catching up

so what have I been up to these last couple of months? mostly just enjoying my little guy, but there has been quite a bit of crafting as well.

first off, I mentioned the Baby Poonam in my last post. I know I posted pictures when I first finished it, but there was no baby yet to model it.

luckily, TW finally grew into the sweater just as the weather started getting nippy.







Pattern: baby Poonam
(ravelry link to my project page for specs)

as for stuff I've been workign on recently, there is a cute little bunny binky I made to help with bedtime and naps, he sleeps much better with his bunny.



bunny blanket buddy
(ravelry link for specs)

TW loves bright colours the cotton chenille yarn is really soft, yet washable, a plus! there's another one in the works too, but, well, it'll look pretty much the same when it's finished.

on the sewing front, as the weather cools it becomes more important to keep teh boy warm on our daily walks, so I modified one of my old jackets (pack rat for the win!!) into a babywearing coat.



we both stay toasty, and he loves it!


I have other things as well, like some baby socks, a pair of mittens, and the Baby Surprise is done too, but I haven't gotten around to taking pictures yet. those will have to wait until the next post. which will hopefully come in a more timely manner.

oops

holy crap!

It had been way too long since I last posted.

while i try to put together a coherent post with everything you've missed in the last couple of months, why don't you enjoy these pictures of me and TW at Rhinebeck this year.


(this one was taken by our friend Jess)









his grandma knit the hat
I knit the sweater (baby poonam)
I also sewed the wrap, and the blankie.

Saturday Sky

pretty sunset 08-27-10
Originally uploaded by alien_sunset

Taken Friday August 27, Frear Park

Teething giraffes and more

Wow how time flies, TW is seven months, is crawling like crazy, pulling himself up and standing whenever he can, and has two teeth coming in already. At lunch time my husband will take the little chomping terror for about an hour or two while he naps (the boy won't nap on his own) and I will either make baby food to freeze or craft.

Pictures of baby food are pretty boring, but I have a lot of crafty stuff too.



Newest first are some teething giraffes, (did I mention that TW is chewing on EVERYTHING right now?)
I originally hear about teething giraffes from a baby forum I'm on and immediately went looking for a pattern. I found this one but wasn't very happy with my results (it didn't even get stuffed) so I fiddled around and came up with a slightly better model, but I found the body too square and its legs too spindly to be stable, also my first attempt at head gust to give it more umph for chewing was a lopsided failure. But the boy loved it. The plain boring, muslin, lopsided, spindly giraffe hung around for a while, and I got more and more annoyed with it, I knew I could do better. I widened the legs, sloped the back and tried to make a better head gusset. Along the way I discovered starbright baby on etsy. Well huh. After a bit of brooding I tried my third giraffe (the white one) and it was much better, but the head gusset was even worse than before! A little more fiddling, and a crappy attempt at ears and I had the best giraffe of them all, (the blue one). TW loves them all



Obviously since there is already somebody out there selling teething giraffes (at a very reasonable price, I might add) I'm not going to post my pattern. Go buy one of her's, and support a crafty work at home mom.




More of my babywearing madness, I made a narrow bodied wrap strapped Podaegi (Pod for short). It's kinda like if a mei tai and a wrap had a baby.
I really like it, the fabric is a light/med weight denim with bugs, lizards and frogs embroidered al over it that I found in the red tag bin at Jo-Anns. It went together really quickly and easy using this pattern and this pattern (which seems to have disappeared, hmph - still posting link for future reference) as inspiration.



I forgot to se my walking foot, so the fabric puckered a bit, but I reinforced the heck out of the straps, so while not aesthetically perfect, it's quite secure. There are tons of different ways to wear a Pod, a few can be seen here on you tube.



And we love it.


I made another baby block using fabric leftover from my crappy dress to awesome skirt project for a while back. TW loves the bright colours. And it gets manhandled and chewed often.



You can see it on my Grandmother's lap while she plays with the best baby ever.


And finally there is Marmalade the doorstop cat.



Pattern: fat kitty
Hook: J
Yarn: two strands of random worsted acrylic I had lying around

Stuffed with a freezer bag full of kitty litter and fiberfill for padding.

stuff, and lots of it!

