While I've been quiet online...

...I've been furiously crafting away! Seriously. I couldn't post most of these until recently because they were gifts for or being sent to people who I know sometimes read this blog. Then I got lazy & decided to post them all in one übercraftpost.

So here goes. 

First up, Noah's towel. Our NCT group agreed not to get presents for everyone, but to do a secret santa type thing & spend between £5 & £10 on one present for one child instead. We all picked names out of a hat & I got Sarah's little boy, Noah. I decided to make him a hooded towel with his name embroidered on the hood. It's my first attempt at embroidery & (typically, feet first Sarah) I chose a tricky fabric to embroider. I also discovered that towelling is not easy to transfer a design onto hence it was a lot bigger on the towel than I'd anticipated when drawing it initially on paper! I ended up drawing it on freehand because none of the transfer methods worked. Tailors chalk? Pfft. Transfer pen? NOT A CHANCE IN HELL. Especially as I chose a darkish towel.

It's a bit wonky, but in my defence it was made with love & towelling is a BUGGER to embroider. Structurally speaking it's the best & neatest hooded towel I've made to date. 3rd time's the charm. What did I learn from my first embroidery experience? However much floss you think you need, always buy two more skeins if you are working satin stitch.

Second. Isaac's birthday party invite. He's going to be the big o-n-e soon so we decided to have a little tea party for immediate family, Not-Godparents & their partners. Little, hehe, that's 18 people already! So, me being me, I had to make special invites. My boy isn't one every day y'know!

Next. Amy's A. I know we agreed to only get one present for one child in our NCT group, but technically I didn't get this gift. I had everything already and the fabric actually belonged to the recipent in borrowed-no-longer-fits-sweater form! I wanted Steph to know that I appreciate how much she does for our wee group of babies & parents, she really is the glue that holds us together. So, I made this for little Amy Mae. With hindsight I should've photographed it before going into the glass to avoid reflection & stitch squashing. I've never framed embroidery before. Does one use glass? Who knows! It'll stop it getting dusty at any rate.

Finally, for this post. Fairy wings! As I'm sure you know, we went to the Just So Festival this weekend gone. I read on the programme of events that there was a fairy trail through the forest, at the end of which was the Fairy Queen. So, I thought to myself, what little girl can meet the Fairy Queen without wings?! With this in mind I set to and wings came forth.

Click image to zoom

They were a hit :-) I have tonnes of tulle left. MUST CALCULATE FABRIC QUANTITIES BEFORE GOING TO BUY ON A  WHIM. Although I figure, little girls + pink + sparkly = not a bad thing². My brain is conjuring up sparkly skirts & dolly clothes for Rosh's Barbies.

I'd like to acknowledge my patient as hell husband Simon for putting up with bits of towel, paper, floss, glue, scissors, card, pens, needles, fabric, cutting mats, sewing machines and other such crafty miscellanea strewn all over the kitchen during my creative bouts. And also for not grumping about the finished crocheted square that's been pinned out on a board on the lounge table for nearly a month while it waits for the one that's been sitting on the arm of the sofa for nearly as long to be finished. And various other U.F.O.s dotted around the lounge/computer room. Thank you hun beam! I suppose I'd better finish those...and the other thing I should've finished by now...and the other thing I should really start...

Delivery delerium!

My yarn arrived from Lion Brand yesterday :-D

I'm not so keen on Vanna White, whoever she may be, staring at me from my lovely yarn though.

The arrival of said yarn means that I can stop kidding myself about knitting in the round. Knitting with 5 needles is JUST RIDICULOUS! I think I was only really doing it to pass the time until the above arrived. I've also come to realise that crochet is better than knitting (for me). Period. It's OK if you've been knitting for years & don't make mistakes, but for relative beginners (despite knowing how to knit for going on 18 years now) like me who occasionally slip up (or slip stitches in the wrong place i.e.: at the beginning, thus throwing off one's whole row) it is definitely not OK. With crochet each stitch is complete thus relatively easy (but not not painless) to undo & redo.With knitting on the other hand, if a mistake is spied, one has to frog the whole freaking row(s) & then spend an age faffing about with unpicking stitches, then getting them back on the needle (facing the right way too I might add) whilst ensuring no additional, unintentional stitches are dropped! Bleh. I'll stick to my one-at-a-time craft for now ta. I'm sure I'll get around to knitting my Grace Lace Beret at some point, but for now it won't even make it to UFO status because my mind is amigurumi filled!!

I found out the other day that doing what I've described before (i.e.: unpicking row(s) of knitting is called frogging. Apparently this is because you have to "rippit" out. I couldn't make that up. Seriously. :???:

In the background of the yarn shot you can just see a small section of…*drum roll please*…my lovely new sewing machine that arrived a few days ago! I know, right? The lady in the shop was surprised too. :-|

I’ve made one thing so far & that (sewing machine wise) only required 3 lines of straight stitch. The thing in question is Isaac’s cot bed tent – a collaboration of father-daughter skills. It’s rather nifty and we’re pretty pleased, even if we do say so ourselves :-) I sewed & Dad drilled.

I. Love. It.

All fixed...mostly

Simon is officially master of the PTFE tape - I told him what Dad said about having put it on the wrong way round a few times & he did it first time :-) Then...we got in! Both of us at the same time. It was a bit full LOL, but that can be rectified by taking some water out (basic physics doesn't seem to have escaped me at least). However, there are 2 very small leaks on the same pipe, but in different places; they can't be fixed because the water is coming from a part that doesn't open up. Hmm. It will be fine. They drip very minimally and we really aren't bothered. It was really nice floating around it the water :-) I'm sure all will be fine for actually delivering the Wiggler in the pool. It's a bit annoying how much of the living room is taken up, but it's only a temporary measure with great benefit so I'm not complaining.

