at least a little? 

Oh, and remember my lost TomTom?  Mr. Slave found it.  Somehow it had been put in the pocket on the back of the passenger seat.  WTF??  I have no idea how it got there.  So, now we have 2 of them b/c I'd already opened and started using the new one.  {sigh}

And now, let the summer camp adventures begin!  There are very few weeks. where any of the boys don't have camp.  I'm putting myself through another summer like last year.  Oh No. 

More pics once I get them uploaded.

And, I have a very nice birthday.  The boys made me cards.  It was sweet.

do you wear your baby?

There's a great new carrier on the market called Action Baby!  It's a soft structured carrier.  unlike a mei tai, there aren't miles of straps to drag on the ground.  You can get one at Heavenly Hold. 

Also it's perfect for summer as it's unlined!!  These look to be great carriers and the prices are terrific only $79 and $89 vs. what most other ssc's go for...  awesome.  I can hardly wait to order one.  However, my little incident with the TOM TOM (below) is preventing that at the moment. 

Amber is holding a contest for a free one: http://www.heavenlyhold.com/pages/contest.htm  She's a really nice lady. 

Not a whole lot going on. They way things are knitting wise I'll never get my Something Chocolate done.  I'm in ribbing hell.  at least the ribbing is interesting w/the built in increases as you go - makes the waist shaping.  I'm taking it with me on vacation so I should get something done with it soon.  I've been sewing a little though.  I need to finish Jillybean's outfit for our trip and I need to make the carrier for her to wear in the water. 

I'm getting a TOM TOM for by birthday!!!  It's to replace the one I lost that I got for Hanukkah. :(  and it totally sucks that I lost it; I wanted to get a camera for snapshots.  My Canon is a bit bulky for everyday carrying around.  If I had found someone's TOM TOM I would have looked up the home address and shipped it to them.  Where the heck is my good karma???  I actually go to the trouble of calling people when I find their cell phones, or tracking them down when I find a purse.  Hell, I walked out of Hancock Fabrics with some thread totally on accident and it's still in my car for when I go back so I can pay for it.  (I was buying fabric and the thread was in the stroller cup holder and in my rush to get out of there to p/u the boys I totally forgot it was there.)  So I ask again... where is my good karma????

Anyway, Jillybean is growing like a weed and looks to be crawling any day now.  The boys are about to start summer vacation and I've got them in as many camps as I can in order to preserver my sanity.  There's no way whatsoever that I'm going through another summer like last year.  I didn't get them signed up for camps in time and they only ended up with about 3 weeks or so of camps, and we didn't take a trip b/c of Mr. Slave's work.  We've fixed that for this year though. 

Finish Object

Mei Tai 01
Originally uploaded by The Pattern Slave

I broke 2 needles in the process, and was up till 3 a.m. on Saturday night, but it was worth it.  I really had to have this done in time to use it to see the Yarn Harlot.  (who was as funny and gracious as always)

I used the Montessori By Hand pattern - nice clear instructions. I like how the harness goes through the body of the carrier rather than just straps attached to the edges. There are definitely things I'd change though - more of an hourglass shape, wider straps all around and add padding. And a poket in the inside (so as not to hide the pretty fabric) to stuff the straps when not in use. I made the straps much longer than called for in the pattern - they are far too short in the pattern. Very pleased with it.

new look

Katey surprised me last week with a new look!  Isn't it pretty.  I don't actually have the bag pictured, but Katey thinks I should and I agree.  I just  want a serger more.  I've even listed some yarn to sell on ravelry. 

Remember last summer when I bought my sewing machine?  I'm using it more now.  I have two baby dresses in the works (just need hemming).  I made a cat in the hat style hat and tie for Stinkerton's class play and I finally got the fabric to do my spring trench coat.  See the dotted one? 

Mine will be in this fabric: 

This is the fabric I'm using to make one of Jillybean's dresses.  The actual fabric is a lot more pale pink than the picture.  I'm thinking I'd like to do a pale yellow lining.  I haven't done anything that complicated yet, so I'm going to work it up in muslin first.  big fun! 

I also need to do the following items for both summer and fall:

I plan on a couple of skirts for summer.  Nice fitted a-lines I think. 

Stormy Day

We had some really nasty storms in Atlanta over the past 24 hours.  I'm thankful that there was so little loss of life despite the pretty extensive property damage. 

Niceties over.  Do y'all mind if i vent a minute?  Thanks.

My MIL, we'll call her Betty White, gets anxious and agitated easily.  Storms are a perfect example.  She gets so worried that it might rain if the sky turns a little grey that she will hurry up and leave our house to avoid driving in the rain.  In a hurry.  rush rush rush.  no matter what the weather report says about where any rain may actually be.  Now I get not wanting to drive in the rain, but she's perfectly welcome to stay here, and she's only 5 minutes away, so even if she does end up driving in a little rain it's only for a few minutes.

She will even call us if the sirens go off and report the weather to us.  As if we can't hear them, too being only five minutes down the road. 

Today, she came to watch Little Man while we took Stinkerton for his Tae Kwon Do test this morning.  We got back and she was all antsy about the tornadoes and making a huge fuss.  It was barely sprinkling at the time.  She proceeded to get the kids all worked up, (not scared, just worked up) wouldn't turn off the weather report and was generally overexcited coming up stairs every few minutes and telling me what the weather was and generally driving me batshit crazy. 

