I'm not dead.

Despite the neglect that my blog has seen for the past several months, I'm still very much alive. I haven't been in a terrible accident that had me in a body cast or been abducted by aliens, either. But I have a really good excuse for not being around. And for not posting (or even officially finishing) my 29 days of giving. And for not having picked up my knitting since October. Oh, and also for not fitting into my favorite pair of jeans anymore. Yep, I'm knocked up.

This is a first for us and after the experiencing the first trimester, let me say that it might be very well be the last. However, I'm out of the "I'm going to puke 24 hours a day" phase (whoever named it 'morning sickness' was clearly a man...) and into pants with insane elasticity (why, oh why had I not discovered maternity clothes earlier?!) and I am happily crafting again (after having the rugs in the craft room removed since my cats thought that the fact that I was never in there meant they could use it as a litter box). That was a lot of parentheticals, but that's basically been my life for the past few months: I would have done this or gone to that (but there's this whole baby growing thing that's taking a good bit of my energy right now)...

As for the 29 gifts, I continued to give during my 29 days randomly to folks and most notably to The Turnip (so named this week since that's its current size according to this website); to whom I gave such precious things as my omega-3 fatty acids (thus beginning the shrinkage of my brain), 12 hours of sleep a day, and the health and well being of my teeth and gums, of all things. So I think, when you add it all up, I completed the task.

Now that I'm feeling better and the reality of all of this craziness has actually set in, I'm starting to craft for The Turnip more. OK, mostly I've been buying handmade crafts, but here's my first official made-by-me baby craft: the mobile.

I've loved mobiles for ages and ages. Partly it's due to my love for Alexander Calder, but mostly it's because of the fact that mobiles are a pretty perfect object. They can be made with just about anything, can be simple or complex, they fit in with my (currently nonexistent, thank you Turnip) yoga practice as they are all about balance, and maybe it's because I'm an only child but I can spend a pretty long time looking at one without getting bored. Making mobiles has been in the back of my mind for a while, but I never had the right inspiration until I realized that a baby was coming and I didn't really want it looking at a plain ceiling for the first year of its life. Also, I'm planning on birthing a baby without the ecological footprint of Sasquatch (I figure this will be better for everyone involved), so I'm trying really hard to not buy lots of machine made, toxic plastic crap. Oh, and also I really wanted to make some felt balls.My original intention was to use the wire from clothes hangers, but I found it very hard to manipulate, so I bought some wire that was malleable, but not too much so, at the hardware store (minus 10 points for having to buy new materials). However, I did restrain myself from buying a bunch more wool roving when I felt that the 28 different colors I had in my stash just wasn't enough (plus 10 points for using what I've got). I found some inspiration from a bunch of websites including this one and discovered the rule that you make mobiles from the bottom up from this site here; and in the end, I'm pretty happy with the product. When you look up close, you can see that there is a pretty big learning curve illustrated by the difference in balance and proportion on each side of the mobile, but I don't think The Turnip will mind. In the meantime, I think I've found a new project to make for future baby showers...