pinku

Jake

 

Hey everyone, Darin here posting for Kat who is resting comfortably in the clinic with our new baby, Jake Taiga Mok Bendall, born at the stroke of 11 pm on the 21st of October, weighing in at 4423 grams, 52 cm large (that's 9 pounds 12 ounces and 20.4 inches in American). Both Kat and Jakey did a great job taking care of business, coming out without a hitch. She'll tell you the whole story in a couple days.
Now go call your mom, she'd love to hear from you.

Still with belly....

I should have known that my son would take his time to arrive on the scene. It's ok though I'm only two days past my due date so far, so that's not too bad. I have to go and see the doctor in a couple of days to see how dudley is doing, but I hope he comes in the next couple of days. There is only one lady checked into the maternity clinic right now so if we were to have the baby, we'd pretty much have the place to ourselves...that'd be nice.

So now I feel completely in limbo. I went and bought some labour-inducing massage oil today....but no results yet. We will be doing everything to avoid any kind of artificial induction.

I finished the Bella baby pants and am really happy with the result. I think they might be a little too warm though - they are thick. I added some embroidered felt patches on the knee using a couple of Jenny Hart's awesome Sublime Stitching embroidery patterns. I also decided to forgo the knitted i-cord drawstring for a cute shoelace and also went with seed stitch leg cuffs so you can adjust the length of the pants. Definitely recommend the pattern - cute baby pants that knit up quickly.

We also got in some baby practice. Our friend Kyoko came to visit with her 10-month old baby, So-kun. We can only hope that Dudley will be just as cute with an equally sweet disposition. He's gorgeous and will make you want a baby.....if you don't already have one.

The calm before the storm

The belly is at maximum capacity. It can't get any bigger. Surely. There are two days until Dudley's official due date. Did I tell you they are estimating his weight at around 4.5 kilos...nearly 10 pounds...

I'm so ready to move on to the next stage. It's been wonderful having four weeks of relaxing, baking, doing 'lunch', getting massages, pedicures, my hair done and not working but I'm ready to move on. I really want to meet Dudley and if he stays in there much longer he'll have more knitted clothes than any other baby I know of. They are coming off the needles at a fast pace right now. I'm keen to knit this vest from a new Japanese knitting book for myself, but I need to adjust the pattern and with this gigantic belly....it's just not possible.

So what have I been knitting?! Well baby clothes of course. I started the Knitty blu jeans in July people and finished the knitting part of the project in a couple of days but the finishing was daunting so I just put the pieces away. Last week I finally washed the pieces to shrink them and bought some elastic for the waist and sat down and seamed those darned jeans. They turned out pretty darned cute!

The back

Close up of the tag....it says Bendallok...a combination of my last name and Daz's

Another cute project that I just HAD to make were these cute baby overalls that I found in the Australian Creative Knitting Annual from 2004.

Here is my version in green

I used some soft Japanese merino yarn in green and they will definitely keep Dudley warm in the winter. Here's the back:

I used some furoshiki covered buttons that I bought at a great furoshiki shop in Harajuku (it's at the bottom of the Ukiyo-e Museum).

Ooh and then I discovered the Thrifty Knitter's baby vest pattern, Pebble and decided that I definitely wanted to make it. I wanted to use the one ball of Rowan felted tweed that I had in my stash but I knew it wouldn't be enough yarn to complete the vest so I had to do it in two colours which meant having to knit the vest up a little differently. I did it pretty much the same but had to pick up stitches for the button borders. I also added some bendall robot embroidery because I felt inspried.

The vest is one piece that opens at one shoulder and the side. Here is a photo of it open:

I had a little bit of yarn left over so I also made a matching baby beanie but it's TINY (photographed with a tiny cotton newborn beanie which looks big next to my beanie). I don't think any son of mine will have a head that small even as a newborn....oh well.

I've also finished a pair of these Bella Knitting baby pants but have yet to take a photo. And I think this baby viking hat will be next on my list as well as a pair of matching socks for Dudley and myself.Ok so that's my craft round up of the past few weeks. I would like to write a summary of what it's been like to be pregnant in Japan (not that I really know what it's like to be pregnant anywhere else), but we'll see if Dudley gives me any more FREE time. Off to eat breakfast now and pysche myself up.....hopefully my next post will include details of my most amazing FO ever.

Dudley in action

Hey I'm still here people and I'm still pregnant (38.5 weeks). I have some knitting to show you but will have to take the photos tomorrow. I quickly wanted to share a video I took recently of my belly in action. I wanted to edit it and make it shorter since all the action occurs in the first 20 seconds, but didn't know how. So feel free to stop the video after 20 seconds unless you'd like to watch my belly and listen to the movie we were watching (can you tell what it was??).

Dudley in action from kat on Vimeo.