Finished: Wrap Strap Bag

I got a bit excited about this one and forgot to actually post it on the blog... whoops!

If you're not on my facebook page you should be! You'd know ALL about this if you did!

Ok so, if you dont carry your baby in a sling this one'll have really passed you by, but the 'nappy bag' situation is a real problem for slingy mamas! so here's a bag with straps that tie around you and your baby, and it can also be converted to a backpack for when you're carrying your little one on your front :-)

Finished: Wrap Conversion Ring Sling

Full tutorial to come but here's some glamour shots of me and my boy in a Ring Sling I made for a friend. And a little information about what a ring sling is! haha

Hehe baby baby carriers!

Ok so I'll tell you since I'm making, like, the most obscure product imaginable ;) I'm trying to put together a couple of baby carriers .... for babies. ... you know ... to carry their toys around in :) .. I'm going to try and make a Mei Tai and a ring sling.... if you don't know what those things are hopefully you will by the end of the night...

Embroidering on Stretch Jersey with Solvy

So 6 months in I'm finally doing what's expected of me and embroidering baby vests.... it's much harder than it looks.

I've got something called Solvy (water soluble stabiliser)  which is like a thin plastic that you can draw your design on, hoop up with your fabric and sew through. Then once you're done you dunk the thing in water and the Solvy dissolves! cool eh?

yea it's still not easy.... but this is what I'm going for.

once again, pinterest is my inspiration

Serious Monday: The Mammy Lists - Why I breastfed

Lets be clear here, I'm a craft blogger. My blog is not concerned with politics, religion, the intricacies of my personal life, or anything deep or philosophical. It is my refuge from such things. Saying that, there are times when something that is so intertwined with my day-to-day life (blogging) and other major life events (having a baby) have to acknowledge each other's existence.

This is part of a series of blog posts I'm calling “The Mammy Lists”

Why I breastfed.*

Serious Monday: Mammy list 2 - Postnatal/living with baby

Lets be clear here, I'm a craft blogger. My blog is not concerned with politics, religion, the intricacies of my personal life, or anything deep or philosophical. It is my refuge from such things. Saying that, there are times when something that is so intertwined with my day-to-day life (blogging) and other major life events (having a baby) have to acknowledge each other's existence.

This is part of a series of blog posts I'm calling “The Mammy Lists”

 (co-sleeping on a sofa is NOT recommended... but sometimes it happens... and the Husb0t was not going to risk waking either of us up..... )

Postnatal/Living With a Small Baby

Mammy List 1: Labour

Lets be clear here, I'm a craft blogger. My blog is not concerned with politics, religion, the intricacies of my personal life, or anything deep or philosophical. It is my refuge from such things. Saying that, there are times when something that is so intertwined with my day-to-day life (blogging) and other major life events (having a baby) have to acknowledge each other's existence.
This is part of a series of blog posts I'm calling “The Mammy Lists”
It's a collection of things I've learned over the last 5 months, don't worry, I'm still a craft blog. Crafting is still happening and documentation of said crafting will resume soon!

Labour

1. In labour, go without pain relief or other interventions as long as possible. You're stronger than you think. You'll thank yourself afterwards.
2. The point of labour is to take home a healthy, happy baby. Remember that if things don't go to plan.
3. Things rarely go to plan.
4. An episciotomy is not the worst thing that can happen.
5. Before you give birth, find out about your local La Leche League group (or other local support groups)  just in case you choose to breastfeed.
6. Even if you don't want to breastfeed consider putting your baby to the breast after giving birth. It will help your womb to contract, speeding your recovery, as well as giving the baby your immunity to the bacteria in his/her new environment. and hey, you can still change your mind!
7. Trust your instincts.
8. Do some research beforehand, go to an antenatal classes and know about the different stages of labour.
9. When you get to the pushing stage. Try to push, hold the push to rest and then push again, instead of pushing, releasing the muscles and then pushing again (you will push several times in one contraction) A baby is kinda like toothpaste (bear with me here) if you release the muscle it gets sucked back in a little, making you work a lot harder.
10. If you've had bad period pains, that's what first stage labour feels like, yea it hurts, but you can deal with it. It's hard work They don't call it "Labour" for nothing. Its worth it.

feel free to leave your own tips in the comments!

