Dappled Air

My grandson made his grand entrance yesterday at 3.54 pm in Mississauga Ontario at 7 lbs 15 oz and 21 inches. He will be called Samuel (Sammy) Buckley Cohen.

This morning as I was going through my RSS feeds I came across this link at Whipup.net to the Princess and the Monkey blog with this huge list of sewing tutorials. Wow, this is so cool. With the holidays coming up, there is a great chance that something will be just perfect to make for somebody on the gift list. Giving a homemade gift, especially in this tough economic time, is just so special. Each gift is imbued with the love that created it. Also with the arrival of my first grandchild just around the corner, I will probably find something special to make for his arrival. The list is broken down into the following groups: Hand Bags Tote Bags Wristlets & Wallets Crafty Bags Baby Stuff For In Your Bag For Your Sewing/Crafting Supplies Around the House Others Quilts & Manchester Kids Stuff Softies Softies - Food Ornaments Kids Clothing Clothing Aprons Embroidery Sewing How-Tos

Yesterday I received a phone call from my mom in Switzerland. She told me that she could just not go to bed yet until she found out what a baby shower was. She had just received a written invitation for the baby shower of my daughter-in-law in November. She asked, are they going to wash the mother before the baby comes? We both had to laugh at that thought. Then I explained to her that it was an American tradition of having a shower (party) for the future mother to help with some of the baby items they will need. After reading the info at Wikipedia about baby showers, I realized that bridal and baby showers (parties) are a typical North American thing and as I could hear by my mom's puzzled question totally unheard of in Switzerland. Related articles by Zemanta Frequently Asked Questions for Baby Shower Things To Know When Hosting A Baby Shower Details Of Baby Shower Thank You Cards

While doing my research on the 'Wunderknäuel' in Google in German I saw my baby spiral socks and an explanation that in German hospitals they use them for preemies. They call them in German 'Regenwürmer' - 'earthworms'. As the socks have no heel they can be worn by any size baby and will keep the tiny ones nice and warm. Here is a link to the pattern and all kinds of other baby patterns in German.

After I had finished my husbands socks there was still some yarn left over, just enough to make a pair of baby spiral socks. As spiral socks are very stretchy and babies grow so fast, I decided to make the socks big enough for a bigger baby (up to 20 lbs), but they should also fit a newborn. So I had to make them long enough for the bigger baby, for the smaller baby there will just be a big cuff as you can see on my model, a doll that is even smaller than a newborn. Material needed: about 10 gr wool per sock 4 double pointed needles darning needle gauge: 28 stitches = 4 inches (10 cm) on 3.25 mm (U.S. 3) needles My pattern is: 2 knit, 3 purl for 3 rows and then offset either to the left or right by one stitch so that it will go like this: 1 knit, 2 purl, 2 knit, 2 purl. Knitting Instructions : cast on 32 stitches very loosely divided over 3 needles (10 stitches, 12 stitches, 10 stitches) knit ribbing pattern: 1 knit, 1 purl for 10 rows switch to spiral pattern: 1st row of pattern: 2 ...