Yesterday, I decided to go a little crazy and make something for myself for a change. I cast on for a Calorimetry with some superwash handspun yarn that I had originally intended to use to make something for Griff, but which turned out a little on the pink and girly side for him. The handspun actually didn’t look anything like I expected, based on the fiber I started with.

I started with this superwash merino top that I dyed:

And ended up with a 2-ply yarn that “reads” very turquoise and orange/pink.

Griff napped for 2 hours straight this morning, so I was able to finish this project in less than 24 hours! And here’s my Calorimetry, all ready to keep my ears and head warm while I wear my hair up this winter (which I always do, because I haven’t had time to use a hair dryer in, oh, about the last 10 months).

I have about half the yarn left, so I may use it as an accent color and knit some some matching mittens or gloves for myself.

In keeping with my recent let’s-make-Griffin-pants blog theme, I made Griffin some more pants! This no-longer-needed cotton knit baby blanket is now a pair of Big Butt Baby Pajama Bottoms. Sewing knits without a serger is horrific (even with a ballpoint needle and using the special stretch stitch for knits), but I managed anyway (while digging the fabric out of the feed dogs several times, grrr). As usual, I lazily avoided having to hem the bottoms by using the preexisting hems. Yay me.

I cleverly tried the pants on Griff at his next diaper change, which is why he’s wearing that horribly clashing shirt.

At this point, I’ve made Griff pants from cotton flannel, regular quilting-weight cotton, my old jeans, a cotton knit blanket, and polar fleece. What should I try next? Aluminum foil? Tyvek house wrap?

This goofy baby turned 10 months old today!

When he’s not lounging around with his best buddy, Severus Snakey…

…he’s taking Mr. Snakey for a walk…

…or just taking a stroll on his own…

…or reading an exciting new novel…

…or eating handfuls of oatmeal…

…or snuggling with daddy!

I’m on a finishing roll! (Mostly because Jag was working from home for the past 2 days and was around to distract Griff when he wasn’t too busy.)

Today I finished mom’s Christmas socks, only 3 weeks (or so) late. I wish I got to keep these, but they must go to their new loving home.

The coolest part is that they started like this, as superwash merino top….

…which then got dyed like this…

..and then got spun up like this…

…and then became this 3-ply fingering/sport weight yarn…

…which became these!

I also finished another sleep sack for Griff yesterday. More flannel ($6 from fabric.com), this time with owls. I’m really enjoying the whole owls/deer/gnomes/woodland pop fabric trend, and I’ll be sad when it’s over. I wonder how dated these fabrics are going to look in 20 years.

This is my third sleep sack (made using a pattern drafted using instructions in this tutorial) and I’m finally getting the hang of putting in the zippers.

The big plus to making these things (aside from the fact that it’s way cheaper) is that I can make the armholes nice and big to make getting Griff in and out easier, and I can make the sack extra long to accommodate Mr. Unnaturally Huge for a long time. He was still dazed from his afternoon nap while modeling and was a good sport about it.

For my next project, I think I’m going to try and do some work on the blue pyramids quilt top and see if I can get the edges trimmed and put some borders on it.

I haven’t blogged for a bit, so here’s a brief update.

First, Griff is making great progress at this walking thing. He can make it about halfway across the living room before he falls down, and he’ll often choose to walk over to a toy rather than crawl once he’s already pulled up on something. It’s really hard to capture this on video since he’s so random about when he decides to walk vs crawl, but here are a few choice clips.

Here he’s walking to mommy…

…and here, he’s walking to daddy, but weaves around and ends up somewhere else instead…

…and here, he’s just being ridiculously cute.

I’m still knitting away on Mom’s Christmas gift (she got to unwrap 1⅓ socks for Christmas because I just couldn’t finish the pair in time). I hope to get the second one completed over the weekend.

After months of disuse, my spinning wheel finally saw some action last weekend. I’m spinning some of the FatCatKnits Polworth Jag got me as an anniversary gift. I’m thinking of Navajo plying this to keep the color changes and get some cool stripes.

Which brings us to my new spinning corner! My wheel wasn’t seeing any use because it was being stored in the dining room to keep it safe from Griff’s curious little hands (and mouth, and teeth). Once we took down the tree, Jag suggested using that space as my little spinning corner so I could leave the wheel set up and spend a few minutes spinning when I found the time during the day. I’m very happy about this and hope to be doing much more spinning now.

