Growing...

Herbs from seeds...

Beautiful flowers in pots left by the previous occupiers of out little house...

Me...

Making more baby things...

...and doing very little else.

I have become so incredibly lazy the last few days. I know it's down to being pregnant and all that jazz, but I still feel very very guilty about it. Johnny is lovely and tries to encourage me to do just nothing but sleep, but there is so much to do! Granted if the baby were to decide to make an appearance today he would have clothes to wear (all washed and folded and put away in size order!), a bed to sleep in (again all washed and ready to be made up), transportation (both in the form of wheels and seat - but not yet sling), nappies to wear, toys to play with (if he so desired), and a million other things he probably doesn't need. My hospital bag is packed (almost) due to the fact my mum and sister posted me one already made up, I think they were starting to worry I would never get round to sorting it out myself! So in fact there probably isn't all that much to do now...but I feel like there is!! I can't even think of anything off the top of my head, except perhaps little things like a bit of hoovering and clean the bathroom....but I still feel like every moment sat on the sofa watching terrible daytime television and crocheting is a wasted moment!

Well not entirely wasted as this was what I produced from yesterdays sofa lounging...

Approximately half a baby hoodie in red and white stripes...I love the colours and the style of the stripes, although Johnny is calling it the jester hoodie. I got the pattern from this book, that I bought a while ago. I seem to have altered the pattern slightly, unintentionally, but it still seems to be working out OK!

It calls for some duffel style buttons, so I'm planning on making some up out of polymer clay today for it...but I can't decide whether to have stripey red and white, or solid red and white alternately or just plain old red ones...

I have to go out today to post some items, which is wonderful, because it is so beautifully sunny and springlike, and it gives me an excuse to leave the house and enjoy it.

Happy Wednesday xxx

P.S. 4 weeks today til my due date!!

Chocolate and Baby Blankets...

I'm still working on a baby blanket a started a million years ago (well maybe not that long ago, but all the way back here anyway), I knitted up the squares, but well they are not the squarest of squares so I begun to edge them in crochet and then kind of forgot about them! That is until yesterday when Johnny said I was absolutely not allowed to begin on anything else for the baby until that blue blanket was finished! He can be such a meany sometimes. So anyway I continue to edge those squares I did.

All was going well until I discovered that I hadn't started out with white and two shades of blue, but an off-white creamy colour and 2 shades of blue!!! I was distraught but Johnny pulled me through my anguish and attempted to tell me it didn't matter...I'm still not sure it doesn't look a bit silly as the original creamy yarn used in the main blocks looks slightly yellow when positioned next to the more recently purchased white which lines the dark blue, but hey ho, these silly mistakes seem to happen more and more in my pregnant state!

They're still not attached to each other but they are ready to be!! Now only to decide how to do it and in what colour...that could well take another 3 months at least!!

On a completely unrelated note I made the most ridiculously chocolately chocolate cookies on Friday, they are amazing, but the fact that we still have some of the 12 I baked left just goes to show you how intensly chocolately they are!

They are from this book I picked up at a bargain price many years ago, I have made these triple chocolate cookies before but think I forgot how insanely rich they really are! The recipe calls for 90g of milk chocolate 90g of white chocolate and 300g of dark chocolate!!! I didn't even use that much, as I couldn't find any white chocolate that wasn't nestle I used 150g of milk chocolate and as 300g of dark chocolate just seemed crazy I only used 200g!

I indulged in them still warm with some hot chocolate and family tree investigating on Friday afternoon, and lovely it was indeed!

Happy Sunday all...I'm probably going to go and sleep a lot...after weeks of complete inability to sleep due to kicking, overheating and being purely uncomfortable, my body seems to have developed an ability to ignore all these things and has decided all I really need to do is sleep, it could sleep all day and all night if I let it. xxx

Little Blue Houses by the Sea

Just a quick hello today to share with you my latest embroidery hoop...

Little Blue Houses by the Sea

I sketched out the idea whilst waiting for Johnny at the dentists and stitched it up yesterday.

I spent most of my teenage years by the sea, and since all of my grown-up life has been lived so far away from it I miss it terribly.

Happy Friday!!! The weekend is here!!!

Some Zesty Baby Treats...

After the massive closing down sale of my favourite place to by yarn, a couple of months ago, I now have quite a large quantity of lovely expensive rowan yarn to use up. One of my favourite finds was a bag (10 balls in total) of the wonderful milk cotton in, the colour I have just discovered is called, "fruit salad" (I think I love it even more now!). I also have to share with you the fact that those 10 balls of yarn cost a grand total of £11.50!!

Despite the fact that Johnny has some horrible aversion to orange as a colour, I have crocheted both a baby blanket and a baby hat, with the above yarn and I still have more than 5 balls left!!

I used a stitch I hadn't done before, with the blanket..it's very simple double crochet chain double crochet, putting double crochet into the gap where the chain below is, and I think it works really well as a baby blanket because it's nice and light. Then I just did a few rows of double crochet around the edge.

The hat I managed to knock up pretty quickly and easily (whilst delighting in watching Heston cook up incredible wonders!)...working completely out of my head...in about 20 minutes! The only pattern I had for a baby hat in crochet was done flat and then stitched together rather than in rounds, which seemed a bit silly to me, so I just used the basis of my oversized beanies, but made it much much smaller!!

I'm not really quite sure how big a new born baby's head is exactly and some of the hats I've bought for him look scarily huge, but I think I've got it close to right! We'll just have to wait and see I guess...5 weeks today!!

Happy Wednesday xx

Getting Ready...

Here are some shots of my preparations for my new shop...

And some more shots of my finished Little Multi-Coloured Houses embroidery hoop....

I've backed the hoop with some little houses fabric I've had forever in fear of using it because I love it so much!!

That's all for today...I must return to washing all the many many baby things I have been given...not quite sure how many sheets a baby needs...but I'm pretty sure I now most certainly have enough!! I've also been awake most of the night, the baby has taken to head butting me in the ribs, which wakes me up in quite a panic, so hopefully I'll be able to get a little more sleep before attempting any crafting today!

xx

Buttons and Beanies...

Most of yesterday was spent, not sorting out the baby's room as planned, but instead, stitching up some oversized beanies to add to the stock for the new shop.

I intended on selling them last year, as I made up a couple for myself and kept getting asked where I got them from, but it just never really happened. So hopefully they'll still be successful this time round.

The buttons are for a custom order I received yesterday...the smaller ones I am going to make into hair clips.

Unfortunately I'm stuck in the house this morning whilst I await the delivery of our pushchair, which I missed on Friday, if I wasn't waiting I probably wouldn't have any desire to leave the house, but the fact that I'm stuck makes me feel like I really need to go into town and run some errands!!

I'll leave you with a little picture of me modelling the above mentioned beanies!

xx