Archive for March, 2009

Cloth Diapering – Trying Again

March 31, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (5)

It’s been raining for what feels like weeks now, so not very many good photos from me latley. Plus I’m ramping up for Stitches South and this has me very busy/distracted and then on top of that I still can’t find the charger for my DSLR D80. So here is the best photo you get, me at 22 weeks from my iPhone while I was at work today.

I had to rip out the entire new tank top pattern I am working on. I tried to salvage it but it is too large and just not right. Going to have to put it aside until I finish my Stitches South sample knitting.

So of course I have been nesting and planning baby stuff. The house is a slow work in progress as the husbeast is busy with a contract coming to an end and having the stress of linning up new work and trying to make good decisions. So I’ve been ramping up on baby stuff and spreading out my purchases. This week I got my cloth diaper supplies.

With BG I tried cloth diapering, a very feeble attempt. I was fairly overwelmed being a first time mom and something as “complex” as cloth diapers was a distraction and a stress. No one I knew did it, no one in my family did it (mother included) so it’s not like I had any help there. When BG was 6 months old I met another mother in my mommy group that used CD (Cloth Diapers) her daughter. I had bought the expensive Bum Genius diapers and I hated them, later sold them thankfully. I don’t remember why I disliked them so much but it just didn’t work. My friend used a very old school method, simple prefolds and a plastic cover (vs the wool soakers of the past). Over the last year I’ve watched Stefanie Japel post photos to her flickr account of her little Mazie and all the neat soakers she has sewn up.

So I am wanting to try again, this time with a more old school/simple method. This is far cheaper then the BumGenius diapers anyway and I think because each item is less bulky I bet they wash better.

I recently e-mailed Green Mountain Diapers, because my friend M had said she would only do CD if she had a washer with sanitary cycle. This isn’t an option for us with money right now and plus we have a perfectly wonderful hand-me-down washer from my husbands parents that has never not worked for us.

I ordered up 1 dozen newborn Cloth-Eez prefolds because they come in various heights so it’s not so much bulky folder. It will cost more overall because you have to buy each size, however over the long run it may be the same amount you would buy of the normal ones depending on how many you want of the regular sized ones.

I also got 4 Litewrap covers, the cheapest of the lot.I’ve watched my friend M use these and they seemed great, and again not super bulky like the other ones I didn’t like.

Last but not least I got 4 Snappi Fastners which are just AMAZING to watch being used (they replace diaper pins).It’s just wild how they work, you wouldn’t think they would hold but they do.

I also ordered one Bummis Whisper cover just to try out in a larger size, and all in all it cost me $70 (about 2-3 weeks worth of diapers these days!). I have high hopes but didn’t order too much incase it was a major fail again. So oh back to that e-mail, here is my conversation with Green Mountain which was ever so helpful:

From: Brandy
Subject: info about washing?
Do you have info on your site about whether or not I need a sanitary cycle on my washing machine?

- brandy

From: Green Mountain Diapers
Subject: RE: info about washing?
Brandy,
It is not needed. Matter of fact, some are too hot to use. Some sanitary cycles on some machines are 150 degrees and that is ok, or ok at least for occasional use. But the 190 degree ones are too hot and will break down the cotton very quickly and damage elastics. You can use those super hot cycles for prefolds once in a while and get away with it. 120 degrees is normal hot. So, it’s not needed and sometimes damaging but it depends on the machine so ask what the temperature actually is on the particular sanitary cycle (check the manual – sales clerks probably won’t know accurately). That said, I do like the 150 degree ones because the extra heat does help. If I could dial my wash temperature I would pick 140 degree for my own hot cycle. But I have not yet found a machine that does that temp.
Sincerely,
Karen

To: Green Mountain Diapers
Subject: RE: info about washing?
Very good to know and thanks so much for the reply! My machine is very old and I assume the hot is probably based on our hot water heater which I know we adjusted way up because it was hard to get two showers ouf ot it until we changed it, now I worry about the kids burning themselves… but my washing machine is very old but works fantastic. I made my order with you guys today, my first try with prefolds and the litewraps. If all goes well I’ll come back for more! I tried bum genius way back when DD was little but did not like them. I hope it goes better this time! The poop part is intimidating to newbies I think!

From: Green Mountain Diapers
Subject: RE: info about washing?
You have a great machine. Keep it! Normal hot is fine. New machines do not clean as well as old ones. New ones don’t have any water in them!
The diapers will be great. No worries.
Karen

What great customer service, and the reply was so prompt. I have also been reading here to learn more. If anyone knows of any great online forums for CD, or even great websites with info for newbies I would love to know of any!

