It's a....

So, I'm sure you are anxiously awaiting the details of Nonnahs' fabulous wedding last weekend, but except for confirming that it was indeed most fabulous, I'm going to let her share the details once she returns from her honeymoon. In the meantime, my plan is to fill in with baby news and baby projects!

We had our 20 week ultrasound last Wednesday and we did find out the gender...Final guesses everyone?

It's a boy! Here is one of my favorite photos:

I love his little frog legs :) Everything seems normal (and boy does this little guy move!) except he has ever-so-slightly enlarged kidneys, so we will probably need to have a follow up ultrasound in another couple months. We've also had the privilege of being stuck in the cycle of 'abnormal' Down Syndrome screening results, which sounds scary, but is really just a probability game. In the end (after a genetic counseling appointment and another more detailed ultrasound yesterday), we've decided that we aren't going to do any further testing and just go with it. I'm not stressing about it and our guts tells us he is healthy. Besides, if his current activity level is any indicator, we are going to have our hands full once he is out and about! Ack!

I also thought I would share a little 20 week tummy update. I took this in Hawaii at one of Nonnahs' favorite beach spots:

As for projects, I finished up my version of the Get Ziggy sweater (Ravelry link here).

I knit the 12 month size with one hank and a little more (maybe 1.1) of Dream in Color Classy in the colorway Spring Tickle on size 8 (and 6 for the ribbing) needles. This was a great pattern! It was also the first baby knit I've finished that actually seemed to be fast to me. Not really anything else to say about this one since everything was straight forward and the yarn was fabulous!

I've also finished up some sewing projects. I made up half a dozen burp cloths using my leftover fabric from my quilt class quilt (btw - I bet these colors make a lot more since now that you know we were thinking about starting our family at the time!) and cloth diapers.

I used this tutorial but without any embelishments (it was hard to find ribbon or bias tape to match all three color sets and I didn't want to buy something different for each one...this was a stash busting project after all!).

I also made another half of a dozen burp cloths from this tutorial (burping cloths) with two flannel prints.

I had planned to follow this other tutorial originally, but was going to modify them without the batting and without the fringe, so when my sister-in-law forwarded me a link to the other tutorial, I just followed that one instead (since it didn't require me actually re-making the pattern piece).

I also made a little travel blanket (instructions courtesy of my friend Cora) with the rest of the duck flannel and a piece of complementary print cotton. Again, I left off any embellishments and just kept it simple.

And while we now know that this baby will be a boy, I'm still planning to continue to make unisex projects because like I said before...you never know what will come next!

A February Sweater for a February Baby

Wow! I had no intention of taking such a long blog holiday! First and foremost - thank you so much for all of your kind comments and well wishes for this little growing baby that is slowly but surely taking up more and more space in my mid-section. I'm currently at 18 weeks and we are set for our 20 week ultrasound in about a week and a half. Initially we were going to wait and see how we felt at the time of the ultrasound to decide whether or not we'd find out the sex. But seriously, picking out names is hard and stressful! So, at this point, we are planning to find out!

Anyway, over the last few weeks I've been busy, busy, busy. Given that a certain someone is getting married this month, my biggest project has been unbloggable. But, I was able to give Nonnahs her gift last night, so expect another finished object post in the near future!

I've also been knitting again. I've discovered the secret to Dis's Happy Hands is continental knitting...exclusively. I had tried to go back to knitting with my right hand after my last break and it was just too much. I now use my left hand for everything, except binding off (I still can't get the yarn out of the way - how do you people do it!?!). I also used the excuse of baby knitting to pick out some fabulously squishy worsted wool yarn - Dream in Color Classy, which has also been very hand friendly.

The product of my latest knitting efforts has been a February Baby Sweater for a certain February baby of mine:

This was my first experience knitting an Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern. While I appreciate that she doesn't spoon feed you line-by-line instructions, I am glad I didn't try to tackle this one as a new knitter. There were several things you just have to know how to do. She provides the ingredients, but you need to put the recipe together. It was a great pattern and otherwise pretty straight forward. I did get a little bogged down with the lace for a while, but I got my mojo back once I realized how close I was to finishing!

I used just about exactly one hank of Classy in the color Cocoa Kiss on size 6 needles (for the main body knitting). I did have to shorten the body by about a 1/2 inch to do this though. The yarn is wonderful! The colors are so great and the mottled nature of the variegation is very subtle and not distracting, but still just as enchanting to knit. I picked out this color first because I've loved it for a long time (and needed a good excuse to buy it!), but secondly because I thought it would be nice for either a boy or a girl. The color would look very elegant on a little girl, but also tone down the lace for a boy.

I've already decided that all the baby knitting I will be doing will be gender neutral because even though we will be finding out ahead of time what we are having, we certainly don't know who will be coming next. And I would like to use these hand knits for more than one baby! So along that line, I wanted to show you the other wee little sweater currently on my needles:

You probably recognize this as the Get Ziggy (Rav link) sweater that Nonnahs did such a lovely job on here. It is such a great little sweater and in this fun green (also Classy in the color Spring Tickle), I think it will be great for a boy or a girl. But I think my favorite part of this project is that when Nonnahs and I were talking about potential baby projects one day, we IMed each other the link for this pattern at the exact same time! Great minds must think alike ;-)