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I have been a bit slack with posting this week and that is due mainly to the fact that I have been sick. My good old friend Mr. Carpal Tunnel has kept me awake most nights in horrific pain and on top of that I am apparently 'pre-fainting' a number of times a day (pre-fainting is fainting without the blackout, pretty much).
They suspect I just have a nasty virus seeing as my blood pressure is fine (and I usually pre-faint while sitting down lol), but just to be on the safe side they are going to strap me up to a heart monitor for 24 hours next week to make sure there is nothing funky going on there. Good times, good times.
Today I feel pretty good though! I managed to get a straight 4 hours sleep before being woken up by the pain in my hands, which is about 3 hours longer than I had been getting. On Monday I have an appointment with a hand therapist as they suspect I need splints since the pain moves into my arms of a night. Can it get any better?!? lol
At least the baby is nice and healthy and that is the main thing. Here is a picture of us from this morning:
I had big plans this week to make good progress on the nursery, but unfortunately I managed to do very little. I have, however, been doing some work on some craft projects so I might post about those a little later on.
Last Sunday I started my Christmas Baking as our Thursday night craft group decided they wanted to decorate gingerbread people as something to do for a bit of fun.
To get started, we firstly made up more royal icing than 5 people could ever hope to get through, using the recipe below:
Royal Icing
Ingredients:
2 egg whites
2 tspns of lemon juice
3 cups of icing sugar
Method:
Beat the egg whites and lemon until soft peaks form. Stir in icing sugar until combined well.
Easy peasy! You must remember, however to keep the icing covered or else it will spoil. We just laid a piece of gladwrap over the top of the icing (so the icing and the gladwrap were touching) to stop it from drying out.
I must say, that decorating the gingerbread was a LOT of fun and somehow between all of the coffee drunk and the giggles had, we actually managed to accomplish a fair amount.
Here is a picture of the gingerbread people Amber and Claire decorated:
And the ones decorated by Jess (check out the one clearly on drugs in the bottom row!):
And Kelly's lovely little creations (she was the winner of the 'best try' badge, although we thought she did a lovely job!):
And finally, the ones I did. Although they don't have any eyes yet because I didn't want their eyes to be out of proportion to their body and I was too lazy to mix up some brown icing. That's a job for tomorrow!:
By the time we finished, we had managed to cover the entire trestle table. Here is a picture of them all together, drying:
I have a feeling that this may become a yearly craft activity as everyone really got into the spirit of things and enjoyed themselves.
I am off to put together the gingerbread houses now, but something tells me it isn't going to be nearly as fun doing it by myself!
Only 10 weeks to go and surprisingly it is still all a bit surreal despite getting fatter and fatter with each passing day! Here is the photo from this morning:
This week we had a checkup and while the baby is still measuring a little bit small for how far along we are, it is nothing to be worried about.
Although all was good in baby land, the mum isn't doing so well. I have carpal tunnel in all fingers on both my hands! But I tell you what, carpal tunnel, if you think that you're going to slow me down any then you're in for one hell of a shock!
Next week is our last pre-natal class which I am kind of glad about as I have a million things to do and not enough time! I am hoping to focus a bit on getting things ready for the nursery in this coming week, so I will be sure to post about all that action!
At last it is time for me to share with you my very first tutorial - How to make a hooded towel!
I have refined the process a bit since my first attempt at making one, so you should be able to get this whole project completed in under an hour.
You will need:
A bath sheet cut into two squares:
- One square measuring 34 inches x 34 inches
- Another square measuring 10 inches x 10 inches
A piece of coordinating material (ideally with a pattern that you can sew around - see step 10 for an explanation as to why this is important) at least 34 inches x 44inches. You will need to cut the following from this material:
- One square measuring 34 inches x 34 inches
- Another square measuring 10 inches x 10 inches
Instructions:
1. Firstly, take the small material squares (10 inches x 10 inches) and cut them both along the diagonal so that you are left with the triangles to make the hood (see below). Note that you will only need two triangles - one in the towel material and one in the coordinating material so the other two can be discarded:
2. Take the two triangle pieces and with right sides together, pin the long edge. Sew together using a seam allowance of 3/8 of an inch:
