toy bag

I found some great foam building blocks in a charity shop when Grace was tiny. Now she is big enough to play with them I thought I'd make a nice bag to put them in. The plastic bag we've been keeping them in just isn't safe with an almost crawling baby in the house! I used the corner of an old stained duvet cover and put the pocket on before sewing up the side. It doesn't need a pocket but I've been itching to try out Rae's pleated pocket tutorial. It's so easy, I can't wait for Grace to be big enough to have a use for pockets on her clothes so can make a few more. The only design flaw is that when the draw strings are pulled tight there is a lot of ribbon dangling about for a little crawler to get caught in so it's still not great for unsupervised play.

I wrote this post ages ago and have been trying to get a good photo of the bag ever since. I have given up and taken a photo on yet another gray day. Grace is now crawling like a good un and can get the blocks out of the bag her self.

elderflower and grapefruit cordial

It is the time of year for making elderflower cordial. Normally going out to pick elderflowers is a good excuse to be out in the sun, but this year we picked them in torrential rain covered head to toe in waterproofs. Not quite as much fun. This year I decided to try making coridal with grapefruit for a change. I figured that one grapefruit was equivalent to the 4 lemons that my recipe calls for. Mark and I both agree that it was a worth while experiment and has made lovely cordial. And I made marmalade with the grapefruit pieces rather than throwing them away. I discovered that last year, it is a great time saving way to make marmalade.

Elderflower and grapefruit cordial
One ruby grapefruit
1.5ltr water
1kg sugar
1 bag of elderflowers
55g citric acid
1/2 camden tablet

Bring the water to the boil and dissolve the sugar in the water then let is cool. Once it's cooled a bit stir in the citric acid
Cut the grapefruit up into fine slices - how you'd want it for marmalade
Shake the bugs out of the flowers and tip them and grapefruit into the sugar water. Leave for 24 - 48hrs depending on how much time you have. Give it a stir every now and then.
Strain through a piece of muslin. I usually do this by tying the muslin to the legs of an up turned stool, and leave to drip for a few hours.
Crush the camden tablet and stir into the strained liquid then poor into sterilised bottles.

Camden tablets are used in wine making. They kill the natural yeasts that arrive with the elder flowers and allow you to store the cordial for longer. You don't have to use them but the cordial will only keep for a month or two if you don't.

To make the marmalade
Pick the fruit out of the elderflower mess once it has drained and pick out any big clumps of flowers but leave the rest.
Measure the fruit, mine made 1.5cups
Add 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar to the fruit and boiled until set. Mine took about 20mins but I had cut the grapefruit up very thin.

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

Amelie Me

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!

Rose

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 bag 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!