I have a big bunch of photos about my works in progress which I should post, but I have a feeling that I can’t be bothered to do it once again tonight. It does require so very much of me, taking the memory card from the camera and inserting it to the computer, browsing through the pictures and then just uploading them… Too many clicks.

I have made plans regarding my -10% knitting like all great procrastinators do. I have also finally given in and ordered my first ever batch of yarn from abroad. I ordered lovely greenish blue mohair for a wrap-around cardigan and Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran for a shrug. Now that my belly limits significantly the clothes that I can wear, I’ve noticed that I have a big empty space in my wardrobe where the cropped cardigans, shrugs and wrap-around apparel should be. And as the autumn creeps closer and it gets colder and colder both inside the house and outside, I’m really missing my cardigans. The longer ones that I have look so stupid with just one button closed. They so obviously look too small, not casually worn but too small. So the answer of course is to knit some cardigans and wrap-around wear to suit my expanding belly. Perhaps I’ll finish these cardigans in time for my next pregnancy.

I’ve made a list of projects I’ll attempt to complete during the -10% challenge. I have already my growing list of future knits, but since that is getting so long and increasingly impossible to ever knit through, I figured it might be a good idea to make a more limited list for this limited time that I have in my hands. That way I might not feel so tempted to cast on yet another new project, but actually try to finish the ones already on needles.

This is what my -10% list includes:

- Branching Out scarf (halfway there)
- Corazon mittens (missing one and half mittens)
- Drops Design baby cardigan (almost finished)
- Pomatomus socks for mom (missing one sock and a bit)
- Trellis baby cardigan (half of the back knitted)

- Anemoi Mittens
- Bayerische Socks
- Chuck’s Cabled Socks
- Endpaper Mitts
- Lana Grossa Wrap-Around Top
- Mary Jane’s Pithy Hat
- Millicent Socks
- Minisweater
- Rhiannon Socks
- Small Drops Jacket with Crocheted Trims
- Snickets for dad
- Whitewater Wristwarmers

I’m not sure if I manage to complete all of the above and if they completed would end up using more than 1 kilo of yarn (probably), but that’s the cropped list I shall be picking my projects from. Did I mention that I’m a huge fan of Eunny and Cookie A. and their wonderful wonderful super wonderful patterns? I can’t wait to get my hands on those Cookie socks patterns that are slowly travelling to me by airmail. They can’t get here soon enough!

Boyfriend and I just got back from a weekend trip to grand-ma-to-be, namely boyfriend’s mum who lives some three ours drive away. Since I didn’t have to go to school on Friday, because of the 50th anniversary celebrations of said institution, we packed up ourselves in our old and faithful car and drove all the way to the middle parts of the country to spend the weekend shopping for infant car seat and babysitter, touring the local flea markets in the hopes of finding cute baby wear and enjoying the lovely cookings of boyfriend’s mum. It was quite lovely, kind of like a mini-holiday. Very nicely it disturbed the weekly routine of school and computer with a side dish of knitting. Even though we didn’t really do that much while over there, I still feel relaxed and happy that we took the time to make the trip.

We have been in the habit of visiting boyfriend’s mum once a year during the Christmas time and she has driven to visit us once a year in the summer. I have a hunch that the baby will change all that. I think that the grandmas will come over all the time and we’ll have to make the time to visit them more often. I don’t have anything against that. I think it is wonderful that our mothers are so excited about the baby and becoming grandmothers. I even think that my father is excited, although he isn’t a one to show such excitement openly. He probably secretly wishes for a boy, who he could take fishing and do all the boy things with that he couldn’t do with me.

I also think it is wonderful that the baby will get a chance to grow up in the countryside, but always have the chance to go to visit his or her grandparents in the city. I always went to the countryside to visit my grandparents and now my child will do the opposite. My parents live just beside the capital and boyfriend’s mum lives in one of the bigger cities too.

Everything is well with the baby. I had a horrible toothache last week and on Thursday finally got it fixed after eating the only allowed painkillers to slightly numb the pain. It’s really quite annoying that the only painkillers that a pregnant woman can take are the ones that don’t help at all. It was weird being at the dentist, her drilling my tooth and baby kicking and punching around inside me. I can only assume that the little one did not enjoy the experience any more than I did. The next dentist appointment is a month away and I’m already wondering how weird it’ll be with an even bigger belly. My classmate told me that her friend had been at the dentist during her 9th month. That I’ll hope to avoid. I’m always so tense at the dentist that the whole experience would probably kick start the labor.

