Jenerally Speaking,

Bib making!

Having had terrific fun creating Baby R's big butt baby pants, I've had possibly even MORE fun making co-ordinating bibs.

I started simple, with a tie-bib. Had a bit of a problem as I made the neck space too small, so I had to do a fair bit of unpicking and fiddling. I managed it in the end and was very pleased with the result!

Next, I decided to try something more adventurous. I had been particularly inspired by a cute monster bib that I found on Pinterest. A lovely design by Lisa, who sells them via Etsy.

First, I cut out and stitched together two pieces of fabric.

Then, from some white fleece, a set of teeth.

A pair of little eyes, with black felt pupils:

I hand stitched the pupils on, because they were so small it would have been too hard  to put them on with my machine. Tee hee hee, such a creative mess all around me!

Soon, the teeth were attached to the bib:

Next, the eyes were in place:

With right sides together, I stitched around the border:

Then, having learnt my lesson from making the first bib (which I turned the right way through then panicked, because it was all bunched - phonecall to Mum revealed my mistake), I snipped in to the stitching around the curves.

I pulled it the right way through...

Finally, I top-stitched around the edge:

Then it was time for the ta-da! So, so cute!

They make quite an adorable pair, don't you think?

And with the trousers, a complete set of cuteness!

Of course, I was keen to try the trousers and bib on together. Such a lovely little ensemble!

What a cute little poser!

Big Butt Baby Pants - Mark I

This little project, I'm happy to say, was a joy from start to finish. Having produced a pair of rather smashing little trousers for the legs of my little bubba a while ago, I bought the pattern for BIG BUTT  BABY PANTS from Made-by-Rae, as it is a better fit for the bottoms of real nappy babes. 

Then, on a trip down to Essex I went a little bit mad in the Cheap Shop and bought ALL these lovely fabrics! See how beautifully they go together!

GORGEOUS!

On Sunday evening, after a busy day, I got going. I got so into it that this in the only process photograph I remembered to take! See how that middle panel gives room for the wee baby's big bottom? Cute! 

Psst... and check out my socks! The only pair I've ever knitted. Perfect for a cosy evening in, even if the heels are a bit dodge-city!

The next morning, bright and breezy, Baby R was excited to try on his new trousers! 

"What's that Mum? New trousers for me? Hurray!!"

Check out these beauties (and the little beauty in them, too)!

SUCH a perfect fit, and, rather flukishly, they are a perfect match for his new cardigan!

I'm so, so pleased! I can't wait to make many more pairs!

I'm currently working on a co-ordinating bib, but it's wound up a bit tight around the neck, so it requires a bit of unpicking and re-hashing - hopefully more on that later!

Free embroidered cot bumpers

This is really a project of two halves. The first half was a delight and pleasure. The second half was a torturous nightmare. In the end, though, I have ended up with a pair of cot bumpers which function adequately, even if the finish is far from perfect. 

I started with four rectangles of gingham cotton, each pair sandwiching a sheet of wadding and pinned in place. 

Then, in my Mum's lovely sewing room, I got to work. Free embroidery. I've hardly done any before but it was FUN!

Requires careful control and a lot of concentration. See the focus on that face?

After a loooooooooong time stitching, I ended up with two rectangles like this (in the interests of honesty, I should explain that Baby R got hungry, so Rachel embroidered most of one rectangle. It was a joint project).

After a while I got a little bored of just swirling and whirling around. So I started to hide little pictures!

I made a tiny  heart:

The letter R for Baby R's name:

Valiantly, I attempted a car:

I was very proud of my dinosaur:

And weirdly, as I made the dinosaur I accidentally created a rabbit!

*Sigh* So that was the enjoyable half over.

The next stage should have been straightforward. Make some binding. Stitch it into place. Sounds simple, doesn't it? The cutting, ironing and pinning was simple-pimple. It was the sewing that drove me nearly to mental collapse. The presser foot kept pushing the binding out so that the stitching didn't go through all layers. It was extremely frustrating, and the result was wobbly stitching. Very wobbly. 

