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 :-)

The Tree of Life

I love the imagery and symbolic of the Tree of Life so imagine my delight when Shiney Rocks announced they were going to run a class on how to make a Tree of Life pendant! And at £20 a class, materials included it was becoming fast tempting!

Getting any crafting done with a newborn, let alone getting out of the house to do some crafting, is a major challenge. Luckily I have the best hubby in the world who agreed to babysit while I got away for the evening - not that I had to beg much, he loves his little girl!

The class was brilliant, 2 hours of wire wrapping and some beading, highly therapeutic! The pendant itself was surprisingly easy to make and the result is just stunning.

If I can get myself organised, plans are afoot for a little online shop. I think these would make pretty good sellers and I know I'll certainly enjoy making them!

Here she is at last!

My best creation to date has got to be our lovely daughter, Nimue Rose, born just short of a week past her due date. We think she's gorgeous (well I should hope her daddy does as she's the spitting image of me!) and we're very much in love with the (not so) little miss (she has her daddy's Dutch genes so she was a fairly big baby).

I can't believe she's already nearly a month old, I have no idea where those first few weeks went!

Do you remember my last post and this year's resolution? boy, has that been challenged already! The birth didn't quite go to plan and I've had a lot of regrets and guilt about it even though it was entirely out of my control. Breastfeeding didn't quite go to plan either when our darling daughter obstinately refused, despite our best efforts, to cooperate and I had to make the very difficult decision to stop fighting her and put her on formula. I wasn't quite prepared for the disappointment and the huge amount of guilt I would feel as a result. Rationally, I know it was the right decision to make but on an emotional level, it's a very hard one to process and accept. And I have an inkling this is only the start of the difficult decisions we'll have to make along the way...

Of course, every difficult decision is offset by a gazillion beautiful and precious moments! Every little smile and happy gurgle make my world a happier place :-)

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life...

Happy new year folks!

So new year's day has been and gone and my baby girl still isn't here. My patience is being tested like never before and baby and I are at loggerheads as to when would be an appropriate time for her to make her grand entrance. So in the meantime, I try and keep busy and resurrecting the old blog seems like a good idea.

A new year is always a good time to reflect on the one just gone. You may remember my new year's resolution back then was all about conquering my fears, great and small. On the balance of things, I have done pretty well, tried lots of new things, tried new crafting techniques... But the highlights for me will no doubt have been:
- to learn to drive on the left, with a right hand drive. This summer, I even drove all the way to Windsor all by myself, that was definitely a proud moment.
- to conquer my fear of the dentist... well almost. I've had some really bad experiences with British dental care while living in London which had turned my pre-existing fear of dentists into a proper phobia. When I needed dental treatment, I'd go back to Belgium, a highly impractical solution, but at least I knew the woman there and I trusted her. In April this year I found myself in a proper emergency situation and I just had to take it on the chin and try a local dentist. I am very lucky to have found someone great, who does a good job and who shows amazing patience in the face of my extreme anxiety. I've still managed to faint in his chair on a regular basis but I'm working on that!
- to conquer my fear of needles (the medical kind, I have no problem with knitting or sewing needles!). I hadn't really planned on tackling this phobia of mine but as anyone who's been pregnant will tell you, you're turned into a pin cushion during pregnancy so this particular phobia had to go. I did really well with my first blood tests but at my 12 week scan, things turned sour when the nurse couldn't find my veins and had to try multiple times in different places. After that, the needle phobia was well and truly back on. But isn't it amazing what despair will make you do? As my due date was fast approaching and I really wanted to try every possible method to tease the baby out, I decided to try acupuncture. I had done an attempt a few years back but it hadn't ended well. Yet this time, I managed to sit through the entire session without even feeling faint and I even put myself through a second session. Needless to say, it didn't bring baby out but hey, I've conquered another fear, that's one bonus point!

So what of this year? What will be my new year's resolution? Well, I've decided it's time for me to let go of guilt. I'm so good at guilt-tripping myself and that simply has to stop. Not an easy resolution as I'm about to become a mom and moms always seem to crumble under the weight of guilt - Am I doing this right? Should I let the baby cry? Should I go back to work?... We've all heard it before. So I am setting myself quite a big task... the good thing is if I fail, well, I won't feel guilty about it!

I also really want to get back to more making, I've really missed it these last few months and I'm hoping there will be some time for it in the crazy months that loom ahead. And I'd like to go back to my more regular blogging. I'd set myself a goal of one post a week when I started but I've barely managed half of that in 2012. However, if I don't succeed, I won't make myself feel guilty about it :-)

I'm not planning much else at the moment. My life is about to be turned upside down in a way that I can't quite imagine. This year is definitely a new dawn for me, the start of a new life and it's both exciting and terrifying. So my usual uber organised self is having to step back in favour of a more "wait and see" attitude.

Now to get this baby out...