How to: Baby Carrier!

So many unfinished stories, here's one I've been meaning to get to for AGES!

I told you a while ago that I was making my own SPOC (simple piece of cloth) baby carrier. They're also often referred to as baby wraps or slings, and they're often HELLA-expensive!

Witness the awesomeness that is babywearing - I've just noticed my hand seems to be supporting Squiggle's bum here - that's completely unnecessary, he's nice and snug in there... in fact after I took this picture I went shopping (about half a mile walk there and half a mile back) Squiggle had a nap in the sling (not uncommon - it's so relaxing for him!) it rained cats and dogs, but I just popped up my umbrella while other mothers were ducking for cover trying to figure out how to attach their rain cover to their buggy . . . Meanwhile Squiggle carried on with his nap. . .

I'm kind of embarrassed to even call this a sewing project it really is as simple as buying a piece of fabric and hemming it... no really!

Finished! Shirt and Tie Bibs!

Another triumph of pinterest inspiration:

pattern pieces coming soon!

Sunday Squiggle: Headbanging baby

set your phasers to adorable



Sqiug dancing to Planet Rock with Daddy on his tenth-day-birthday
x GS

Update: Squiggle is here!

hi guys.

My little geek arrived last weekend, on Saturday the 6th August.

He was 2 weeks late and weighed 8lbs 9oz, he's 8 days old today :-) and we're both doing well. My labour only lasted about 4 1/2 hours and I managed on gas and air. I've got a lot to be grateful for... he's very healthy and sleeping well (when he's full!)

I won't be using his name on the blog, just because, you now, the internet lasts forever. I'll still be calling him Squiggle :-)

Normal programming will resume shortly, I haven't hung up my crafting hat yet :-) I've got at least 3 projects in the pipeline which I'll get to as soon as I can get this sleepy baby off my tummy.


love to you all!!

Breastfeeding Pillow - Tutorial

(psst, don't forget to enter my AWESOME giveaway)

 it's essentially a U  shaped bean bag... I got a 1.5 cubic foot Beanbag top-up bag for £3.50 at QD (which is similar to Wilkinson's if you don't have one near you) google it and the Internet will furnish you with suppliers, but because it's a bulky thing it's better to look in craft shops/furniture shops to see if you can pick it up locally and avoid the P+P charges

My Fake Boppy

(psst - enter my giveaway)

MUAHAHAH!!!!

£50 for a PILLOW!??
Joke's on YOU Kiddicare/boppy!!

ah made mai own:

 I used: a curtain and beanbag beans

want one? get your materials ready, I'll show you how VERY SOON!!

Ps Don't forget to enter my giveaway

Crinkle Taggie Baby Soother - Tutorial

ok then, remember these noisy toys?



In a previous post I showed you how to insert the jingle bells into the taggie plush :-) Now I'm going to show you how to make the Crinkle Taggie Soother.

The Internet has told me that babies love things that crinkle, and things with ribbon loops/tags, and this is my response! err... unfortunately I have no way of verifying this information at this point since my lazy baby still isn't here! and even when (s)he does arrive, I hear tell that they don't do much except cry, sleep, feed and wee for the first few days.

Anyhow, click here for the printable -step by step tutorial - for how to make a Crinkle Taggie Baby Soother!!

Click the read more link to see some work in progress pics and take a quick tour of the construction process:

Tutorial! How to make a Jingle Bell Plush!

So guys, I've made a couple of noisy baby toys for a friend. A jingle bell plush and a crinkly taggie 'blanket'.
Today I'm going to show you how to make the plush, The 'blanket' coming later in the week.

Here's a video of them 'live' so to speak - obviously you'll need your speakers on to fully enjoy the noisiness of them :-)



Here's the tutorial for the plush itself. (as you can see.. not my work)
And here's the extra tutorial (mine) for adding in the jingle bells.

And here's some more pics of the plush!! <3! (after the 'read more' link)

Embroidered Stargate Baby Vest

oh baby :-)

PLEASE tell me you recognise that guy!