3. With an iron, press the triangle so that the right sides of the material are facing out.
4. Next, sew a straight seam along the long edge of the triangle approximately 2 millimeters in from the edge. This is to give it a more 'finished' appearance. You will end up with something that looks like this:
5. Place the triangle on the corner of the towel with the right sides of the towel touching. Lay the piece of coordinating fabric over the top, so that the right sides of the coordinating materials are also touching. In the photo below I have pulled back the corner of the coordinating material just so you can see how it should look:
6. Pin the edges of the towel together and sew around all four edges using a seam allowance of 3/8 of an inch, making sure to leave an opening so that you can turn the towel in the right way later on.
7. Once the edges are sewn together, you will need to round off the top of the hood to ensure that your baby doesn't look like an elf when wearing it. I usually draw a line with air erasable marker, sew along that line and then cut the non-required material roughly 3/8 of an inch above the line:
8. Turn the towel in the right way and pin the opening of the towel closed:
9. Press all four sides with an iron before sewing a seam approximately 2 millimeters in from the edge around all edges. I usually run this seam into the seam that we sewed along the long edge of the hood triangle, as in the picture below:
10. You may notice that when you hold up the towel by the hood, the weight of the toweling fabric causes the materials to pull apart and look as though it is no longer square (you can see an example of this when I blogged about the first towel I made).
In order to prevent this, you will need to sew around the pattern on your coordinating material at random intervals as a means to adhere the two layers together, which is why it is important that you have selected a fabric with a pattern which will allow you to do this.
On this particular towel, I sewed around 8 of the 'splotches' to stop the towel from dropping. I usually like to draw a line around the pattern I am sewing with an air erasable marker so that I have a guide for where I need to sew. I also like to pin around the area to stop any movement:
11. Once you have completed the above step, trim your threads and ensure you have removed all pins. You will then be finished!
Hopefully these steps worked for you. If you have any questions or find any of the steps unclear, please let me know!
Happy sewing!
Today I made enough money for the pram through the selling of my PDA on ebay - Hooray!! To be honest, I actually ended up making quite a bit MORE than we actually needed:
I figure with the extra $100 or so I will also be able to buy a sheepskin liner too. We will be holding off buying the pram until after Christmas now, in case we are able to find it cheaper in the after Christmas sales.
One particularly good thing is that due to a combination of bad weather and having other things on, we didn't ever get around to having our garage sale. So now, when we do finally get around to having it, we will be able to put that money towards something else... like air conditioning. Oh sweet, sweet air conditioning.
Anyway, I just thought you would like to know that we finally made the target and so Darth will be cruising around in a super pimped-out pram once he or she arrives!
When we first found out I was pregnant we started looking around for some nursery decorating ideas and stumbled across this owl mobile on the Craft Schmaft website. I was in love!
At that time the pattern wasn't available, so I bought a pair of socks ready to have a crack at making it myself. Unfortunately I couldn't find another pair of socks that matched the first pair!
Fast forward a couple of months and a new colour (blue) was introduced into our nursery colour scheme, which opened up an array of colour options for the second sock choice. Last weekend I found a pack of socks with 5 pairs in it (all with varying shades of blue), which were perfect for making the other owls.
I went back to the Craft Schmaft website to take another look at the mobile before attempting to make it and was incredibly surprised to find that the pattern was now available! In the interest of supporting small Australian businesses, I bought the pattern straight away.
I was really impressed with the promptness of receiving the pattern via email and was even more impressed with how easy the instructions were to follow. Here is a picture of the owls I have made so far:
Now you may be wondering why I have only made 3 owls and not the 4. Well, to be honest, I can't find the other striped sock! I have searched high and low for it and have come up empty handed *sigh*. I am going to have a big clean up and another hunt around today, so hopefully I find it this time. I can't wait to see the finished project hanging from the nursery roof!
I had big plans this week to make good progress on the nursery, but unfortunately I managed to do very little. I have, however, been doing some work on some craft projects so I might post about those a little later on.