BG is still in disposables and I plan to Potty Train her once I am home with both of them, so I’m not really focused on getting her into cloth at this point.I wish I could potty train her now as it seems like a good time but it’s just not practical with Daycare.

ETS – I forgot to spell check this and will later tonight, sorry!

Cleaning House

March 22, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (5)

I guess there is something about spring that makes you want to freshen everything up, make stuff feel new and clean and appreciated. I am also probably “nesting” etc.

Friday evening I went all crazy and went through our closet and took out 5 bags of clothing to give to good will, some of it was 10 years old! I also have 3 bags for my dear friend Laurel who is coming to visit in April. She gets all the good stuff, any Anne Taylor, Gap and Limited stuff I had that I know I can’t fit into again. The size 2 pants, well I think that’s a dream long lost but she’s tiny so I know she can wear some of them. Lots of stuff pre-BG that didn’t fit after 1 year and probably wouldn’t ever fit again. It’s a good time to purge clothing because I am pregnant so it’s not like I feel the urge to go out and buy a new wardrobe.

Then there is our backyard, Friday morning some guys came out to give us an estimate on digging out a trench along our entire hill base, because the pine straw keeps creeping down and covering/killing the grass, same with the 1 large bed out front, then of course we needed the pine-straw extravaganza (we need like 40-50 bales for our steep hill and then beds) so we don’t get fined by our neighborhood (we’ve gotten the warning letter already!)

We had family over saturday and spent a lot of time outside, and the worker men came to work on building the trench, and then a special treat for myself and BG, 2 giant flower beds. 1 foot tall to keep the babies out, and plenty high for me to easily plant stuff in, but the best part is no grass or weeds because it’s separated, and we left 6″ from the frame to the house behind to keep the house base clean and clear of bugs, nothing to hide in means less spiders in our house. We get a decent amount in the house, and we’ve noticed sense we change some things outside its made a big difference inside, we removed the beds on the side last summer, and just have grass now up to the brick and it made a very large difference in the amount of spiders in the house. We have a slab so it’s different then a house that’s raised a foot or so.

The yard guys are the same ones who put down our sod last summer, and at the time we could not afford to do EVERYTHING that needed to be done, nor could I even this time but we had some essential work done, the pine straw, the trench, major pruning of all our big front tree’s (something we’ve never done, needed a chain saw) and then the addition of a “rock bed” in the bad corner of the yard. It’s a corner that the water is supposed to flow out of but then previous owners, and then ourselves didn’t know this and tried to plant stuff there, I think I’ve solved that issue for ourselves and future owners.

It was the guys idea when I spoke about the issues we have there, and then as an aside I mentioned to him I take photos in my backyard for my knitting patterns (he didn’t even blink!) and there is an area near the butterfly bush that BG always tries to crawl behind and get up the hill and a lot of stuff piles up there in the fall. So he had the suggestions of a big boulder to sit on or in front of, climb etc, and 3 “knock-out” rose bushes which are super hardy and don’t need much help out here in Georgia.

Look careful and you can see the 3 bushes which he says will grow much bushier, 3-4 feet tall and wide! I can’t wait! It’s going to be so pretty for photo ops, and is a write-off! You can also see the new trench in this photo. They still have to lay the pine-straw, then it will be all pretty, and a few weeks later when the grass turns green it will be such a lovely site all around the yard.

So back to those flower beds I am so excited about, there was room to build 3 but we couldn’t afford it, which is just as well as I’ve always had an interest in gardening but not much attention span for it. I went to Home Depot and picked up a few things to give it a try with. I got really crazy and bought two blueberry trees (they look like tree’s anyway) and then a bunch of rosemary and some pretty bulbs to plant. I adore rosemary and it’s supposed to be hearty too like the roses. There was also two cute little start kits for tomato’s and strawberries, if I can handle it on the small scale maybe I can plant a bunch more some other place in the yard later, there is plenty of room for sure. I am so lucky to have such a gorgeous back yard, it’s one of the reasons I love this house so much. I am not exactly worthy of it as I don’t know much about plants, but I learned a lot about prunning by reading so maybe I can do it justice!