I made a hooded towel! I made the hood from this tutorial, but my machine wasn't up to the pleat in the back so I just sewed it on straight. It leaves more of the ends of the towel free for drying wiggly arms and legs. I didn't use any ribbon either. It was really easy; to think I'd been putting it off for ages. Sewing towelling is really weird. I bent a needle too - serves me right for being over ambitious machine wise. I think I want to make one for me :-P

I've made a decision about vaccinations (one of many yet to still make). If we do decide to have them/some/any, then I don't want the multiple dose ones (e.g.: MMR, DTaP/IPV/Hib <-- 5 in one go?!?!) or any multiple/same day dosing in-fact. Individual doses on different days when the Wiggler will have had a chance to recover from each dose. It's bad enough that an undeveloped immune system is given toxic chemicals to deal with, but bombarding it with more than one dose at a time seems even more barbaric. The doctor is gonna love me!

Had the scan, all is well. Wiggler is head down - wooh! It was also lying back to my back, so needs to shift around, but it's incredibly mobile (considering how little space there is in there) so I'm sure it'll be fine & wiggle its way back round. Didn't get a picture because it's really not very clear what's what anymore and you can only fit parts of it on the screen at once! So, not worth it all round. Plus we get to meet him/her soon enough.

The first baby girl has been born from our NCT group! Simon got a text from a very proud father yesterday - congrats guys :-D We know that there are 2 other girls to be born, but the other 5 - who knows? Saw one of the NCT Dads on his phone outside the hospital en-route to scan department - got a thumbs up so all is well with that bebe too. That's 2 now! 6 to go...

Maternity leave and mobiles

So here it is, ze mobile:

My lovely husband put it up for me today :-D They look a bit porky on this picture - I think my phone has distorted them a tad. If I could be bothered to take a proper picture with the Nikon I would, but I really can't right now.

I finished work today! WOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! The last day for 52 whole weeks. It's still quite surreal and hasn't really sunk in because it's the weekend. I know that it means that The Wiggler is now imminent. Hopefully not before-pool-arrives-imminent, but the due date is a darn sight closer than it was! Erk! My work mates very kindly bought me some crib blankets and a swaddling blanket - which is exactly what I needed - I wonder how they knew?! Hmm LOL! Anyhoo, we have pretty much everything we need now. I'm still debating a baby bath. Some people say they're a waste space, time and money. Other people say they're great.

We had our final antenatal class yesterday and went for a curry afterwards. Rebecca has arranged loads of coffee mornings at each other's houses over the coming weeks and a reunion in October. It seems so far away, but I know the time will fly. I've learned so much from the classes and genuinely do think they've helped both Simon and I on our journey through this pregnancy. So the ladies will be visiting my house on Wednesday for drinks & stuff - best get some biscuits in! Or...shall I make brownies...hmm?

Make Baby Stuff!

I'm becoming craft obsessed.

I found a brilliant website the other day. I know the internet is host to a zillion things to make, but www.makebabystuff.com seems to encompass quite a few of them in one place; useful ones too - like how to make fitted crib sheets. That may be obvious to many, but not to me & now I know how! Hurrah! Unfortunately I now want a Gocco printer - expensive! Also, largely unavailable in the UK not terribly cost effctive once purchased. Maybe I'll stick to freezer stencils instead? Again, the internet comes through with this lovely website - stockists of said paper.

I'm already making this bird mobile - I have 6 birds done and 2 twigs. I don't think I'll make mine so big as the nursery isn't a very big room, maybe only 8 or 10 birds rather than the full 12? I tried to machine sew them, but it went very wrong and ended up looking a little Quasi-birdo (!) so I stuck to hand sewing, which I haven't done in ages! I'm going to iron the tail bits when they're all done so they aren't so wonky. The middle-top one (maroon/yellow/blue) was the first one I made so he's a bit weird & fat. Bless.

I originally found the mobile on homemade by jill - a wonderful blog full of amazing things that she's made! I fully intend to make the burp cloths. The only problem I find with all these great craft blogs is that they're American (not that that's a bad thing!) and in America there seems to be a never ending supply of craft/yarn/fabric shops all selling wondrous thing that we English can only dream about. Sure Derby has an art shop and a craft shop, but they're fairly limited and the fabric selection on the market is somewhat naf. Don't even get me started on the lack of good yarn in Derby. Thank goodness for the internet!

It's sale season at the moment which is great! We have most of the stuff we want for newly arrived/first 6 months Wiggler in terms of body suits/sleep suits etc, but I'm starting to buy stuff to customise like tops & hoodies. I really like the idea of appliquéd plain tops to make them more interesting/individual. Mum (who is doing loads better lately hurrah!) also has lots of different colour dyes at her house that we can mix to make colours not traditionally associated with babies. H&M have some AWESOME stuff for babies - really bright & interesting - none of this pastel rhubarb associated with babies normally.

Our antenatal classes are going well - turns out one of the women graduated from the Creative Expressive Therapies degree at my Uni a few years before I went so we did some of the same modules! We're all going out for a meal after the last class too which will be nice. The day after that is my last day at work - I can imagine I'll be quite emotional! I was going to try and hang on until the 38 week mark, but I don't think I'll last that long! HR have said it's OK to bring it forward yippee!! I'll be crafting my arse off I expect!

While in Sound Bites last Saturday I was given some free & out of date magazines. One of these was Juno magazine which is a natural parenting magazine full of really good articles; totally up my street. I'd like a subscription to this methinks.