Birthday preparation

My project this week is to prepare for C's first birthday.  And I have to confess I haven't actually organised a birthday party for her at all.  Such are the breaks for the third child I guess.  She will have a very low key get together here, and then another - slightly larger - party at my parents since we have to be over there for a weekend anyway.

Of course since these are in a couple of weeks, I really should actually do something about it.

Wooden birthday fun

 My project this week was to get the last of C's birthday presents.  A project which went pretty much nowhere until today, when I had to go to the Hospice shop.  I needed to drop some stuff off, and it would be silly not to go inside and check out what was on offer, after all.

 And that is where I found this lovely wooden stacker for $2.  Its quite small, just the right size for a one year old.

C loves to try to put things together already, so I think this will be a real winner.  She loves to pull off her socks and try to put them back on, and she spent a good ten minutes trying to put some clothes on a barbie the other day.  She had no idea how to do it, but she was very focused on trying.

I'm really excited to give her all the birthday presents now, which is good since C turns 1 in less than a fortnight.

Joining up with Op Shop show off this week.

Winter Solstice

Winter solstice was a day of reflection for me this year.  A bit of slowness.  Eating a little less sugar than usual.  Hunkering down, since Mother Nature certainly got the message about winter with a gnarly storm covering the country.

But no pictures, since I couldn't find the camera.  You'll just have to imagine.

Family Life

Memories

My project this week is to print out more photos to put into the girls albums.  I'd really like to put some more on the walls, but since we have just about finished wallpapering the whole house, there is no way DH will let me put holes in our new wallpaper.  So that part of the project will have to wait until our new house is completed - and then I can put up photos to my heart's content.

Mama pads tutorial

I've said previously that these are really easy to make, and they don't really need a tutorial.  But in case you are visually minded, I've put together a step by step of my process.  There are heaps of other really good tutorials out there, so if my method doesn't work for you, just search for one that does.

Materials

PUL - enough for the full shape of the Mama pad, and some smaller scraps

Absorbent material - cotton, bamboo, microfibre, are all good choices

Snaps - either metal or plastic.

Stay dry material - like microfleece (optional).

note: I have Mama pads with both a stay dry layer and without, and to be honest, I don't notice a difference, so feel free to skip that last material if you don't have it.

Cut an hourglass shaped pad (not a squashy rectangle thing like I ended up with) from your absorbent materials.

Note: the size and shape of this is entirely up to you.  You may need to experiment with things like size, number of absorbent layers and shapes until you get something that is comfortable for you.

Using your pad shape, cut a larger hourglass with wings shape from your PUL.  It should be larger all around than your pad.

Cut a scrap of PUL to fit over the widest part of your wingy shape.  You need this as reinforcing for the snaps on the wings, and also to cover the stitching from your pad (scroll down to see what I'm talking about.)

 Note: If you wanted, you could cut two wingy shapes from PUL rather than just using a scrap.  I haven't needed the extra protection, and I'm cheap so I just use a scrap.

Place your absorbent material right side up, and overlock around the edges (this one looks much more hourglass).
Note: I use my overlocker for this but if you don't have one, a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine should do the job equally well

Stitch the pad onto right side of the wingy shape using two straight lines in the middle of the pad lengthwise - its clearer in the next photo.  These should be at approximately the same place as the wings, so that your scrap of PUL will cover them.

 Place your PUL scrap, right side to the wingy shape's wrong side, so that it covers the stitching and will also create two layers of fabric on the wings.

Overlock around the wingy shape.  If the pad gets in the way, you should be able to move it around to overlock the PUL, since it is only attached in the middle.

 Admire your handiwork.

Put snaps on the wings - I'm sorry, I failed and didn't take a photo of this step, but you want to put the snaps as close to the corner of the wings as you can.  I use metal snaps because they are cheap and I don't own a snap press, but plastic snaps would work equally well.

Sneak peek - and an embarrassing revelation about my sewing machine

 This is the front of my faux chenille blanket

 And the cotton flannel side.

I had these fabulous baby blankets my Mother in law gave me when J was born.  But they are too small for cot sheets, or for a wrap (especially for my 9lb newborns!).  So I decided to sew them into a blanket.  I'm about three quarters of the way there.

And now for the embarrassing part.  I went to use my sewing machine the other day to make C's merino top.  I found that the presser foot was not on the machine, thanks no doubt to J, who likes them to get together and go places, or play families etc.  I'd also just read a topic on Sew Mama Sew which described a walking foot.  I thought, what the heck I'll see if any of my feet match that description - and lo and behold one of them does.  I used it for both the pullover top, and the faux chenille blanket and it was fabulous.

So where does the embarrassment fit in? Well I've owned my machine for over 10 years, and I'd always assumed that it didn't have a walking foot because it was old, and walking feet seem to be 'extras', so I'd never really looked properly at my presser feet.  In that time, I have made a rather large number of things that would have benefited from it, including piles of nappies, and all those knitted fabric garments.  Oh well, at least I know what it is now right?

My project this week

Is of a feminine nature.

Now before you get all squeamish on me, let me tell you that Mama pads are fabulous.  Easy to make if you are so inclined, and extremely easy and comfortable to use.

I love mine, which is why my project is to make some more to round out my collection. 

Transformative

Remember when I said that the word for the year is transform? Well I could not have been more right. 

We started looking for a house to buy close to P's school at the beginning of the year.  But then the bank crunched some numbers and told us how much we could borrow.  It was much more than we expected and we were suddenly in a position to buy a section and build our own house.  I found a section in the right place and within a week, we had bought it!

It was meant to be!

And now we've just signed off on our building contract, so in about 6 weeks time our builders will be breaking ground on our new house.  Transformative times indeed.

Yet another pullover top

 Once again, my trusty pullover top pattern has had another go around.  I made one for C for her birthday.  I even managed to get the sleeves out of the bottom of my jersey sleeves - totally hemming free top.

I used the tutorial from Made to add the pink around the neckline, but instead of cotton ribbing, I used some merino offcuts.  When I made this top for J, I found that the cotton rib was too heavy for the merino of the top, and it didn't sit quite right.  It also took much longer than the rest of the top to dry, so I figured that I could apply the same principle with the merino instead.

I really like the way it turned out.

I embellished the top with a couple of little merino stars as well.  I was a bit worried it would look too Christmassy (the top is much more green than the pictures look, the top one is the closest to the colour), but I think I've gotten away with it.

This is really the pattern that keeps on giving - quick, easy and really satisfying.  What's your favourite go to pattern?

UFO week

No, I'm not searching the sky (although we've had so much rain lately that I wouldn't see much anyway).  I'm  trying once again to tame my unruly pile of unfinished objects.

 I need to complete a top for C's birthday

A faux chenille blanket

And *cough* an advent calendar.

More on the one I've already completed in another post.