I am knitting up a really cute tank top pattern but I am going to resist the urge to show it until it’s done, I am hoping the grass will turn green soon so I can get a good photo-shoot. I’m nearly half-done knitting it

I am totally insane but I was hoping to have it done by Stitches South as a cute summer pattern to sell, and I don’t even know if my tech editor would have availability but I am just going to go for it for now because it’s making me happy to knit it, then I have to get back to my Stitches South samples. Those are technically due NOW but I know I’m not too far from being done.

It’s a… (Project Baby’s Room #2)

March 18, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (5)

As I do love designing and decorating (though I am less confident about my decorating abilites as I am so picky) I was excited when we found out yesterday what sex the baby is. The U/S tech was very confident. Can you guess? Here is the money shot:

I was all conflicted about furniture, something that looked decent with BG’s crib, I couldn’t get fancy furniture or I would feel like BG was left out, or I could get BG new furniture and move her’s into the new bedroom, but when I found out it was a GIRL I found a very simple solution. Get the same furniture. It’s from target, it’s cute but nothing fancy (aka not expensive) but it worked perfectly well for BG and it would go well with the bedding I like. BG’s room is all soft femanine shabby chick without being too kitchy/cute, more classic with some vintage flair (or so I try or envision it that way, it’s still in the works as the “baby” stuff comes out).

(omg freaking me out cute but crazy!)

For #2, it’s a little more whimsical and a little more bold/modern with that same shabby chick/vintage flair thrown in, just a little more fun and a little less classic.

Here is the dresser (same as BG’s):

Here is the inspiration room, I will be painting the walls a similar blue as I just love it.

It has little owls and tree’s in a very bold print on the sheets, I had gotten the crib sheet before for BG but did not like it at all in her room. I’m not a fan of that dust ruffle either, but I did order the twin quilt for when I co-sleep as I did with BG and for when SHE gets older (OMG she…. blows my mind, 2!! omg!).

There are some more photos of the stuff I got in my “Project Baby’s Room #2” flickr set.

Now with the money saved I’ll be able to get BG this as her special present when #2 is born. I think some people would argue it’s better to get more quality furniture, but I feel like most furniture is way over priced. When I was 10 my mom got me a set from IKEA which is still in her house not one scratch on it. I was very tempted by the PBK funiture but i went into the store today over lunch and was not impressed by the quality for the price. I wish Tomashville sold kids furniture. Either way I think this is a more fair and economical solution, and once they both get old enough for proper beds I will not skimp on getting a very good mattress and frame, I’ve learned my lesson with those!

From the Studio: Free patterns & Setting up shop

March 16, 2009 · Filed under From the Studio | Comments (2)

I haven’t blogged much the last few months because as usual around this house there is a lot of illness. It’s not fun to blog about unhappy stuff so I prefer to just not blog. Also I can’t knit a lot when sick, I have a thing about holding the needles and yarn when I know I am covered in germs and on top of that who has the energy when sick to do anything but lay in bed, drink water and sleep. I had a sore throat/sinus thing 2 weeks ago and then last week BG and I had the worst stomach bug ever, it lasted 7 days for me. But I was happy, because I had just released Preschool and when I have had a pattern some out recently I am always happy and feeling accomplished. I have another free pattern to knit and write up in the next 2 months, 2 more samples to finish knitting for Stitches South, and a tank top pattern ideal I have wanted to knit for a while which would be a perfect summer pattern release.

Free Knitting Patterns

I have held off publishing a free pattern for a multitude of reasons. 1) Money & Time. Each pattern takes me a lot of time and a decent amount of cash to create. I have to buy yarn and sometimes I buy yarn I don’t want to end up using. I also have the pattern tech edited which can run me upwards of $150, depending on the complexity and how well I prepared the pattern myself. It’s just never been worth it to make the pattern available for free. Also I have heard from more than 1 designer that free patterns have way more overhead then the others. First off you get more downloads, so you server needs to be set up to support this without incurring any extra charges. On my website alone there has been over 170 downloads, and that doesn’t include Ravelry (which luckily does not use my bandwidth). Then you have way more people reading and knitting your pattern, which means more support e-mails.

So your going to get more e-mails for a free pattern then you would for a paid-for pattern. It’s just the nature of the beast, everyone can download and knit a free pattern, but a mere fraction of those people will pay for a pattern and then knit it. I have purchased patterns before that I still have not knit (or finished knitting, ehem). Go look at your FO’s, how many did you purchase the pattern to and how many did you get free? I would be interested in hearing the ratio.

