Baby's quilt finished!

I finished the baby's quilt last week sometime. It is a jumble of fabrics that I happened to have in the stash. Mostly scraps that have been used for other projects. I cut and sewed quite randomly- which means you can't make a mistake. Perfect!

The carpel tunnel syndrome made progress on hand stitching the binding slow going, but we made it!

Nursery in a nook

My mum, sister and my brothers' wives surprised me with the gift of a little crib a few weeks ago. It was lovely to get one as a present, as we had never bought one for our babies, and it will be passed onto my younger sisters when they start their families one day.

I had been planning up until this gift to pop baby straight into her own room (as our room isn't big enough for the full sized cot). But with this gift, set to decorating a little nook in our room for our spring baby.

The garland was made using this Cakies tutorial, the beautiful birdy decals were from here (the rest are in the baby's room), the heart was an op shop find from some time ago, and do you spy Jess' gorgeous crocheted panda potholder? He is lovely.

Meet Emily, not a gift for the baby but for Jemima when the baby is born. You will no doubt recognise her as a Dandelion bunny (available from here). She is so beautiful, I want one too! I thought she looked right at home in this little scene, so I snapped a pic, then hid her away again!

I made the crib sheet out of a vintage sheet. The same one I used to back the baby quilt actually. It was my second attempt that was successful as the first turned out a little small. I used this tutorial over at made, but had to come up with my own dimensions.

The little artwork I made using patterns printed out from this website, was inspired very much by Castle and Things art, as well as the ladies over at Dottie Angel and Thimbly Things. I cut out letters and hearts freestyle using scissors and used a small paper doily, sticking everything on brown paper (which I had stuck to cardstock for extra strength.)

I met a lady with a tiny baby at the park this afternoon, who went to the same hospital I am going to. She was told she was having a girl, and in actual fact had a boy! She had a feeling she was having a boy, so it wasn't a huge shock, fortunately! I have no inklings about such things, but I have held onto Caleb's old clothes just in case they have it wrong... and I'm sure he won't mind if there are flowers and pink in his decor!

More baby business

*Mobile* Caleb had a bright green, purple and orange mobile that you could wind up and it spun and played music. Jemmie used it too. I left it in her cot a little too long though and a cheeky little brother and sister pair destroyed it. I made Baby 3 this low tech mobile out of a garland I had made for another purpose. Just some string, a ring, an embroidery hoop and some hot glue, and here it is. It doesn't play music and I am too scared to hang it over her cot in case it were to fall on her, but it is pretty enough.

*Shoes* These have been on the list for my baby since the start, but I had to work myself up to do them as I have had many a fail with these innocent looking little shoes. They are from the Meet me at Mikes book and are quite easy, but fiddly due to their tininess. I made a little non-functional mistake on one of them, but I am trying not to let it bother me. Can't wait to put little feet in them!

*Photos* Some photos of Baby 3's loving sibs. Great shots taken by my sister (aka ESJAY Creative). I poladroided them to make them extra quirky, but I don't think I really needed to. Sweet paper frames from Ikea.

Still more to show and do, but the list is getting shorter...

Among other things, a cushion

I have been a little makey crazy lately. Trying to tick as much of the crafty list as possible before Miss Baby makes her appearance. I plan to post everything eventually to make a little record of my nesting projects, but in the meantime, here is a cushion I have been planning to make for about 12 months.

It is an oppy table cloth that had a little stain in the middle, and backed with soft black denim from spotlight. I made it an "envelope back" or something so I didn't have to attach any closures. This cush will be used in the baby's room, but later will fit right into the lounge room.

I really like how it turned out- reminds me of Tiny Happy creations which I love.

I'm not going to lie and say I managed this cush with no mistakes. I did make a little error that took about as long to fix (hello 10 minutes of unpicking) as to make the cover itself. But that is just me and sewing and I am trying to come to terms with that!

I am also coming to terms with my preggo induced carpel tunnel syndrome that makes crochet off limits, and unpicking seams rather painful actually. It also makes hand sewing my binding on my quilt kind of off limits too... but I am so determined to finish it anyway. 5 minutes at a time if necessary! (And if I machine sew anything I will have to try SUPER hard not to make any mistakes!)

Baby Kimono - Just a pass, maybe

If I were to grade my latest crafty effort here (Lucy's Kimono from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross), I would barely scrape in a pass. It started out well enough, but then the obstacles kept on coming...

• I really really hate working with bias tape. I hardly ever do it because I find it so annoying. I think my tape was too skinny for this project (actually probably for any project). I didn't sew the tape on correctly onto the kimono, but it worked out OK. Not as OK is the ends that you tie are completely unfinished. I tried to finish them, but the skinny bias got sucked into my machine and I had to take it apart to get it out again. Was only going to do that once! So the ends will probably go fray-crazy in the wash. Oh well.
• None of the seams are finished. The instructions don't actually insist on this. I started finishing the seams, but got lazy.
• I am sure as sure can be there is an error in the instructions. I have googled the pattern and people mention the bias tape should be longer, but my main problem was that the instructions call for inserting both ties in such a way that they both end up on the outside. So I changed that a little bit, not before blindly following the instructions though and getting annoyed.