I did my best. I carefully folded in the corners of the binding. I went over some parts two times to ensure it was held in place. It was a hard and unrewarding task, resulting, despite all my efforts, in cot bumpers that are far from neat. Puckered at the edges. Corners not right angles. Huff, huff.

However, they fulfil their purpose. They attach to the cot (although they've been put on the wrong way round, so that the ties are going over the binding - whoops) and they stop a certain bubba's hands and feet from escaped or becoming lodged between the bars. 

At the weekend, we moved Baby R's cot into our room. He has outgrown his Moses basket already. It flies by so quickly. 

He's been sleeping (and playing) in it quite happily. Doesn't seem to mind all the space at all. Admittedly, his crowd of admiring teddies take up quite a bit of space!

It's quite a lovely little homemade bed - cot bumpers by Mummy Jen, ripple blanket by Mummy Rachel and fleece blanket, quilt and knitted giraffe by Grandma Fiona.

Just remind me never to do binding like that again!!

Happy days of Mummying...

I am so enjoying my days Mummying around the house. The other afternoon I gave a contented little sigh as I looked around at all I had to be grateful for. Snuggled next to me on the sofa, sleeping peacefully, was my little boy, nestled in blankets and jumper crafted for him by his Mummies and Grandma Fiona.

On my knees, my latest knitting project. It's a rare pleasure to find time to craft in the middle of the day. 

On the table in front of me was a miniature posy of forget-me-nots picked from the garden. Such a tiny bunch of flowers, but I've so enjoyed looking at them during the week. 

On the patio, the pot of pansies (or are they violas? What's the difference anyway?) were basking in the spring sunshine, which, having waited so long for, is sheer BLISS. These pansies (or violas) have done themselves proud. We bought them two winters ago, I think, and they've survived all this while! I think they've even self-seeded some more plants in the same pot. Is that possible? Do pansies/violas do that?

The flowerbeds this year are simply HEAVING with forget-me-nots. It's a sea of blue out there. 

Having said that, there are splashes of other colours too. Some daffodils are still out and the nectarine bush is about to bloom bigtime.

At the end of the garden, and therefore out of my hair (the little pickle), the bunny was bounding about enjoying the fresh spring air. (Oh blast it, Honey, you had to pose next to the only nettle in the garden [and its friend, the dock plant] didn't you? In my defence, this is the NATURE area of the garden - between the bird table and the logpile. I simply haven't found time to don my gardening gloves and pull the thing up. Talk about showing me up!)

This year I've really enjoyed watching the leaves appearing on the trees, particularly the big maple tree at the end of the garden. Usually, when I'm at work I only get a good look at the garden at the weekends, so seasonal changes appear to happen really suddenly. But since I now spend a good portion of each day lounging on the sofa with the bubba (by lounging, of course, I mean feeding and entertaining, essential and rewarding activities), I have watched the leaves growing bit by bit, and getting darker and more vibrant each day.

Just look at that... beautiful. (And hey, not a bad zoom on our camera - I took this shot from the patio!)

Yes, all in all these seem to me to be the very best days of my life thus far and I am relishing each moment. 

*Happy, happy sigh*

Knitted posy of tulips

Last week it was the birthday of my friend Chris. So I thought to myself... what does Chris like? And one thing she definitely likes is flowers. Particularly of the tulippy variety. So I had a wee peek in one of my lovely crafty books: 

It's a book well worth peeking in, trust me. I found a pattern for a cute little tulip design, and in moments here and there, while Baby R was snoozing or entertaining himself, I got knitting:

After a few days I'd managed to get together four tulips, which I carefully pinned out. I struggled to find somewhere rabbit and baby proof to place them, so went, in the end, for the top of the sofa! It worked rather well as it happens!

A little bit of sewing later (plus some frantic i-cord creation, aided by the lovely Rachel), I had created a miniature posy of fleurs (the bottle, by the way, I saved from a restaurant a couple of years ago - it had juice in but I just LOVED the shape of the bottle):

I know, it's annoying that there are THINGS in the back of that shot. Couldn't find a good place to get a full length shot. This one is more artistic:

And this one is my favourite of all:

Happy birthday Chris!