The weather was fine near us; I kept reassuring her that all the storms were to the south but she kept getting all excited over the next more sensational weather report.  She kept ushering the boys to the basement to watch the weather (I only check when the sirens go off) and then I wait to see if the the sky turns green.  It doesn't matter how many times we explain how the sirens work or what the different ones mean.  She didn't seem to understand why I wasn't excited and agitated.  It was worse  than when the Gators are playing. 

I love my MIL and she makes my life a good bit easier.  I am thankful that she's local so the boys can have a relationship with her.  But stuff like that just drives me batshit crazy - no matter who is doing it.  Now I'm going to have to work on the boys for the next week or so to undo all the worry about tornadoes she's caused. Neither  Mr. Slave nor I can say anything for fear of hurting her feelings.   

Done.  End of rant.  I just needed to get this off my chest before I exploded.

Finally!

It took six weeks (after she was born) and my parents to finally get to the Varsity, but I finally got to have my chili dog and a fried peach pie.  mmmmmmm....  Jllybean got hers second hand and seemed to love it - she got extra milk drunk. 

Not much happening on  the knitting front.  I'm on the sleeves for the never ending leaf sweater (Nashua Bloom).  Thanks to AmyN for laying on of hands to get me past the event horizon.  I've started Lizard Ridge (bad knitter bad knitter - smacks hand) and so far like it.  Am working on some trades for more colors. Want some Kureyon color 88?  One of these days I'll actually get around to starting a project for Jillybean.

I'm slowly but surely getting all my yarn up on Ravelry.  Problem is we took soooo many pictures that I'm having trouble matching them up w/the list.  I haven't quite gotten up all the pics to flickr and that's slowing me down - esp since I have to edit to many of them to get the colors to show.  I'm tempted to just start rephotographing a box at a time.  i'm also still working on finding a good storage place for the rest of the boxes (they are currently in the living room).  I need to clear out the guest room closet and that's taking a bit of effort. 

More eventually.

IMPORTANT - VERY IMPORTANT

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20081102-16879.html

To hell with copyright, this message needs to get out there!

Breast milk contains stem cells

Monday, 11 February 2008

By Catherine Madden Mammary stem cells (red/blue) and differentiated adult mammary cells (green) isolated from human breast milk. The Perth scientist who made the world-first discovery that human breast milk contains stem cells is confident that within five years scientists will be harvesting them to research treatment for conditions as far-reaching as spinal injuries, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. But what Dr Mark Cregan is excited about right now is the promise that his discovery could be the start of many more exciting revelations about the potency of breast milk. He believes that it not only meets all the nutritional needs of a growing infant but contains key markers that guide his or her development into adulthood. “We already know how breast milk provides for the baby’s nutritional needs, but we are only just beginning to understand that it probably performs many other functions,” says Dr Cregan, a molecular biologist at The University of Western Australia. He says that, in essence, a new mother’s mammary glands take over from the placenta to provide the development guidance to ensure a baby’s genetic destiny is fulfilled. “It is setting the baby up for the perfect development,” he says. “We already know that babies who are breast fed have an IQ advantage and that there’s a raft of other health benefits. Researchers also believe that the protective effects of being breast fed continue well into adult life. “The point is that many mothers see milks as identical – formula milk and breast milk look the same so they must be the same. But we know now that they are quite different and a lot of the effects of breast milk versus formula don’t become apparent for decades. Formula companies have focussed on matching breast milk’s nutritional qualities but formula can never provide the developmental guidance.” It was Dr Cregan’s interest in infant health that led him to investigate the complex cellular components of human milk. “I was looking at this vast complexity of cells and I thought, ‘No one knows anything about them’.” His hunch was that if breast milk contains all these cells, surely it has their precursors, too? His team cultured cells from human breast milk and found a population that tested positive for the stem cell marker, nestin. Further analysis showed that a side population of the stem cells were of multiple lineages with the potential to differentiate into multiple cell types. This means the cells could potentially be “reprogrammed” to form many types of human tissue. He presented his research at the end of January to 200 of the world’s leading experts in the field at the International Conference of the Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation in Perth. “We have shown these cells have all the physical characteristics of stem cells. What we will do next is to see if they behave like stem cells,” he says. If so, they promise to provide researchers with an entirely ethical means of harvesting stem cells for research without the debate that has dogged the harvesting of cells from embryos. Further research on immune cells, which have also been found in breast milk and have already been shown to survive the baby’s digestive process, could provide a pathway to developing targets to beat certain viruses or bacteria.

How fucking cool is that?

your best friends are the ones who...

I bet you thought I was going to say "help you move."  Well, I could say that and it would be true.  But in knitland your best friends are the ones who help you catalog and photograph your stash for Ravelry.  Without judgment (even over the box(es) of dead muppets) or criticism (over the size).  Though Katey did laugh wildly at one of my cabinets  - and it wasn't even my closet of shame!   

Many thanks to kateyj and laurie for help.  It was a tremedous task, indeed. 

I'm now at the point where I'm sorting by brand or type or whatever seems to make sense and deciding what to sell, trade and gift. It's going to take a while. 

katey has also been helping me figure out how to organize by comeing with me to IKEA.  She helped me pick out storage for the kids playroom and I'm in the middle of that project, too.  So, three rooms in the house have exploded in my flurry of organization.  Mr. Slave is probably not entirely happy.  Fortunately for me, he's too sleep deprived to complain. 

In the meantime, here's BFF Jill (and yes, she came out with that much hair!):

In the adorable embroidered hat,  soaker and booties from Fickleknitter.  Thanks, M!  We love them!

Amy N putting needles in her hands.  woo hoo!  This kid'll knit AND purl.  and lace, too.  Amy is an extremely talented and, by far the Snarky's most prolific, knitter.

Catch ya later!