Of Oak Leaves and Acorns...... A Yarn Along Post

Do you feel that slight nip on the breeze?  It's subtle....but it's there....that first hint in the air that fall is on it's way!  After this miserable, hot summer it makes my heart sing!  I always love that first glimpse that my favorite time of year is on it's way.  I start wanting to cook our family's favorite fall dishes, lots of pumpkin flavored things, cranberry, apple stuffed pork chops, soups, etc.  School starts soon and there's the anticipation of W going off to school a few mornings a week by himself for the first time and all the back to school preparations that need to be made.  His sweater and vest that he wanted for school this year are completed (and still both need to be photographed...but as I  write this he is napping and I'm afraid I will wake him if I try to get them out of his dresser drawer).  I'm working on a pair of socks for him for this year.....struggling to keep working on them.  I love the pattern, but I think the plain blue yarn is boring me to tears.  Hard to work on them when there are more exciting things to knit these days.

Our family's favorite sign that fall is around the corner though is that acorn season seems to be upon us!  W discovered acorns by a parking lot the other day and was beside himself with excitement (I might have been too actually) and we picked up quite a few to start off our yearly collection.  The following day we found more at a local park.  The child is in acorn heaven and this sign of fall is about to start taking over our nature table, and his room, and our cars.  It's just that time of year!

As luck would have it, I've been knitting more little hats for the baby, since our midwife wants us to have quite a few for it as soon as it is born.  I've made several of my favorite pilot caps, but decided a few other little caps might come in handy too.  They are quick and enjoyable to knit.  For the second one I made, I decided to use the cables from the Forever Autumn sock pattern, and repeat it five times around a little cap.  It's darling, but I think the colorway of the yarn might be a little too busy for the cables.  Still, I love that my autumn baby will have some oak leaves on one of it's first little caps, and it matches one of the little sweaters I made for the baby over the summer.

Then I decided that I really need an oak leaf cabled hat too, so I used some Andes Del Campo in Smolder Heather from knit picks that I had on hand and size 8 needles to make myself a cap from the same pattern.  Oh, it is love!  I adore oak trees, leaves and acorns, and I am especially fond of that orangey- golden brown that many oak leaves turn in the fall.  I didn't realize it at first, but this yarn is that color....just beautiful....and it goes with my brown winter coat too!  I couldn't stop with the hat though and also had to make myself a lovely  matching cowl to wear with it (sorry I haven't blocked the cowl yet in the picture.  It just came off my needles this morning.)  I am so excited!  It feels strange and luxurious to knit something for myself again, when I've been focusing so hard on knitting for W and for the baby.  Actually, I don't think I've knit anything for myself in over a year so this is a real special treat!  If I ever get W's socks off of my size 2 dpn's I'm going to finally cast on a pair of the Forever Autumn socks for me too.  I think they'd be a lovely thing to give myself for my birthday this fall!

Okay, so, on to the Yarn Along portion of the post.  I'm joining with Ginny of Small Things for her Yarn Along again.

I'm knitting yet another oak leaf newborn cap out of this lovely green wool tweed yarn (sorry I just cast it on this afternoon).  I'm guessing the leaf pattern should stand out better in the tweed than it did with the busy colorway of the last one I made.  I'm pretty excited about knitting yet another one of these.  I need to come up with something for W with this pattern on it too.  He says he doesn't want a hat or cowl...maybe I'll put it on a Milo vest for him (I may have already done one like this for the baby).  I've almost got the pattern memorized at this point.    Maybe that should be a birthday present for him.  I think he'd like that.

For reading, I've been working my way through The Breastfeeding Mother's Guide to Making More Milk. There are several possible reasons I had difficulties with my supply when W was a baby, and I'm trying to be prepared to get my nursing relationship with this little one off to as good of a start as I possibly can.  How I wish I had this book the last time around. You would never know it now, but it was such a struggle to feed W and to get him to actually gain weight as a baby and really I had very little support or knowledge, just a determination that I was going to feed my baby every drop of my breast milk that I could even if I still did have to supplement.  It was so emotionally and physically exhausting.  This time around I have so much more support, and knowledge and experience and I am going into nursing, knowing I've had issues in the past and with a much better idea of how to prevent/ minimize/work through them this time around.  This book is invaluable for any mom who is going through this.  Such a great resource!