So for this pattern there were a few factors going on, the pattern itself was absurdly simply. No seaming, no picking up stitches. Just a few stitches cast on under the arms. So the pattern was super easy to grade by the tech editor and my math I believe was correct from the start as well which helped. I didn’t create a schematic, which can be a big time suck. It was very cheap to tech edited, my cheapest one to date, and in all honesty there was a few things about it that I wasn’t happy with and wanted to re-knit and alter but with all the sickness etc I just didn’t have it in me. I thought it was still very cute and very wearable and why not just put it out there. I was of course thinking that a free pattern at this point in my business would be a good point for marketing/advertisement, word of mouth etc. So this for me is a part of my “business” plan. I do not currently envision offering any more free patterns on my own site, at least not for a while. I do however have a free pattern in the works for online publication but that’s about all I can say about that for the moment. So in-turn there will be more free Pixie Purls patterns but in that case I will be supporting an online knitting magazine which is a little bit different and has some different motivating factors behind it which I can explain once it has been published.

Setting up shop

I have been very slowly preparing my house for baby #2, VERY slowly. In turn I am going to need to set up some of my own space to work on my knitting pattern wholesale-sales and of course my yarn and supplies. Right now everything lives in a bassinette, the bassinette that BG slept in when she was little. I never moved it from besides the bed and window. It just slowly filled up with yarn. The underneath is filled, the top is filled, and then there is a basket and tote bag next to it also filled, and a pile of knitting design books under the little lamp table next to the head of the bed. I am going to have to go shopping and find some sort of small but tall cabinet to put in the corner. I want something meant to sit in a corner (angled) and that possibly looks like a little china cabinet, but I can re-use for yarn and a few books.

I thought the yarn would look nice through glass doors and would be easier for me to remember/see. If anyone has any suggestions let me know. I am also getting frustrated from having yarn and needles on the floor and then when we bring BG into our room she wants to go through everything which is always a problem, so because of this I don’t like her in our bedroom at all, but we have to go through that room to get to the big bathtub, so getting a new cabinet will solve both problems. After all I DO need that bassinette back!

So then I have all of my wholesale supplies. Up until now our dining room has been a repository of all things not-baby-safe, stacks of oddments. I made half an effort to clean it last weekend. The goal is to empty the room out (this week we will be moving my sewing cabinet into the garage, so sad!) and turn it into the “play room” as we have a small house and right now the living room is the play room. I have a nice dining table in that room, so I plan to move this from the center of the room instead to press against the back corner of the room. Larger baby items can live underneath in bins or until needed (like the baby swing that is waiting to be used again) and then on top of the table is going to be my central location for pattern fulfillment. This way I can sit at that table and work while BG and #2 are underfoot and happy with their toys, maybe I can even sit there and knit!

Right now as far as supplies I have my return address stamp, “paid” stamp for when people pre-pay for orders, a big box of oversized mailing envelopes, a big box of velum sleeves (I buy in bulk to reduce my cost). A stack of copies of patterns still needing to be placed into the velum sleeves, and binders filled with color prints of my patterns, ready to be sorted and shipped out when needed. I actually oddly enough enjoy this process. It feels really good to see a large stack of patterns disappear and be sent out, the feeling of “wow, people are buying these from me AND reselling them to people, and people are out there buying them and knitting them!” It’s a wild feeling. The shop in the North West ordered from me a 4th time and this time it was a big order (8 copies of each pattern, 24 patterns total – to me that’s a big order!). I simply can’t believe they needed to re-order so many times; it’s so amazing and fun. I did ask if they had shop samples up, and they do have two which of course makes a huge difference. I actual have offered to knit samples for shops as long as they provide the yarn. So far only 1 shop has taken me up on it and it is more for Stitches South then anything but I know after Stitches, having those samples in their shop will help boost sales a lot!

So the basic gist is I have a lot of work to do to set up my home to be more efficient for sales and give me a more comfortable space for knitting. I don’t like having the yarn spread out and all dis-organize next to my bed, but I have no other means of storage and bins are good for when you don’t need to access something regularly. I need a permanent spot for my other notions, otherwise I keep losing them, not remembering which tote or project bag I left them in last.

Preschool – Free Digital Download

March 9, 2009 · Filed under Pixie Purls Patterns | Comments (3)

The perfect beginner Fair Isle project, small and sweet with no steeks or cutting! Knit as simple as can be from the top down with no seams and no complex finishing, this little pullover can be knit as a short dress, length- ened for a longer fit, or shortened to become a top. It can be layered for the fall or winter, or worn on a warm day with matching bloomers or leggings.