Two little spring hares

In Belgium, Easter isn't just about chocolate, it's another opportunity for children to get gifts, along with birthdays, Saint Nicholas and Christmas. This has led my hubby to declare that Belgian children are obviously spoilt. So maybe they are... But who am I to stop them?

In keeping with tradition, I wanted to get a little something for my baby girl, if only to mark her very first Easter. But I wanted it to mean something so I decided to make her a gift. 

Easter for us pagans is known as Ostara or Eostre and it celebrates the goddess by the same name. Her symbols were the egg (a fertility symbol) and a hare (as a sign of spring to come) - chocolate eggs and Easter bunnies anyone? So a bunny, or a hare, made perfect sense and I knew I had a pattern in a book I was given during pregnancy: The Home Sewn Nursery.

I got a little ambitious and decided to make two bunnies, a he and a she. That, with a babe in arms, was a bad move! I had to enlist the help of hubby so the bunnies would be finished for Easter and even with the two of us, we were still sewing past midnight to have them ready by morning. To make matters worse, the pattern is unnecessarily complicated in parts and I ended up having to do a lot more hand sewing than I'd planned. 

I used some natural linen for the head and limbs, Tilda fat quarters from my stash for the body and used Sevenberry scraps from my craft room cushions for the details. I couldn't find the right size and colour toy eyes in the sewing shop so I used black buttons for the eyes. 

When we were finished, we decided they both looked very girly so meet Peony and Rosie the little spring hares.

Peony

Rosie

I can't tell whether Nimue liked her gift though she did have a taste of Rosie when she tried to shove her in her mouth earlier. There will be a time when gifts made by mum and dad will be the most amazing thing ever and then there will be a time when handmade stuff just isn't cool. And then in later life, there will come a time when, if they have been kept with care, this kind of keepsake will be treasured immensely. I hope these two little hares will one day be just that. 

All about comfort: speedy nursery makes

In the summer of last year, I'd bought some very cute, vintage looking, flannel fabric to make a spare cover for my maternity pillow but as with everything else, I never got round to it.

When Nimue was diagnosed with silent reflux at four weeks (horrible, horrible, horrible! I'll spare you the details), it became clear we'd be spending quite a bit of time on her feeds. During the day it's no big issue, it just takes a bit of patience but at night, when you have to spend a minimum of an hour each time in the nursing chair, you want to be comfortable. So I've used my fabric to first make a cover for the nursing pillow. A very wise move that's been as in the last few weeks, her reflux isn't so silent anymore and it's been good to have a washable cover on that cushion!

And since I had some fabric leftover after that, I've also made a neck pillow so if we doze off, we don't end up with a crooked neck. I've used a ton of toy filling I had in my stash to stuff the cushion and hey voila, our necks have been taken care of :-)

I didn't have a pattern for either. For the nursing pillow I traced around the cushion and then corrected the lines/angles. For the neck pillow, I dug up an inflatable one that lives in my suitcase and used that as the basis for my pattern. It was all done in about a couple of hours while hubby looked after the little one. Maybe not my best piece of sewing but it has been a real life saver these last few weeks!

Cosy baby knits

I didn't manage to do much crafting during pregnancy. Frustratingly, just when I had the best reason ever to make lots of cute things, my creativity was sapped out of me. I have since learnt that your uterus holds your creative energy apparently so I guess while my womb was very busy making a gorgeous (if I may say so myself!) baby, there wasn't much energy left for other creations.

I did manage to start a knitted sleeping bag however and finished it just a few days before giving birth. I even got round to taking a few pics on my old baby doll (nearly 30 years she is!) but never found the time to blog about it. And yes that doll is massive, it's about the size of a six months old!

I've used a Debbie Bliss pattern, it's super easy to knit. But it still took me months to finish! The pattern calls for a zip but I was worried it might irritate the baby's chin so decided to use some grosgrain ribbon to stiffen the edges and use poppers instead. I've also added a tassel to the hood because, well, why not?

The bag is quite big so Nimue should be able to use it for a while and she's super toasty in it, she loves it. Personally, I think she looks like a little doll in there!

I had a fair bit of yarn left over once I was done with the sleeping bag so in an attempt to distract myself from the fact that my due date had been and gone and I was still without a baby, I started knitting a hat from the same book. I knitted the rib then realised I didn't have the right size needles to carry on. I was going to go needle shopping the next day but of course that morning my waters broke and all our plans got cancelled! 

It's taken me a while again to finish the hat, not because it's a particularly difficult or big project, I've just really struggled to find the time to knit. I'm glad I've finally finished it though, just before the weather gets too hot or her head too big for her to wear it.

As much as I've enjoyed making this, I'm going to take a little break from crafting so I can use the spare time to read some of the baby books I have piled up in my living room. I'm sure it won't take long before the crafting bug gets me again :-)