Baby sunhat

After the roaring success of Baby R's patchwork baby pants, I felt the need to sew something else for him, and what with the weather finally taking a turn for the better  (I know... shocking!) I decided he needed a sunhat to protect his delicate skin. Plus, he hates the sun getting in his eyes. Squirms around desperately trying to get out of it. I can't say I blame him. Many a time I've struggled to drive with tears pouring down my face because I've forgotten my sunglasses. Agony.

So I did a bit of pootling round online and found a pattern on Prudent Baby's site. One evening I sat and cut out my fabric pieces. Now you many notice that there are more pieces and colours of fabric than one could justifiably need to make just one hat. Ah-ha! That's because I had decided to challenge myself by making a REVERSIBLE hat. Oh yes, already feeling more confident in my sewing ability! Bwah ha ha! One side to match the bubba's pants, one side in co-ordinating green and yellow patterns. 

I had to wait until the next day when the bubba was asleep to get to work on it. Lots of sewing and ironing. Well, a little bit of ironing, since it's really quite tricky to iron curved seams!

I tell you what, attaching the brim was one heck of a challenge. The brim was smaller in circumference than the top of the hat, so each of the four hat sections required two pleats. Lots of careful pinning.

I persevered though, and soon I had two complete hats. Aren't they cute?

I was really conscientious - I even snipped little notches in the seams so they'd sit nicely. Although then I turned them the right way round and realised I probably didn't need to. Ah well. 

Snipped round the brim seam too. Snippetty snip!

My very last step was to stitch the outer edges of the brims together neatly, to ajoin the two hats. I took great care to keep it neat, then top-stitched around the edge as carefully as possible.

Of course, this was all done in the evening, so we had to wait for the next morning before placing the hat upon the babe. Rather annoyingly, the brim is a little bit too small in circumference, so the hat kind of perches on top of his head, giving it a rather Tudor look (is it a Puritan hat it's reminding me of? Not sure...). 

But it isn't half cute! Possibly the slightest bit girlie. Might do the next one in more boyish colours. Or maybe it's the poofiness making it look a little feminine. What the heck - he's not to know and I think it looks adorable.

To my excitement, the sun popped out that very day, so I got to try out the hat to see if it functioned adequately. Bear witness to the shaded eyes of Baby R. (Plus, notice how beautiful the shawl he's lying on is - I used to lie on that when I was a baby! It's a mixture of knitting AND crochet!)

I'm pleased with it, overall. Mum's worked out how I can fiddle with it to make it fit better. It'll involve a fair bit of unpicking, but I need to otherwise it'll barely fit until the end of the month. 

Cutie-pie! He really enjoyed sitting out in the sun, his head cool and shaded and his delicate skin covered in factor 50. I'm so excited for the day I can put him in his pants AND hat at the same time!

A rather marvellous pair of trousers!!

I'm so proud I could just pop! I have sewn, yes, SEWN a pair of fabulous trousers for my little boy ALL BY MYSELF! See, I'm trying to improve my sewing skills because I've bought this LOVELY fabric which I want to turn into a top for myself. I therefore decided that making baby clothes would be A: fun, B: quick and C: a great way to improve my technique and finish. I didn't count on benefit D: that they look absolutely adorable!

Soooo.... I popped online to try to seek out a simple pattern I could start with, and found the fantastic website Made By Rae, wherein I discovered the beautifully simple and generously free newborn baby pants pattern. I read through carefully, decided it looked manageable, so printed it out.

Then I had the spectacular challenge of choosing three fabrics with which to make my pants. The legs are supposed to be made with folded fabric, so that the entire left leg is one piece of material, and the right leg another. However, I didn't have any big enough pieces of material in my collection to make a complete pair of pants, so I decided to do alternating colours. After much debate I chose lime and aquamarine polka dot fat quarters, and some co-ordinating stripe for the contrast band on the cuffs and the pockets. 

Then the cutting began. For many this is a simple stage of production, but it's always a challenge for me because although I have no fewer than THREE pairs of cutting shears, they only have about 1 and a half sharp inches of blades BETWEEN them. But I prevailed.

I decided to tamper with the pattern a little more, by making the cuffs at the bottom of my pants big and chunky so I could really enjoy that stripey fabric.