On a cooking note, I’ll be adding this cheddar beer bread to the regular rotation when we’re eating a meal that needs something bready to go with. Jag and I ate half the loaf with dinner tonight. *Urp.* My only change was to add basil and oregano, since we were eating it with pasta.

And last but not least, Griff has yet another pair of Big Butt Baby Pants. More jeans again, made of my old maternity jeans (capris, this time) sacrificed for the cause. I’m considering a trip to Goodwill to buy a pile of old jeans in huge sizes so I have more material to work with. I can just barely eke a pair of size 12-18 month Griff pants out of size 12 womens’ jeans (and I have to make the butt panel from a piece of another pair of jeans, as you can see here), and I’ll be needing to make bigger sizes for him in the coming months.

I had a little yeast-spill-head-bonk accident last night while making these rolls, which spent the night in the fridge so we could just let them warm up a bit and then pop them into the oven this morning. Definitely worth the trouble!

Jag has many stellar qualities, which is why I overlooked the fact that he prefers store bought canned cinnamon rolls to homemade and married him anyway. I decided to use some cream cheese frosting to make the rolls more like the ones from the Pillsbury factory.

They were really, really good. (And 1000x better than the canned ones.)

I’ve been on a baking tear and trying to finish knitting my mom’s Christmas gift socks, so not much in the way of crafting has been done this week. However, Griff’s huge chubby muscular thighs are making it impossible for him to wear most of his jeans lately (not to mention the fact that none of his jeans fit over his cloth diapers). I decided to cut up one of my old pairs of maternity jeans and use them to make him some Big Butt Baby Jeans. I used the inseams of the old jeans as the outside leg seams of his new jeans, and kept the old hems intact as well. They’re a little long, but otherwise they fit great.

Griff is still enjoying pushing his walker wagon. He’s also learning that climbing in will get him a free ride around the living room. 🙂

Christmas was all about Griff this year. He wasn’t able to open his gifts himself, but he sure enjoyed playing with the bows and paper!

He loved playing with everything as it was unwrapped.

He also got a stylish new hat from his Nana.

I got a bit over-ambitious with the handmade gifts. I didn’t finish my mom’s socks, but I did manage to get Robin’s piggy mittens done in time.

We had our usual appetizer feast, although we had to move the venue from the living room to the kitchen table so we could accommodate the youngest member of the family and his high chair.

After presents and dinner, we drove to Fayetteville to see Jag’s parents and spent the night there. Griff did not sleep well at all. I think we’ll hold off on any more overnight visits for a while.

I forgot my camera in the car, so here’s an iPhone picture of Griff eating a pear with his very tired daddy.

Griff has been having a grand time playing with his new toys now that we’re home.

Sometimes the blocks fall into mysterious patterns!

Our living room has started to look like the infant room at a daycare. 🙂

Someone is 9 months old today!

He weighed in at 24lbs 1oz and is 30.5 inches tall.

He can crawl, eat finger foods (he’s particularly fond of pears, lima beans, bananas and blueberries), cruise on and between pieces of furniture, and take a few teetery steps on his own before falling down.

He looks more like his Daddy….

…than his Mommy.

But mostly he looks like Griff!

I was going to take some pictures today, but we just got our photos from our family portrait session with Heidi Joy Photography and we’re really happy with them. If you need to have pictures taken, look her up!

I was going to save these pictures for Griff’s 9-month-birthday post in 3 days, but I’m sure he’ll do something cute between now and then. 🙂

One of his favorite places to cruise is on the cat tree. He loves to stand at the window behind it and look outside and slobber on the glass. There’s also a register on the floor back there, and I think he enjoys feeling the air blowing on him while he’s standing on it. The hot air makes his hair look like crazy dandelion fluff.

He’s recently started saying “mama”. I don’t care if he doesn’t know what it means. I don’t care if he’s actually trying to say, “Look out! I’m working on a giant poop!” or “Please remove me from the care of this insane woman!” Every time he says it I melt into a puddle.

I can’t seem to stop making these little pants for Griff. They’re fast and easy enough for me to make in 1-2 days during the short periods that Griff’s patience holds out in the Pack ‘n’ Play, they only need a half yard of fabric in his current size, they fit him extremely well, and he looks adorable in them. I predict that his entire pants wardrobe will consist of these once I manage to make a few pairs in denim and corduroy.

Here’s a holiday selection made of on-sale polar fleece with monkey Santas on them. As you can see, he’s still very attached to his Severus Snake.