I am pretty tempted to give this another try and do it properly, but this took me 3 hours of precious kid free time, and I don't really know if I want to do that. It looks pretty cute in the photo, so I am warming up to it.

On the plus side, I am very confident my quilt will be finished before baby comes, unless I get an early surprise. (Very unlikely)

There's nothing like a deadline...

... to overcome crafty procrastination. This is my baby quilt in progress. I finished putting the top together yesterday and wondered if I would ever baste, quilt and bind it.

I hate basting a lot. I am also not a huge fan of machine quilting.

I am not quite sure why I decided to make a quilt like this and not the good ole tied-quilt-with-chenille-backing that I have made a little stack of. I think perhaps I (a) wanted to do something different, and (b) I wanted to have another crack at the process without going crazy like I did last time.

Anyways, the machine quilting is done already and it is less than 24 hours after I finished the quilt top. I was not expecting that!

Happiness 101

Another snap by ESJAYcreative

The lovely Monique from A Glass Half Full tagged me with the happiness meme. It has been a while since I last participated in a meme. Usually I think about what I would say and never get around to writing it.

Also I am a little bit shy.

Nevertheless, today is a perfect day for articulating just what does make me happy and firing it off into the world. Today is not a bad day, just an uncomfortable day. It is raining quite hard, and this morning 15 minutes before the school run I started having killer Braxton Hicks contractions and could hardly walk. I nearly called my husband home so that he could take the kids to school/preschool but, thankfully they passed and I was able to safely drop them off, and then do a rather large grocery shop.

Usually on a “kid free day” I run around doing all sorts of things, but today I gave myself permission to chill. Here comes some basic happiness inducers from this morning…

1. After coming home and (half) putting away the groceries I sat down and had a cup of hot chocolate, turned on the TV, read a magazine and ate a blueberry muffin.

2. Then I had a shower and got some relief from some foot and back cramps. Ah.

3. Then I hopped into bed and slept for about 45 minutes until my baby in situ attacked me from the inside.

4. It is nice to feel my baby move. My favourite pregnancy thang. So looking forward to meeting her in 3 weeks or so.

And furthermore in happy town…

5. Making something (crafty or culinary) that turned out really well.

6. Going to IKEA.

7. The new paint and carpet in my house. And how it inspires me to keep it clean (but I won’t be doing any cleaning today however- and that makes me happy too)

And digging deeper…

8. Being a Christian. Started out as a kid-believer and still going strong. It feels silly and simplisitc to say “God makes me happy,” because there is so much more to it than that, and it’s not always that easy… but in a top 10 of happy stuff, I can’t really not mention Him! He is a source of great joy.

9. My husband. He’s pretty funny, and fun to hang out with, and very graciously allows me to make fun of him. Oh, and he is very helpful which also makes me happy.

10. My kiddies. Jemima’s wild blonde hair in the morning, and Caleb’s cheeky monkey grin. Watching them have fun together, making friends, enjoying their birthdays, listening to them talk to themselves (definitely something they inherited from me), giving them cuddles, them asking to kiss my tummy so they can kiss the baby. Blah blah blah, I could go on!

But my rest day is over and it is time to pick them up!

If you haven’t been tagged already, consider yourself tagged and tell us what makes you happy!

Now We Are Six

"...now I am Six,

I'm as clever as clever,

so I think I'll be six now forever and ever."

-A.A Milne

Photography ESJAY Creative

The quilts are multiplying

It wasn't a pretty sight, but I finally got down on the floor and tied Caleb's quilt together. My poor pregnant body did not enjoy the process one bit, but I am so pleased it is finished! He has been very patient as Jem got hers in May.

I had the quilt finished to the point of tying it together at least a month ago, and then got distracted by the house getting new carpet/paint a few weeks back.

I love the fabrics: a mix of Ikea, Echino (from Superbuzzy) and some giant black gingham from the stash. The green chenille backing was a long searched for item on Ebay. Green was not my first choice- I had wanted white, but wasn't having any luck.

The little shelves above his bed head were put up on the weekend and house some of his treasures.

I decided this week I needed to get some crafty skates on. I really want to make a quilt before the baby is born (in 3-4 weeks time) and make few other little things. We'll see how we go.

The Chalkboard in the Kitchen Fad

This fun post by the talented Jennie of Mrs Beckinsale, reminded me to blog again about my chalkboard. (A fad, yes, and I love it so!)

A couple of people asked about dust and so on when I first wrote about my chalkboard pantry door, so I thought I might give a little update on the impact of our chalkboard in the kitchen.

We use "dust free chalk" which is not exactly dust free, but there is less chalk dust than your average chalk. I bought ours from Officeworks online. I love stationery. A lot.

When I mop the floor, it is a little bit chalky around the door, but not offensive (to me, anyway- I am no clean freak). We are not rubbing the chalk off the board daily, so that might be another reason that there isn't a lot of dust around.

I have used the chalk board for shopping lists and the kids draw on it periodically, but we are loving it at the moment for Caleb's sight words and he is enjoying writing sentences with his new writing skills. Behind Jemima (sporting 2 little top knots for the first time) he has written, "Do you *heart* pig poo? I *heart* pig poo." Ah, 5 year old boys.