full of Grace

Grace has a cold and has not been able to sleep, the only way she's been able to get a decent amount of sleep is with one of us holding her. So I have been designing dresses for her and writing blog posts in my mind while I sit in the dark listening to her sound like Darth Vader. This is one of the posts and if she ever sleeps more than 20mins in one go again I might make one of the dresses.

I realized that I posted this on flickr but not here. For most of my pregnancy I kept saying how much I wanted photos of my new voluminous body but somehow never got round to taking many. In the end, I grabbed the tripod, found the remote and snapped a few pics. They are nothing to write home about, poor light and against a plain wall. But I am glad I took them, as two days later Grace was born.

I wanted to use the photos to do something that celebrated my pregnancy. For nine months I watched in fascination as my body changed, then one day (in my case 6 days earlier than I was expecting) I had a little dark eyed bundle in my arms and I was no longer pregnant with no time to acknowledge that passing. I was blessed with an easy pregnancy and thoroughly enjoyed it, perhaps it is because I'm unlikely to be pregnant again that I don't want to forget it.

I've used this inkscape technique before. I used to do pictures like this with actual cut out paper when I was younger so it appeals to me. I tried out lots of different colour combinations, which is much easier to do in Inkscape than in with real paper, I like the heavily textured blue paper but it is far too distracting.
One day I might use the files to craft robo the actual paper and make the real thing!

dress

I've been mulling over how to make a quick dress for Grace for a while now. There are some lovely baby girl dress patterns but I wanted something supper quick as Grace doesn't give me a lot of time. She has a nice fleece dress that decided to copy. I think more baby clothes should be made in fleece, it's warm, stretchy, comes in great colours, doesn't fray and the sick and drool doesn't soak in!

I just traced round the dress to make the pattern, adding a 1.5cm seam allowance when I cut it out. This worked ok but I think to be more accurate I need to include seam allowance in the paper pattern. As it is fleece I decided to cut down on one line of stitching by not giving it a hem, just cut the fabric with pinking shears. I did the same on the front yoke to make it look more intentional.

The yoke is lined with material from an old t-shirt. I was able to save time by using the hem of the t-shirt as the hem of the yolk. The dress is those colours because I am using up my scraps of fleece. The photo doesn't show it but it's purple at the back. I added a couple of flowers to pull it all together (and to give Grace something to play with!).

It was really quick to make, I'll definitely be making another. The only thing I would change is to make the shoulder straps longer. Then I'd be able to move the buttons as she gets bigger and get some extra use out of it.


The colour is a bit off in this photo, but she looks fab in it.

hat update

Here are 2 of my little ladies trying their new hats. Dad loves it so much he wants one so that when he is out pushing Rose in the pram they have matching hats.... he should be careful what he wishes for!

blanky

A project I have had on the go for a while is to make a blanky. I've seen similar things with ribbon around the edge and thought they would be good for little hands to play with. To make it more interesting I wanted to use lots of different texture fabric so I thought I'd try my hand ad some quilting. I knew I wanted it to be small and thought it would be a great way to use up lots of my small scraps of fabric.
I know nothing about quilting. I did find a trick to make nice triangles so thats what I used. Cut lots of squares, draw a line across the diagonal, pin right sides together then sew either side of the line. Cut along your line and there you have it, 2 pairs of triangles.

For some reason I have lots of red fabric and red ribbon. I didn't do anything silly like measure or plan, I guessed a 6cm square would give me a good size triangle, I just went through my fabric cutting one or two squares out of everything I liked. Then I cut the same number of cream squares and made them up into triangles. Once I had done that I laid them out and realized that I had enough for two blankies. I tried to arrange them so that the different fabrics are spread out, then sewed them into strips, then the strips together. Because I was a bit rushed cutting out the squares, Grace was helping by shouting loudly, and a bit hap hazard about sewing them together the whole thing is far from perfect. I have new respect for anyone, like my sister in law, who makes the most perfect and complicated quilted things.

I lined the back with fleece to make it nice and snugly and added the ribbon. I didn't use any batting as I decided it was thick enough. Then I top stitched it following the triangles.
Grace loves them and as we have two, one lives in the nappy and keeps her entertained when we are out. It's also quite absorbent - which is useful!

hat

Despite having a new baby I still have this idea that I can make everyones christmas presents. I am having a good go, but it is slow progress and we are over a week into December already. Today I managed to make this hat for my god daughter. Another fabulously easy pattern by Made by Rae.

I have lots of fleece from previous projects and loved the way these two colours went together, it's a bit different from standard girly pink. Ever since I found out I was going to be an aunt I have been collecting ideas and patterns for kids clothes and toys. It is only now that I am valuing the easy patterns... anything that can be knocked up during nap time is a bonus!

quickie

I ran these trousers up in one of Graces naps! They were really easy to make, I followed this pattern by Made by Rae. I used a smaller seam allowance to give them a bit more room over the big bum cloth nappies and added some length with the lace.

The problem with cloth nappies is that you end up going for trousers the next size up to get the width but then the legs are far too long. As these are so easy, and have plenty of room for customization, I think I'll run a few more up. Assuming Grace ever naps again.....

finished

At last I have finally finished the baby book for Grace. I started it the first day of my maternity leave thinking I'd have at least a week to finish it before she arrived. Little did I know that all the talk of first babies being late wasn't going to apply to Grace, she arrived that night. I think all the bending and stretching to get down on the floor to cut things out helped her on her way.

So after 11 weeks of doing one seam at a time in the breaks when Grace sleeps, I finally finished the book. I wasn't very happy with the book I made for Rose, the pages stuck out form the cover. This time I made the internal pages smaller. Even then it was tight and I had to reduce the thickness of the batting otherwise they would have stuck out.

I am really pleased with the designs, they all worked really well. The butterfly has nice soft corduroy on the back of the wing that lifts up and the dragonfly has cellophane sewn into the wings to make them crinkly.