The glucose levels have went a bit haywire last week and I’m completely clueless as to why since I haven’t changed anything about my diet or exercising that might have caused the levels to fluctuate like that. The problem seems to be the levels in the morning, which would suggest that it is about what I have eaten the previous day, but since I’m a complete newbie in the world of glucose levels, I don’t have any idea what I have done wrong. I’ll be taking the levels next week and on 10th September I’ll have another doctor’s appointment and I’ll let her explain to me what’s going on. During the weekend the levels went back to normal, but I strongly suspect it’s because boyfriend’s mum kept feeding me her homegrown vegetables and berries and self made juice and because we did loads and loads of walking around the shops every day. Perhaps that is what I should be doing every day…

-10% Project
I weighed my yarn stash with an old scale that is in the habit of showing slightly less weight than is the reality. The whole stash was about 9.7 kg, but I’m going to go with 10 kg, because it is a nice even number and most likely closer to the truth anyways. That would make my 10%, roughly a kilo. With my slowish knitting speed and limited knitting hours that is a lot, but I’ll be damned if I don’t succeed.

Regardless of seeing lovely and cheap yarn bundles at the flea market and bright new colors of my favorite sock yarns at the local super market, I managed not to buy any. Instead I celebrated the beginning of -10% project by ordering 5 Cookie A. sock patterns (German Stocking, Gothic Spire, Millicent, Rhiannon & Twisted Flower) and a Trapeze Jacket pattern from KPixie. They began their journey towards me a few days ago and I’m eagerly awaiting them. There’s nothing like a bunch of new patterns to get one started with a knitting frenzy. I’m also hoping to finish quite a few ongoing projects, such as my mother’s last year’s Christmas present socks and the baby cardigans. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Nothing much has been done so far. Perhaps I’ll manage to do a little yarn choosing tonight for the Anemoi mittens I’m hoping to make during the month of September. That’ll be couple of hundred grams right there…

I’ve been really tired all weekend. I guess the first school week wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I’ve seriously questioned my ability to go to school until it’s time to give birth. It’s not so much that I’m not capable of doing what needs to be done during the days, but I keep forgetting that I should rest. I’m so eager to prove that I still can do as much as before, mostly to myself. I feel kind of useless because I can’t help much with the renovation and not going to school would make me feel even more useless still. I’m hoping that at least part of my sluggish feeling is due to my low iron levels. I now take one weird looking capsule a day and am hoping that I’ll wake up tomorrow morning super energized.

Tomorrow we have the third ultrasound. I’m not really scared that we’ll hear any bad news, since I can feel the baby kicking and the heart beat was strong and healthy last Thursday, but as always I’m a bit nervous. I’ve pretty much given up the hope of finding out the gender of our baby. He hasn’t exactly been co-operative during the previous ultrasounds and I will be happy if they get to check the heart properly this time. Finding out the gender would just be an added bonus. I still am almost positive that it’ll be a baby boy that’ll join our family in December, but then again a girl would be just as welcome. I’m not too bothered with the colors of baby clothing, but boyfriend insists that a boy can’t wear anything pink. So the only thing I can’t buy for now are dresses and things in pink, which doesn’t really rule out that much.

On the knitting front, I joined a Finnish -10% project in which the goal is to weight one’s stash of yarn on the 1st September and calculate how much is 10% of it. By the end of the year 2007 all participants should’ve used 10% of their stash in weight and if one wishes to also lost 10% of their own weight. I think my 10% from own weight will come off rather easily in the form of the baby in December. In numbers of course, I’m by no means suggesting that the baby’s exit would be an easy one for me. My stash of yarn is huuuge, since I recently brought over my grandma’s yarn stash which I inherited from her. It includes 3 cardboard boxes of yarn. I have yet to sort the skeins out properly, so even if I don’t manage to use 10% of my stash, at least I will have to sort it out.

I made it through the first two knitting baskets and photographed all my knits in progress. The cats did their best to make the process as difficult as possible, thus especially the smaller one got herself into several photos. Here’s what I found…

Branching Out scarf from Knitty.com

I originally began this as a Christmas present to a friend but as you can see it never made it to her.

Burgundy V-Neck sweater from Stitch n’ Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook

Stitch n’ Bitch book is mostly responsible for my new wave of knitting enthusiasm. I bought it a year ago and since then have managed to begin all these works in progress that I’m listing here beginning with this sweater. It seems a bit pointless to knit it now as I can’t try it on or even measure if the pieces look like they might fit me due to the bumb. So I have a feeling it might remain in the KIP basket for a while longer. It’s the second sweater ever that I attempt to knit. The first one was an off-white cable one I did when I was 16. It has stretched into a gigantic piece of clothing too big for anyone in my family, but I still occasionally wear it on cold evenings. Come to think of it, it might fit me well now. Compared to that this V-neck looks much more promising.