I've agonised for AGES over whether or not that looks enough like Jack O'Neill... in the end I put the little point of origin symbol in the bottom left hand corner just to give people a little clue :-)

Of course not every one's seen as much Stargate as me and my family (ie. ALL of it :-) ) but hopefully the text makes this project 'accessible' to all on some level or other.

Yet another example of my incredulity and recognition of the absurdity that within a couple of weeks I'm going to be taking the final blindfolded step into the precipice of parenthood... I can't believe I'm already 38 1/2 weeks pregnant.

Here, have the picture I used as a kind of pattern:

 

Hopefully you can see what I did there... I put this image together on Gimp by fiddling with the colour levels and adding the text.Then I more or less used my monitor as a lightbox and (tried my best to...) trace all of those black shaded areas directly onto my fabric... and then just stitched!

I tried to use my intuition/gut feeling about how to compose the image, starting with the larger shaded areas, filling them in with satin stitch, and then outlining that, and doing the finer lines with backstitch. The text is done in a mixture of chain stitch and backstitch to make some words seem more bold than others.

Here's my work on the hoop for you purists!

 one and a half weeks to go... hopefully....

And now it's a frilly unicorn cushion :-)

see?

So. This baby cushion is (surprisingly) made out of upcycled materials... the floral base fabric is a duvet cover and the bias binding edging to the frill is made from an old pillowcase (I love it and I've got loads more, making your own binding strip is such a good way of using up small amounts of fabric)

And I've made it into a cushion cover so it can be removed and washed (and so I can make other covers :-))

The size of the cushion pad itself is 12"x12" (I made it out of a spare pillow we had in the house)

:-) very happy... and if Squiggle is a boy...  then this is my cushion :-)

Baby Clothes, Cleaned (ironed?!) and Catalogued

This post is essentially for the information of anyone who may buy me anything for Squiggle.

We have been very fortunate, in that up to now the Husb0t and I have not bought any baby clothes (apart from the odd Princess Leia costume and Hello Kitty dress that we've found at carboot sales) But our lovely family and friends have been more than generous in their gift giving, and in particular my uncle dropped off a MASSIVE amount of his boys' clothes that they'd outgrown. Even right now, as I'm writing I'm remembering more bits of baby clothes that we've got stashed away somewhere (9 months is a long time!)and I'm having to go and amend my list... oh there's a list... I HAD to make a list!...

Here's the list:

So I guess... we've probably got MORE than enough 0-3 month stuff :-) we could do with some more jumpers/cardigans for winter (3-6 month) more blankets/muslin squares/crib (moses basket/pram size) sheets as we have none! haha But I'm thinking of using pillow cases anyhow as they're much cheaper.

We'll need stuff for the cot bed after about 3 months (sheets/more blankets) but I need to get that measured.

We'd also greatfully accept gifts of boring consumable items like nappies and wipes. I'd really like some reusable nappies, you can get packs of 3 or so to try out in some supermarkets now. Money's going to be tight when Squig gets here so even if you bought us some nappy bags I'd be greatful! Vouchers are cool too.

We've kept to the basics when getting 'equipment' we've got a car seat/buggy (with pram top), changing table/mat, bath, crib, cot bed and a few toys. We do not want a baby monitor. I believe we're getting a playpen/room divider. We've also got a really cute little rocking horse.... I would quite like a baby sling of some description but I think I'd rather buy it for myself as there are so many on the market (and some of them are DAMN ugly!) so if you want to buy us something along those lines juat let me know so I can make sure we don't get duplicates :-)

and (of course) if you've got a shop or website that sells baby goods and want me to review anything on this blog, please, don't hesitate to get in touch!!

35 Weeks - 5 to GOOO!!

 
This is not a father's day post, sorry :-)

I read a great pregnancy blog from pregnant chicken the other day, What to do in your last Trimester. This blog is great fun and wholeheartedly recommended for anyone, even more so if you or or your partner is pregnant :-).

I'm not going to reproduce the whole list here, but here are a few things that I did already, either consciously or unconsciously, in preparation for the arrival of baby Squiggle. Reading them on the list made me do a mental 'fist in the air' BOOYAH!

TG: 32 Week Bump Hiccups!!