Soon the very first seam had been sewn and I was pressing the seams flat. It's at moments like this, when I'm ironing in a little bit of space between the sink, hob and kettle, that I become very envious of all the people who have sewing rooms. Actual rooms, dedicated to sewing. I have a little plan to put a table in our spare room so I can have my sewing machine permanently set up, because every time I want to sew I have to climb into the cupboard under the stairs, heave out three boxes and my sewing machine and  work flitting between the kitchen and lounge. It's a bother, particularly when I can only snatch ten minutes here and twenty minutes there when my baby is snoozing, which is why I knit and crochet much more than I sew. 

Just wait until I've got a wee table set up - there'll be nothing to stop me!! It'll be a tidy sewing station, too - I can't bare to throw all the thread ends on the floor because they have to be cleared up afterwards and inevitably get stuck on my clothes and slippers and walked all over the house. I'm enjoying using this cute little microwave bowl as my ends bin at the moment - it's just the right size, and a lovely colour!

By the end of the first evening, I had the side seams done and the cute little pockets stitched on VERY neatly (even if I do say so myself). But by then I was exhausted, as Baby R and I had had a disappointingly nap-free day, so I left sewing stuff strewn all over the place and went to bed, where I lay visualising how best to attach the stripy cuffs. 

The next morning, before our swimming lesson, Baby R was settled and napping in his crib, so I crept downstairs for a bit more tinkering. (His baby monitor has snuck into some of these photos, in fact!)

I tried very hard to keep all my lines straight so the finish would be neat. My Mum does teach textiles after all, so I know details like this will be checked!

I had to attach the binding at the bottom in a different way, because attaching it after sewing up the legs was just SO fiddly. So I jiggled it round a bit. Attached the middle of the binding on first, then sewed up the legs, then sewed up the remaining bit of binding. Long-winded, but easier. 

I had to put the project to the side again until that evening, when I finally finished off. My excitement reached fever pitch when I got to this stage:

Then they were done! And to my great relief, I had ten minutes to tidy up and photograph them before "The Great British Sewing Bee" began. Would you just look at them!

Neat little elasticated top:

Alternating colours front and back:

In my family, it is traditional to turn hand-made clothes inside out to ascertain whether they have been well made, and I think I can be proud of this finish!

But of course the place these pants look best is on the bottom of my bubba. Was he excited to try them on this morning? Of course he was! (Oh, t-shirt hand-crafted by Grandma Fiona, by the way - only the socks on this baby are shop-bought)

Did they fit? Pretty well perfectly, but I can see I'm going to have to get Made by Rae's Big Butt Baby Pants pattern to make some bigger ones to go over his real nappies.

Well, Bubba, do you think Mummy should make you some more funky trousers in the future?

"Yes, Mummy! Yes please!"

Springtime in the garden

At the weekend, much to our surprise and delight, the sun decided to visit the British Isles, after a long holiday goodness only knows where. Maybe it was taken hostage. Who knows. Anyway, it came back to see us frozen souls in Suffolk and man, were we glad to see it! 

All around the garden there were little hints of spring which is maybe, if we're lucky, around the corner. Admittedly, this is a WINTER pansy, but it still looks quite spring-like:

Our blackcurrant bush (thank you, Ribena!) has started budding:

This daffodil was SOOO close to fully blooming. Very tantalising. *Goes to check* Yes, it is, by now, fully open. Gorgeous. First one in our garden.

The heather is blooming a vibrant lilac. Is that a winter flowering plant too? Hmm... not sure. Heather hangs out a lot in Scotland, so maybe it considers an average temperature of 2 degrees C to BE summer (no offence to Scotland - I've spent many happy, if chilly holidays there!).

Most beautiful of all (in my humble opinion, anyway) is our lovely hellabore. Funny story: this was one of the first plants we bought and installed in our garden when we first moved in, and I was very distressed all summer that it appeared to be dying, or at least, not thriving in our lousy soil. Then I was startled, nay, baffled, when it started to perk up the colder the weather got. I was simply astonished when it flowered in the middle of winter! Well how was I to know it's colloquially known as a winter rose? I thought it was a summer plant!