Corazon mittens from Knitty.com

I fell in love with this pattern when I first saw it at Knitty.com and I’m hoping to finish these for the next winter since they didn’t get ready for the previous one. Together with these and the upcoming Eunny’s Anemoi mittens, I’ll have the coolest mittens in town.

Pomatomus socks from Knitty.com

These are for my mother who likes colors and always complains about cold floors and draft. The yarn makes me think of positive things while I knit, that is why I bought it in the first place. I want to knit these socks for myself as well with some less colorful yarn, possibly in blueish shade or maybe violet.

Trellis cardigan from Knitty.com

I began this lovely cardigan for the baby roughly a week ago while we were visiting my parents and I had quite stupidly left all my knittings at home. I bought three skeins of supersoft cotton-acrylic yarn and a set of needles from a local supermarket, printed out the instructions from Knitty.com and set to work. I would’ve chosen another color than the beige/ off-white I ended up with, but the store only had light blue, pink and green and since we don’t know the gender of our baby yet and I’m sick and tired of buying baby things in green and yellow, I chose the least annoying option. After knitting the Drops Design baby cardigan with rather thin cotton yarn this thick yarn on thick needles feels like a blast. I make progress so fast!

After not writing my thoughts down for several years, it seems that once I got started, my head keeps feeding me topic after topic before I even manage to write about the previous one. Because I like reading blog and diary entries that focus on one or two things instead of covering a little bit of everything, I will try to concentrate my brains on one subject at a time also. That might mean several posts a day for a while until I’ve written out my writing backlog. A person who loves writing and uses it as an outlet should never stop writing. It is a recipe for disaster. That is a one thing that I have learned during the last couple of years.

The pregnancy in itself already gives me something new to write on a daily basis. I don’t have friends of my own age around this part of the country. Most of my classmates are 9 years younger than me and as lovely girls as they are, they haven’t really spared a thought on being a mother one day. I hadn’t either when I was their age. Surely all girls chat about how many children they want to have when they grow up or how they are going to name them and when we get older and move in together with our boyfriends and start to think about settling down and perhaps having kids one day, we do think what kind of mothers we are going to be or what principles we will teach our kids. But all of that is purely theoretical until one becomes pregnant and realizes that very soon she will indeed be a mother and has to face the motherhood for real. I’ve realized this and that alone has made me feel the age gap with my girly and giggly classmates more this year than the previous. I suddenly feel like there is a whole lot of things that I can’t talk about with them.

It takes pretty much all of my energy to get through the school days with my huge bumb and already after the first four days I’ve noticed that I get irritated very easily. It annoys me when the girls complain about the school food. It is free and much better than in many schools because it is actually made in our very own school by the chef students. And since eating right is more important to me now than it has been in the past, I’ve come to appreciate the nutritional value of the school food in this country. It’s good basic food with everything you need to get through the school day. It also annoys me when the girls complain about our assignments. I’ve been known to do that myself last year, but somehow the pregnancy has changed my outlook on that also. I respect the choices that my teacher makes and realize that there’s more to it than just sewing a blouse. Every assignment is designed to teach us new skills and that is how I’m taking them. It is entirely possible to discuss with the teacher and negotiate on how to include the necessary new skills in whatever you’d like to make. She is quite flexible really when you make a good case about why you’d like to make a child’s snowsuit rather than a summer dress (the baby will be born in December and I have strong feeling the bumb will turn out to be a boy). And finally it annoys me to no end when the girls complain about being bored. Our school is not even close to being the most boring school there is. We get to make clothes to ourselves and to our friends and family. We get to design everything ourselves and choose our own fabrics. Our teacher is really nice and understanding and very open minded to new ideas and she genuinely gets excited about the clothes we make. We can always have as many side-projects as we think we can handle, so if there is a moment of wait before the teacher can help us, we can always whip up a tote bag or a summer top or something else we’ve been thinking about making. So the boredom really is only possible if one is too lazy to do anything. I find it really hard to understand that anyone could be bored in our classes since I’m so inspired all the time and bursting with ideas.

