wordless weekend

(I decided to join in wordless weekends over at Little Munchkins blog.
Hope your weekend was as good as ours)

stenciling

Recently I had a go at stenciling on a few singlets as a present for a friends new bub. Unfortunately I forgot to take photos, so here are a few I made up last night for my babes.

They are a bit fuzzy around the edges, but pretty cute all the same.

And what do you think about the boy?
Hasn't he grow and isn't he just so kissable!

She's pretty cute too...absolutely adorable.
Spoken like a true mother.

By the way, this is stenciling using the Freezer paper method.
So simple to do.
If you are unfamiliar with the method, just google it and I'm sure you will come up with something useful. Sorry, I don't have the time to add in links at the moment.
Or ask me a question if you are unsure and I will try and answer it later.

cleaning silver

So I may be the last person to hear of this method of cleaning silver, but in case I'm not, I would like to share it with you! I found some old jewelery of mine (photo above) given to me by my parents back when I was 18, and it was all black and tarnished. Here's how I cleaned it:

Line a bucket with aluminium foil.
Place the silver on top.
Add 6 cups of boiling water mixed with 6 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda.
Soak the silver until bubbles begin to rise.
Fish out the silver, rinse very well and dry with a soft cloth.

And there you have it, so easy and it works a treat! Obviously you can reduce the quantity of water and bicarb according to how much silver you are cleaning. I used 1 cup of water and 1 teaspoon of bicarb.

little by little

Most of my sewing use to be done in the evenings once the girls were in bed, but since having a newborn in the house again, evenings just aren't the best. That seems to be Jude's more unsettled time, and I don't have the energy to stay up as late as I use to. I end up going to bed with him most of the time.


These pajama pants are some I sewed for myself (the night before I went in to labour), but didn't get around to putting elastic in. They now have elastic and are super comfy to wear!


I have a bunch of organic hemp and bamboo fleece sitting in the sewing room waiting to be turned into these fitted nappies. This is my next sewing task, but I can see that they will take forever to make!

And a simple scarf is on my needles. The wool is called 'sorbet' by Moda Vera and is a beautiful merino wool in amazing colours. I am loving the texture!

thankyou

Thankyou all so much for the hearty congratulations and warm welcomes for little Jude.
We are so grateful for all the kind messages each of you left.

As you can tell, I haven't had much time to spare for blogging. We are too busy surviving and sitting around marveling at the miracle of a new babe.
God truly is amazing.

I have been blessed that Luke is working from home a lot these days.
Means I can have a shower while someone listens out for the baby!
Lots of father and son bonding happening, which is beautiful to see.

The girls think he is just the most beautiful baby ever, and the only disappointment is that he sleeps so much.


I am learning that taking a decent photo of three children at once is much harder than you think. This photo is about as good as it gets.

Surprisingly we are all doing well, and three isn't as big a shock as I imagined it would be. I still think going from none to one child is the hardest adjustment to make.
Jude is just such a darling. I can see that all my sewing and knitting is going to be put on hold for a while, while we enjoy the newborn days of this precious little boy.

Jude

Our beautiful baby boy was born at home last Sunday.

Jude Lucas
3.96kg, 8lb 12oz
2.28pm

He is doing so well and is such a sweet settled baby.
The girls think he is amazing.
We are all so in love.
How lovely it is to have a son!
I will write more when things settle down.

denim pinny

So we couldn't just send one girl off to church with a new dress...could we? Especially when this beautiful piece of denim cries out every time I enter the sewing (junk) room 'sew me! sew me!'. So I stayed up a little too late last night and made this one for Maeve. Her response this morning when she saw it hanging on the door was 'Ooohh, that's so tuuute (cute)!' Totally worth it, this girl melts my heart.
Pattern is another Ottobre 1/08. I figure if you spend all the money on the subscription, you may as well get your moneys worth by sewing as many patterns as you can trace. This is the 'Deer dress' which I have made before here. I just lengthened it by a fair chunk, and added pockets...because what two year old doesn't love pockets. I find Ottobre's patterns run really wide, so I often end up altering them for my girls. This is still the same size as the one I made back in September, just a lot longer.

sunday best

Grace has been eating so much lately and growing like a weed. Needless to say, nothing from last Winter fits and she has been in desperate need of new clothes. This dress is one she picked out from Ottobre 4/07 a year ago, which I kept putting off making it as it wasn't really my style and looked rather fiddly to sew.
A couple of months back I finally found the perfect corduroy to sew it with, bit the bullet and pieced it together. For some reason it just looked really blah, so it was left hanging unworn until last week. I decided it needed a little red velvet ribbon, some cream lace and a brooch to bring it to life...much happier this time round, and she thinks it is beautiful. Now she actually has something decent to wear come Sunday, and the morning rush for church is on.
Happy mother, happy daughter, expanded wardrobe.

dye experiment

A few weeks ago I had had a go at dyeing some wool, something I haven't tried before.

I found some lemon coloured baby wool going cheap at $1 ball. Didn't really like the colour, so thought I would see how it turned out dyed.

I wrapped it around a big baking pan, put an elastic band in the middle to hold it all together, then dipped one end in some yellow dye and the other end in some red. I also did a couple of plain red balls for contrast.

Popped it out in the sun to dry.

Got out the trusty wool winder and turned it into balls.

Then knitted it into another Vintage pixie cap and a pair of pants.
Pants are from a Patons baby knit book. They are the newborn size, but turned out completely massive. My tension seemed fine, so the pattern must just run big. By the time my baby fits these, it will probably be too hot to wear them. I was hoping they would suit either a girl or boy, but the more I look at them I think they are definitely on the feminine side.

I changed the pattern slightly for the pixie cap and did rib around the face instead of garter stitch. It seemed to pull it all in a bit better.
It was interesting to see how the wool knitted up. It looks like tiger stripes, not at all how I imagined. I think for baby knitting it would be better to dye the wool in smaller sections rather than two big chunks like I did. Still happy with the results though. If I end up with a big chunky girl, we may get some use out of this outfit!

baby knits

So my new found love with knitting continues. These ones I finished a month or so ago, a newborn size cross over cardigan and a pixie bonnet.
Knitted with beautifully soft Shepherd baby wool.

Jacket pattern is from Cleckheaton.
This book has the most beautiful knits for little ones.

The Vintage Pixie Cap pattern came from here ('free patterns' menu on right).
I do apologise for the freaky looking doll model, but I have no baby to model it on yet!
We are slowly getting ready for this baby, still a lot to be done. All I feel like doing is sitting around knitting, but that is going to have to stop soon, there is so much to be sorted around the house, baby clothes to be washed and birth preparations to be made.
Only one month to go now!