Wow, it's been a long time! Lots of stuff has been going on, but not very much knitting related. The main thing of course being the birth of our wonderful daughter! Please say hello to Ella Marion Clifford!
At the end of February we found out that the baby (by then we didn't know the gender) had turned around in the womb and placed her buttocks firmly downwards. We went to the hospital where they attempted to turn her around, but it didn't succeed. The attempt was very painful, and I had some very pretty black bruises on my belly afterwards! The doctor asked me if I still wanted to try and give birth the natural way, even though the baby was upside down, but I decided pretty fast to have a c-section instead. So on the 5th of March me and Thomas went to Norrköping's hospital, and at 14:32 our little daughter was born. Everything went very well, she weighed 3210 grams and was 49 cm long so pretty much in the middle of the curve. She is now ten weeks old, and every minute has been wonderful and overwhelming. I have healed very fast, so I think I've been very lucky in that too. And I can almost fit into my old pants!
So these past three months have been filled with baby stuff, and lots of friends of family visiting to meet Ella. Thomas went back to work after two weeks, but I will be on maternity leave until the beginning of January next year. The days are filled with taking care of the baby, and I haven't had much time to knit. I did manage to finish my Star Leaves shawl the other week, and today I had time to block it while Ella slept! Yay!
Now I'm mostly focusing on the Austin hoodie, and I'm almost up to the arm holes. It's not going fast, as I usually only manage a couple of rows in the evening, and not even every evening, but it will get done eventually. I have a lot of other stuff on the needles too (two pairs of socks, and one sweater), and I should also make a few more cardigans for Ella. She has two that I've made right now, and she will probably be able to fit into the Abernathy cardigan for a month or two more, but the sleeves on the Puerperium cardigan are alrready getting a bit short. So if I want her to have any hand knits at all for the fall I should get going!
And those two cardigans were almost my only successful baby knits! The first set I made, the hat with the pom-poms, the booties and the mittens) turned out way too small (well, she had the mittens for a few weeks, but they were on the small side), and the Abernathy cap fit but the ties ended up right in front of her mouth rather than under the shin! The Wollmeise hat that I made to match the Puerperium cardigan also fit for a short while, then she grew out of that too. So more hats and cardigans will be forthcoming!
The pyjamas I made for Ella was also a fail. It fit her perfectly, but I quickly found out that a jumpsuit that you have to remove all the way just to check the diaper is way too fussy! Also, the buttons were very pretty, but almost impossible to button and unbutton, so I'll probably just let Ella have that one as doll's clothing in the future. It is pretty, but very impractical.
Ella also got some knitted gifts from some of our friends. When she was a little over a week, our dear friends from Clifton Forge, Sarah and Chris, came to Sweden for their first visit! They stayed with our friends Anna and Peter, and all four of them came here to see us and Ella. We haven't seen Sarah and Chris since our USA trip three years ago, so it was so wonderful to get to see them again! Sarah had made Ella a super cute little sock yarn hat:
And Anna brought an alpaca hat and a pair of bootees:
Ella has, as you can see in the photos, almost grown out of both hats, but the bootees still fit, and she often wears them when we go out for walks.
Finally, Ella got a scarf and a hat from my grandmother (she's a great grandmother now and loving it), and although she didn't make them herself, they are just so cute that I have to share the photo:
Ok, now it's getting close to feeding time, so I'll have to go. I have no idea when I'll be back, but hopefully there will be some more recent knitting!
/ Jenny