Basically I think that my irritation stems from being a bit tired all the time. I’ve kept it in every day and plan on doing so, because it’s not really my classmates fault that I’m a cranky pregnant girl at the moment. Part of the irritation may also be that I find the complaints so trivial now. I’m thinking of much bigger issues all the time. I’m worrying if my baby is healthy and safe. I’m worrying if the pains in my lower abdomen are normal. I’m worrying about my glucose levels and how the chocolate bar I ate on the break will affect them. I’m worrying that I’m putting too much pressure on myself and the baby by going to school. I’m worrying that something bad will happen because everything has gone so smoothly until now. I’m worrying that the baby will be born too early or too late. I’m thinking a lot about being a parent with Asperger’s syndrome and how it will affect my ability to care for my child. I’m worried that my child will also have Asperger’s or ADHD or both or that he’ll be completely normal and I don’t know how to take care of him because he isn’t like me. I don’t really give a damn about my classmates feeling bored or not liking the school food. I no longer feel like being part of the petty complaining that goes on in our class.

One of the girls asked me this week if the baby was an “accident” or if we planned the pregnancy. The others said afterwards that they found this question horribly rude. I didn’t really even think whether it was polite or not to ask such a question. I found it completely understandable that my classmates might assume that it wasn’t planned. After all they do look at the situation from their 17-year old point of view. I told the girl that the baby was neither an accident nor planned really but that he is most welcome addition to our family. We had discussed the possibility of me getting pregnant and just decided to see if it might happen. It did happen surprisingly soon and we are both ecstatic that it did. However another thing the same girl said, did hurt my feelings and none of the others seemed to think this one was impolite. She suggested that I might not be ready to be a mother because I haven’t got much experience with small babies and that I might make mistakes when taking care of the baby. This coming from someone who is already a mother and has the experience I could have appreciated as concern, but coming from a 17 year old who thinks she has any clue on motherhood just because she has younger siblings was just absurd. She even patted me on the back and said “Don’t worry, your maternal instincts will surely kick in”. I wanted to scream at her that at least I’ve proven to be able to take care of two cats whereas she has given hers away because they were too much of a hassle in her “busy” life. But instead I embraced my newly found calm and collected self and explained that I know that we’ll manage just fine with the baby, because after all so many brand new parents before us have survived to tell the tale. I try to remind myself that she just is young and doesn’t understand how offensive her behavior might feel for me, but part of me wants to have long talk with her about tact when talking to people, even those you consider your friends.

Of course I think about how we will cope with all the responsibility and all the new things. I might even think about these things more than an average mom-to-be because many of the things required from a parent are things that are going to be very difficult for a person with Asperger’s. I’m not afraid that we won’t be able to handle the life with a baby. I know we will survive and make the best of it and that we will make mistakes and learn, but most of all I know that for us this baby is more than welcome and that we will gladly go through all the trouble in the world to be as good parents as we can to this child. Every parent-to-be worries about the future, but I guess a 17 year old wouldn’t necessarily know that.

I will probably be writing loads about the communication between me and my classmates and how I feel about the sudden age gap that has appeared between us in the form of my pregnant belly. It is something I didn’t expect to happen, but then again many things related to social communication keep surprising me.

I’ve always loved the beginning of school in the autumn, ever since I began my school at 7 years old. I’m the kind of person who likes routines and having things to do and I’m often quite at loss during holidays because I suddenly don’t have to do anything. Because of my Asperger’s it is hard for me to just begin an activity. It doesn’t really matter if it is an activity which I absolutely love. The process of beginning it will still be difficult. Perhaps this is why I like school as a daily routine so much. I have a set schedule I must follow and once I get back home at 3 pm I can do all the stuff that I like doing at home. On most days I end up stuck in front of the computer, but since the pregnancy, I’ve found other things to do with my time, such as watching movies, knitting and going for walks.

I was quite nervous about the beginning of school this year, because only one of my classmates knew about the pregnancy. I thought it might be funny not to tell anyone else and let them see by themselves once I walk into the classroom. I knew they would be really excited and happy for us, but still I felt nervous. They are all so young and in their life situation getting pregnant would not be good news and I guess part of me wondered whether they would look at it from their own perspective rather than mine. I shouldn’t have worried as I got a wonderful reception and the baby and my huge belly have been the talk of the week. My teacher also took the news well as was expected. I don’t think there are any news in this world she couldn’t handle with a polite smile. She never seems flustered about anything. She was keen to ensure that I’ll continue my studies the next autumn once the baby is old enough to go to daycare, which I found nice. Since I began the theater costume program I’ve had much contact with my teacher also outside the school hours and I think she likes to have a motivated student around in the classroom. I also think she likes the fact that I’m a bit older than the rest of the girls.

