I haven’t actually stopped knitting, but I might as well have. I have watched almost no television and done almost no knitting this week, which may be some sort of record for me. The break down of our car on Monday has lead to spending the rest of the week car shopping. The part that wasn’t spent injecting hormones and having blood tests that is - “I don’t want to go to the friendly hospital” is what Isabelle said to me in the car at 7am, this morning.

I don’t know if I have mentioned this but Jesse is HUGE. 2m (6′7″) type huge. As in can’t buy clothes, shoes - or cars. With this in mind we made a short list of ten cars with an A list of 4. Yesterday I looked at the top three of the top 4. I got hopeful, I got excited and prioritised even further. Today Jesse wrote off our entire A list in one fell swoop, he could get into them (he often can’t even get both legs under a steering wheel) but not well enough to even try test driving them. Our short list is now made up of small European cars which he has a reasonable chance of fitting into but which may be too small for our needs and massive tanks to which we have equally massive philosophical objections. I just can’t fathom buying a car that gets 17l/100km, I don’t want to spend my life worrying about whether I am about to reverse over a small child that I can’t see.

Our current list looks like this (sorted partly by favourite and partly by probability of making it to test drive):

Renault Scénic II
Toyota Avensis Verso
Toyota Kluger
Ford Territory
Mazda 6 wagon
Volkswagen Golf*
Peugeot 307 Touring
Toyota Prado
Holden Adventra

Our failed list includes:

Holden Zafira
Honda Odyssey
Subaru Forrester

If you have any suggestions or reviews, please share! Tomorrow morning Jesse will see the top 4 cars listed above and most likely write them off too… wish us luck (and knitting time, my vest is soooo close to done)

*we currently drive a VW Golf, which is like a tardis and has ample room for Jesse, not so much for anyone behind him though. It is fine for us now but would be problematic with another child, let alone 2 more if my fertility treatment results in twins! Also VW seem to be having quality and reliability issues so we are reluctant to go there again…

No, not Jesse and I, the front and back of my Leftovers Vest. I have no idea why, but I was really anxious about dividing the vest into front and back at the under arms. I had never done this before and it seemed very intimidating. Well i need not have worried, it was the easiest thing. I did it in the car while house hunting on Saturday.

Amazing what a little weekend house hunting (Jesse driving, me knitting), a monday morning car break down (Jesse dealt with the car and Isabelle, I got in a taxi with my knitting), waiting around in a fertility clinic (knitting brings the anxiety down a notch don’t you know) and then finally waiting around in a cafe for Jesse and Isabelle to catch up with me after the car had been towed, can do for the time line of a knitting project. My Leftovers Vest is nearly done! What’s more, it fits! All it needs now is some ribbing.

I popped into my local baby store today for a car seat accessory and as always I found myself perusing their gorgeous kids clothing (which sadly come complete with a price tag a little too gorgeous for us). The Fred Bare I have seen in the department stores has not thrilled me but the parts of the range my local store had in were to die for. The photo (below) isn’ t great but oh my god I love this sweater. Forget Isabelle, I want to knit if for me! If only I knew enough about sweater design to draft my own version of it. Of course I would need either a better memory or a better photo if I were to attempt making a copy that even vaguely approximated the original.

They also had a gorgeous long line cardi in a pale pink with a single button closure (high on the chest), that doesn’t seem to be on the website, which I would also love to knit for myself. I have to say that finding kids clothing I would like an adult size version of (for the right reasons) is a nice change to finding small people’s clothing modelled on (the wrong) adult’s clothing. I really don’t have any desire to dress Isabelle like Britteny Spears. None of my friends want to dress their daughters (of any age, let alone three year olds) in mini skirts or halter neck tops either so I often find myself wondering who exactly the stores are catering to….

It only lasted for 5 minutes, but it did happen and it happened when the camera was handy! Once the poncho was on she then wanted the scarf which was just too cute not to include…

I was just a little busy last night. I am keeping the first set of multicolour hearts for myself, and I can’t show you my favourite set of markers because I made them with someone in mind and want them to be a surprise. But here are the rest of them, in the order that I made them, for want of a better system.