I said I was going to try to post more often; boy did I drop the ball on that one.

I've been crafting a lot, but I've also been super busy with the baby, ah well.

Anyways here is a giant post with everything I've been working on the last two months (oldest first):

Remember the cthulhu embroidered onesie? I finally colored it in.



And then made another embroidered onesie, this one with Godzilla:



DMC#s:
356, 433, 471, 666 (heh), 740, 815, 905, 3787

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I made myself a new baby wrap, this one out of a tablecloth from Target; just cut down the middle and hem! Its 2.1m and perfect for the rebozo carry, which Tommy loves to fall asleep in.



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while wandering around Goodwill I saw these really interesting summer dresses, they were the kind that just tie around the neck which DO NOT work for my figure, my boobs are always too big to fit in the top, and I always look bad in dresses. But they were nice and long and had some great prints. So I grabbed a couple and cut the tops off and sewed in some elastic and voila! New skirts!





I got three different colours/prints, red/orange, yellow and blue, but for some reason this is the only one I took a picture of.

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Baby blocks!!



Bill had these really nifty pj pants with rubber duckies on them that eventually wore out as pjs are wont to do, but I loved the print so I kept them. When we had Tommy I thought it would be awesome to make something for him out of them. My first thought was blocks! But since I had a limited supply of fabric I made a prototype first out of an old worn out pair of jeans. It's a good thing I did; the first block was HUGE! (5" squares) so I made the next one a bit smaller, and that worked out much better (3.5" squares)



Now to get off my butt and make the ducky ones.

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Whenever we go anywhere I always sit in the back seat with Tommy to make sure he's entertained and happy. (driving anywhere with a screaming baby in the back seat is not fun) unfortunately, I didn't have a bag or anything back there to throw bits of trash into (up front we have a grocery bag hooked over the gearshift) so I made one!

the car trash bag from One Yard Wonders
made from leftover cotton/linen scraps from the baby wraps



so far it's working beautifully.

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and last, but most definitely not least, a new purse/diaper bag!







it's a mash up between the toddler messenger bag from One Yard Wonders and the onbag

there's a little pocket on the front under the flap, and a bigger one inside:



and like the onbag it can be worn may different ways, I love it!
Since I made it slightly larger than the bag in the book (and made two straps) I used about 1 1/4 yards. I got 1 1/2 so I have a bit leftover which I may use to make a little zippered pouch to put all my little purse extras into so they don't get lost. (you know, note pad, pen, chapstick etc.)

I think if I do something like this again, the only things I would do differently would be to make it from a stiffer fabric (this one is quilting cotton), and make the back loops a bit smaller.

sew sparkly and crinkly and a cutle little dog too

Teal sparkly wrap is done!



I can now carry TW in a wide number of ways, it's awesome and oh, so cuddly!

I've also finished hemming the new panels for the Mei Tai, but I haven't put the Velcro on yet, so no pictures. The pocket squares are trimmed, but still awaiting pressing and hemming.

My most recent projects have been some embroidery and crinkly things.

Cthulhu:



(right after this picture was taken we had a poo blowout :( )
DMC#s: 895 & 3346

And a cute little doggie!



modeled:




DMC#s: 433, 642, 776, 807, & 3346
And coloured in with crayons.
(you carefully colour in the parts you want making sure to get and even colour without applying too much wax, the put a piece of paper over the fabric and iron it. The wax and colour will melt into the fibers. Too much wax will make the fabric stiff, so you have to be careful.)

and some crinkly things.





The blue and brown are soft flannel; the ribbons were scavenged from the packaging of many of the gifts we got at the baby shower.

I got the owl idea from here

The inside crinkly stuff are just the cleaned off wrappers from some cliff bars. Nice and crinkly.

Tommy likes them :)

Wrap up

I finished the red sparkly wrap!