So, all this sunshine and these glimpses of spring tempted us, snuffly as we all were with colds, out into the garden. Even Motzy, now our only remaining guinea-pig, at the stately age of six and a half, enjoyed a run. No actual running you understand... just hid in her igloo and scoffed grass as breakneck speed.

But not for me a relaxing munch on some grass. Aho, no! There was much work to be done! I started by digging out the compost. I had no real hopes for this. We've never managed to produce anything that really resembles soil. Black sludge, yes! We're good at making that! However, last year we had listened carefully to all that Monty Don had to say on the subject and had tried hard to get the balance of nitrogen and carbon rich items appropriate. 

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it actually worked! A good foot of lush, pleasant smelling soil! Yes, some eggshells and biodegradeable bags had to be put back in at the top, but on the whole nothing was recognisable! Hurrah!!!

I dug out three trug loads and forked it into the soil. Would you just look at that? Talk about nutritious! That should cheer our plants up!

It's too late for the euphorbia though. This is very sad news - it was my favourite plant in the garden and had been thriving. I don't know if the insanely long winter got it, but it's definitely dead. It was all too easy to dig it up. Poor, poor euphorbia. I might have to get another to fill what is now a big empty space. Although it'd be a good spot to grow our courgettes this year, so maybe I'll leave it for now. 

Talking of plant tragedies, just look at the hebbe! It was another of my favourite plants, because it has thrived and grown since we planted it, without any fuss or bother. That was, until an avalanche of ice and snow slid down from our solar panels and crushed it! LOADS of branches were broken off in the middle, so now it is a ridiculous ring doughnut shape! Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Anyhoos, grumbling done. I worked hard and managed to weed both flower beds and hoe them. Then I weeded the entire patio. I emptied all the plant pots which were still hanging around in the greenhouse on the patio. Then I shifted it down to the end of the garden. Perhaps this'll prevent the lettuces from crisping up and dying this year. If we're really lucky, it might put off whoever's cat it is that thinks that our garden is a litter tray. Yak.

I potted up the lovely weeping willow Mum got us for Easter, although I do need to get a bigger, ceramic pot for it. I tidied up the patio pots and moved the table.

All neat and tidy. I was AMAZED by how much I got done in three hours. Very proud. Now we just need a little more warm weather so we can get outside and enjoy it!

A new hobby...

I've caught a new bug! An excellent new hobby, which I'm very much enjoying. Geocaching. 

I'd heard of it of course, here and there. But I'd never tried it. Until Easter Monday. We were relaxing at Mum's and wondering what to do with ourselves. We did a wee bit of research and chose our first geocache - one nearby in the village (A Quiet Oasis). 

We togged up in coats, hats and scarves and strapped Baby R on. Then we marched off, compass in hand, through the streets of Mayland. We'd seen on the map that the cache was near to my old primary school, so we knew roughly where we were going. Here's a little clue - it was somewhere around here:

This was the moment we all caught the bug - when Mum discovered the little tupperware and we found the logbook and little trinkets inside. SO exciting. I always longed to do treasure hunts as a child and this was a genuine grown-up treasure hunt, treasure and all! The thrill of finding a secret box in a secret location is simply superb. Lots of childish giggles were heard floating on the icy blasts of Arctic wind that swept past us.

Frozen but elated, we wandered home through the fields, and spotted this at the edge of one. I think it's a fox - would you agree?

Later that very day we had a go at a multi-cache in Burnham-on-Crouch, but we were simply unprepared. We were able to crack the mysterious code and follow the co-ordinates to the location of the cache. But we didn't know (until, despondent, we'd returned home and did some more research online) that caches could be really, REALLY tiny. We'll have to go back one day and find that one.

Mum and I also had a little adventure in Tiptree on Tuesday and managed to find a magnetic micro-cache. Well, in truth, Mum found it while I dealt with a bit of a nappy situation on the front seat of the car. Tee hee hee. Very satisfying to find such a well-hidden and miniature treasure! 