As a first assignment this year we are making baby clothes. I’m not entirely sure if it was planned that way beforehand or if my teacher thought that the timing might be good now that we have an expectant mother in the class. Which ever the case, I’m loving it. We begin with basic onesies and then move on to other clothes. I’ve planned on making a snowsuit, a college suit and a couple of rompers. We don’t have to do that many of course, but since I can actually benefit from this particular assignment, I’m going to make the most of it. I’ve already cut the fabric for two onesies. The first one will be the very basic one we all have to make from a Winnie the Pooh fabric with red trimmings. The second one will have a bit of my touch in it. It’s light brown and I’m going to applique and stitch a white cat on the front and some paw prints on the back. I’ll post photos in the sewing category later tonight and scans of the sketches during the weekend after I’ve colored and inked them.

On Fridays our teacher works only on the theater costume course and thus can’t be with us. We have a new teacher on those days and with her we have different assignments. Today we went to the local flea market and bought a bunch of clothes to modify. Then we took photos of our choices as kind of a Before shot to put beside the ready garment when we have Open Doors later this autumn. I bought a lovely bright dress in violet and dark pink. It is the kind of dress I would wear without changing a thing about it, but since it isn’t my size I’m going to turn it into a maternity shirt and use the leftover pieces of clothing to embellish a pair of black maternity pants I will make from scratch. I would love to add a purse to the outfit since I’m a huge sucker for bags of all kinds, but I think I won’t have enough fabric.

I’m really inspired by the beginning of school and excited to get back into sewing. Because of the renovation I don’t really have a corner of my own for my sewing machine, so I haven’t been able to do much during the summer. I’ve began sketching again after not doing much of that either on summer holiday. And as I’m no longer so tired as in the beginning of the pregnancy I also have energy to actually do crafts. I’m keeping my camera with me at school so that I can document the progress of my school work. I think it’ll be really nice to look at the photos from all the different phases from the sketch to the product. It’ll also give me a clear picture where I am at the moment and what works in progress I still have that need to be done. I’m going to photograph all my knits in progress this weekend and post the photos. I think I might surprise myself on how many half finished socks of different kinds I’ll find from my various knitting baskets…

I’ll also be adding blog links to the sidebar. I’ve found some awesome knitting blogs and blogs of other kinds which I really want to keep on reading. I love reading about people’s craft projects. It gives so much inspiration to me!

I’ve been trying to put up a blog for moths now. Since I found out that I was pregnant I’ve wanted to write down my thoughts, because I know that one day I’ll be glad that I did. But even though I haven’t really been busy, I just haven’t managed to get it done until now. A lot of things have changed during the past months and I guess I’ve had a lot to digest, even when I haven’t had a lot to do.

I’m now on my 5th month of pregnancy. The 21st week is on its way. My bumb of a stomach is huge already and I’m beginning to dread how huge it’ll actually turn out in a couple of months. I’ll write a longer post later about my pregnancy this far, since I’m in a bit of a hurry at the moment. I’m waiting for my nail polish to dry so that I could actually start packing. Boyfriend and I are heading to my parents’ today for a quick visit before the schools begin next week.

Last Monday we had the 2nd ultrasound, but the baby wasn’t feeling very cooperative and had his/her back facing upwards. The spine shaded the heart almost completely and the midwife conducting the ultrasound couldn’t really get a look at the heart at all. Everything seemed to be alright and the little one has been growing as s/he should have and the pulse was great, but since they want to be sure that the heart is fine, the scheduled another ultrasound for us for Monday the 20th. Here’s hoping our picture-shy baby will turn around at least momentarily to give us some cute ultrasound shots. The ones we got this time were worse than the ones taken on the 12th week.

Today is also another day of glucose monitoring for me. I haven’t gone over the limits once since I began. I even began to think that the one time I went over the limits was just some weird coincidence, but on Wednesday I had really high glucose levels even though I didn’t eat anything that would have made them rise. They weren’t above the limits, thank goodness, but they were close enough to give me a scare. I still haven’t found connection on what exactly makes the levels rise, because it’s not necessarily chocolate and cookies, but just certain foods. Bananas seem to do the trick and dishes with pasta (even though I’ve changed to the whole grain variety) . In 5 minutes it’s time for another blood drop from a fingertip.

Now I shall actually get up and begin the packing process… Boyfriend will be home any minute and it’d be good if I at least seemed to have made an effort to do some packing before he got here.