Its 30 inches wide by 3.5 yards long. And we love it! So far we've only used it for a couple of different hip caries, the photo above is a Semi Front Cross Carry but it was a bit fussy, so we switched to a Coolest Hip Cross Carry (vid) and like that one much better (the look similar because it's the same general wrapping technique, the only difference is how the baby sits in it)



We also tried a Short Front Cross Carry, but nether of us found it terribly comfortable (I think our wrap might have been bit too short), so I think we will be sticking to the hip carry for now, and TW really likes being able to look around more. Maybe in a little while I'll try the Kangaroo Carry(vid) and see how we like that.

When TW is a bit bigger this wrap will be long enough for us to try a handful of back carries too.

But I haven't finished he teal wrap yet, that one is longer so I'm kind of dreading the hemming process, specifically the ironing, but really that's all that's left to do, as it is all trimmed and ready. And it will be handy for a wider variety of carries.

I also finished a few more pocket squares for Bill:



The weather has been so nice lately that we've gone for several walks, it's been lovely! But it's been very bright too, after our first walk I grabbed some gingham out of my stash and whipped up this quick and dirty hat:





Seriously quick and dirty, I think it took me about 15 - 20 minutes total, because I wanted to be able to use it that afternoon. The edges of the brim aren't finished, and it's a bit uneven, but when we took our walk we got several compliments on TW's cuteness. So it can't be that bad.




After out first walk where the ha nearly got blown off by the wind I grabbed some bias tape I had already made up and put together another tether to pin to it so we wouldn't loose it in a sudden gust of wind. (sheer luck that the bias tape I had on had was a matching fabric!)



When we were in Jo-Ann's the other day to pick up some more suspender clips for paci/toy tethers we kinda both fell down in the fat quarter aisle:



The pile on the left are some I like for Mei Tai panels, and the pile on the right are some Bill grabbed for pocket squares. Its ok, they were on sale...
(I see a lot of ironing and sewing in my future!)

Sew what

Sew, um I mean, so, I haven't had as much time as I would like to knit, but I can eek out bits of time to sew, and sewing is so awesome, because even though I don't have a lot of time, I can still get a finished object relatively quickly.

For instance, I made TW's Mei Tai so that I could change out the patterned panels in front; making panels is quick and easy, and fun to pick out the fabrics to match my outfits.



and even more!



I like how I can fold them all up together in a neat little square when I'm not using them.

And one more modeled with cute baby, (I know I said to match my outfits, but sometimes, I can do nothing but clash, I think it’s a SAHM thing)


when I pick out fabrics for the panels, I usually just buy fat quarters, the Jo-Ann's I go to is usually very busy, and while it would be cheaper to buy from the bolt, I would be standing in line forever, I think it's a fair trade off.

So I don't waste any of it, I've made a few tethers...



TW doesn’t really use his paci that often (usually only in the car seat, and when being flown around by his daddy) but it's easier to model the tethers with them. Tethers can be used to attach almost anything to you or something so it can't get tossed or dropped on the floor. like pacis, or toys to keep baby entertained, or even their sun hat in summertime.

They are just strips of home made bias tape with snaps sew on each end to make loops. One loop can be snapped around the item to be tethered and the other used to fasten it in some way. I used a hair tie looped around the handle for his car seat:



or it can be looped into itself around a strap:



or it can be pinned with a safety pin, or you can buy suspender clips and use those to clip it onto items:



I've also been making a few pocket squares/hankies for Bill, he likes to dress up, and is really into the whole male fusion thing, but fancy silk pocket squares are a bit beyond our price range, so while I was picking out fat quarters for the Mei Tai, he picked out a few patterns for pocket squares, they are super easy to make, just trim everything so that it is square (seriously, some of the fat quarters were more like parallelograms hat rectangles, we think our Jo-Anns may have been hiring out the cutting duties to blind monkeys with Parkinson's.) and hem them up!



I have a few more waiting to be ironed, as well as another big project:



I'm going to sew a few wraps for TW and I, it's another way to baby wear, by securing the baby to you using a length of cloth.

I bought two lengths of linen/cotton fabric with sparkles on one side:



I've trimmed them; now all they need is ironing and hemming!

I think I may use the leftover bits I trimmed off to make more panels for the Mei Tai (they are so addictive!)
And I have a few other project in mind as well.