Today we went on our most successful geocaching mission thus far, to the neighbouring village of Woolpit. It was a GORGEOUS afternoon, and the bright sunshine and blue sky called us out. "No," said the fluffy clouds, "Don't mow the lawn and weed the patio... go for a nice walk instead! Find some hidden treasures!" And who were we to disobey?

We found the first cache very quickly, as it was only a matter of metres from the parking spot. Well hidden and very exciting, since it was the first one I'd actually spotted myself. 

We signed the log, which was so small it was just a wee piece of paper. A well-used cache though - been found lots of times.

Spurred on by this success, we meandered through the village on the hunt for the second. Again, I spotted it first, although we were trying to be quite quiet as there was a "muggle" nearby and we didn't want to appear silly! Lovely little smurf in this one!

As we wandered from cache to cache, we enjoyed looking round the backstreets of Woolpit. Only ever been to the high street and the health centre before. There are some beautiful old buildings. Really quaint and peaceful.

The sky above us was so blue and the sun was actually warm on our faces! After months of snow, ice, sleet and leaden-grey skies, it was a very nice change. 

It was Baby R's first taste of WARM sunshine, and he seemed to enjoy it. He was perfectly content just watching the world go by from his buggy, snuggled under blankets. 

I spotted this cute little bunch of snowdrops under a hedge.

Some more caches were located. Some more logs were signed. There was one we simply couldn't find although we were certain we were in the right spot. Quite frustrating.

And we saw such amazing spring sights. Just look at these lovely weeds. Are they weeds? I'm guessing so, since they were growing wild on a grass verge. 

I love the way the sky looks through tree branches. 

Such a beautiful day!

It was a very serene way to spend an afternoon, and we got to enjoy that lovely tingly feeling when we stepped back into our warm house with red cheeks and tired feet. 

I am officially hooked!

Chocolate cupcakes!

So... on the evening of 5th January, I enjoyed studying all the deliciously tempting ideas in this cupcake book, which Mum had got me for Christmas. Gleefully, I chose the cupcakes that I planned to bake the next day, as we were going to have friends over for lunch. 

Somehow, though, those cupcakes never got baked. Why was that again? Oh  yes, by the next morning I was in labour! 

Fast forward eleven weeks and Baby R had fallen fast asleep, and been tucked up for his long afternoon nap on the sofa. He sleeps for 2-3 hours in the early afternoon, so I decided the time had come to bake those cupcakes!

 

(Psst...how cute are those little knitted booties?!)

I looked through again, considering the ingredients I happened to have in stock in the kitchen cupboards and chose this recipe for soft-centred chocolate cupcakes. 

Swiftly, I gathered together all the necessary equipment:

Just sieving together the flour and cocoa was pretty and started to get my mouth watering!

Soon I had my eight cupcakes lined up like soldiers and ready to go - a splodge of thick mixture in each paper cup, with a chunk of chokkilate in the middle. It was a great chance to finally use the cupcake cups various friends had got me for Christmas too! I used some red with polka dots, and some green with polka dots. Purdy!

Mmmm...

I covered the chokkilate chunk with some more of the mixture, then, I'm not ashamed to say that I enjoyed licking the bowl and equipment! Scrummdidliumptious!

Next, it was time to use ANOTHER gift - my birthday icing shaker. To prevent great plumes of icing sugar dust swirling round the house and asphyxiating us all, I funnelled some sugar in!

I was pleased that I even managed to get all the cooking equipment washed up and the kitchen tidy before the wee bubba woke up from his nap, in need of a feed. I fed him, and was sitting cosily on the sofa, him asleep on one shoulder, contentedly reading 'Call the Midwife' on the Kindle, when I absent-mindedly thought that the delicious smell in the house was making me feel a bit peckish.

With a gasp, I realised that said delicious smell was in fact my cupcakes, which I'd abandoned in the oven and completely forgotten about! Shooting up from the sofa, I popped the bubba down and whizzed through to wrench them from the oven. Happily, although "well-done", they weren't at all burnt. Crisis averted!

I sprinkled them with icing sugar and enjoyed posing them a bit. Rachel and I have enjoyed a couple each, and I actually quite like the texture they've ended up with - nice and crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. Perhaps a tad over-done, but tasty nonetheless.

Even the tin chicken is impressed!