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Yup, that is right people... I am taking a temporary break from my blog.
Why you may ask? Well, this is why:
Nope, it's not because of my little man. See my hands? Well they are (for want of a better word), screwed.
I started having hand problems when I was 31 weeks pregnant. First I got carpal tunnel, then I got tendinitis. While the carpal tunnel has almost disappeared, the tendinitis has only gotten worse.
A couple of days ago, my hands got so bad that I could barely pick up our son so I booked in for an appointment with the hand therapist. As a result I now need to wear splints on both hands for around 6 weeks *sigh*.
As I am sure you can imagine, wearing the splints full time is going to be pretty annoying. I am finding that I have to learn new ways of doing things and that makes me slow... oh so incredibly slow.
With Easter coming up I thought it would provide a great opportunity to take a break, work on some designs and then resume fresh upon my return. I am thinking I will be back blogging on April the 11th, so it's really not too big a break.
I hope you all have a wonderful Easter and that you drop by to see what I've been working on in a couple of weeks time!
So, a while back we started making a raised vegetable garden. Due to the weather being either too hot, too cold or Matty and I simply wanting to spend time together rather than working on house stuff, the garden still isn't planted. The boxes are, however, filled and ready to go:
Now I said I would show you the process I used to fill up the boxes, but lets face it.. it really isn't that hard. We popped in some soil, some bags of poop and some dynamic lifter and it's all ready to go. It's a shame that the vegetable seeds aren't!
The last time you saw the seeds they looked like this:
Now they look like this:
What happened you may ask? Well, it got cold... so I cranked the central heating and fried the lettuce and the snow peas as they were sitting right next to the vent lol.
I am not overly concerned though as they are still 'in season', so I can just do a new lot! Remember that this is my year for working out what does and doesn't work, so if we end up with no vegetables at all that is fine.
Lesson number 1 : Don't put your seeds near the heating vent if you have intentions of turning it on!
After making the tag blanket yesterday, I really wanted to make something else using the charm squares... so I came up with this:
What is it you might ask? Well, it's a game of naughts and crosses of course lol:
Can you tell how awful the weather is at the moment with this horrible lighting in these photos! I will try and take better photos later on.
I must admit that I'm not really sure what I am going to do with it, but it was fun and quick and easy to make. I am thinking I should make a little bag out of the remaining matching charm squares, to store the 'X' and 'O' pieces in. I am also thinking I could spice it up further by replacing the 'X' and 'O' pieces with cars and buses instead.
Perhaps this is the first item in my Etsy store (I'm sure there is an overwhelming demand for these lol)? Perhaps it is destined to sit in the back of the cupboard? Who knows!
Last week I bought a packet of cute little charm squares with the intentions of making this tag blanket. Unfortunately, as you may recall, when I opened the charm squares up I was a tad disappointed to find that the material was not all the same theme. So I had to go back to the patchwork shop and buy another packet so that I could make the blanket (oh, and what a hardship that was!)
I actually started the blanket last week, but you know how it is... I got part way through it before another shiny craft project caught my eye and the charm squares were left half sewn together on the craft table.
This morning I thought that I really should get my act together and finish off some of the projects I have underway at the moment, so out came the charm squares once again.
The longest part of this entire project was cutting and pinning the ribbons. I decided to make them a bit shorter than suggested in the tutorial, so I ended up having to cut some of the length of the ribbon off once they were pinned. Here is a picture of the blanket ready to sew:
I chose to use Minky for the back of the blanket as I had always had a fascination with it taking every opportunity to run my hands over the nice soft fabric in all of the quilting shops. This was, however, the first time I'd sewn with it.
I had never realised how stretchy it was until I went to pin it to the quilting fabric, then I started to panic. When you're sewing with stretch fabric, it is easy to sew right back to your starting point only to find that the fabric has been stretched too far and as a result, you end up with a pucker and need to unpick it all and start again.
As I don't have as much spare time on my hands these days as I once did, I needed to make sure the Minky didn't pucker. So, I pinned it to the quilting fabric with about 75 pins. While this might seem like a bit of overkill, the Minky didn't pucker.
To finish the blanket off, I simply ran a top seam around the outside roughly 3mm's in from the edge:
All up I think this blanket would have taken roughly 30 minutes to make, so it would be a great gift for someone having a baby!
This last week has passed a little slower. I'm guessing that is because there is only 2 hours between each feed at the moment. I am hoping that this is just a growth spurt and it will pass, because it is positively exhausting.
Here is the 5 week photo of our son wearing the romper I made for Matty, who is an avid gamer:
The things I have learned this week:
White is great when you have children! - Yes, I might be mad saying this and I certainly thought my step mother was mad when she bought me a white dressing gown for Christmas knowing that there was a baby on the way, but seriously, the amount of times I've looked at myself in the mirror and said "OMG.. I have dried poo on me!" is bordering on ridiculous. If my dressing gown were any other colour, who knows how much dried poo I'd have on me and how long it would be there for!
It would be so easy to become, well, a 'slob' - There are times that I would rather stay in bed than get up and have a shower before Matty goes to work, but I know that if that happens it could be a while until I get a shower (If at all). So I force myself to get up and have one rather than stay in bed getting the 10 minutes of interrupted sleep I'll have if I don't.
I also try to make sure that I only wear tracksuit pants once a week and try to dress nice for the rest of the time. Just because I'm at home, it doesn't mean that I can stop looking after myself. If I feel good (by showering and dressing nice) then the whole day seems to flow a lot better. I also find that I don't eat nearly as much crap!
It would be so easy to sit around all day in my trackies, unshowered and eating bad, but I hope that never happens to me.
Feeding doesn't have to dictate your life - Two hourly, three hourly, four hourly or five hourly.. it's definitely going to have to happen. I was finding that I was timing things to occur between feeds, which meant that I could only go out for a maximum of an hour and a half before I had to head home to feed again. It doesn't have to be that way... which leads me to my next point.
Parents Rooms are a fantastic invention - I have fed in a couple of parents rooms this week and they have been great, offering up to date facilities and private quarters for feeding. It also means that I can stay out for the whole day, yet still feed the baby.This week is weigh-in week, so it will be great to see how much he has put on. He is a real little porker and is growing right before our very eyes. If only there were some way to slow it down just a tad!
Remember how I was designing the Redwork Christmas Quilt? Well I worked on it a bit while I was in labour and have continued working on it between other projects since our son was born. Here is how it is currently looking:
While I am generally happy with the design, I have decided to change it a little. The hearts in the border... well, they are going. There are a couple of reasons for this change: - I think the blocks will look too busy when put together with Christmas quilting material; and
- The hearts are a bit too "girly" and were only included in the original design because I thought I was having a girl...turns out I was wrong!
Anyway, I am pleased with how it is turning out and have decided that the quilt will consist of 9 blocks in total. I am hoping that I will be able to finish off the first square this weekend, which means I really, really need to get my act together and design that second block!
Lately I have been consumed with thinking of ways that I can generate money, so that come next February I don't have to leave our little man to go back to work full-time. Although it seems a while of now, we all know how fast it is going to come around.
So, as I mentioned in a previous post, I have been thinking about opening up an Etsy store. I am pleased to announce that I am going to commence working on items to sell in the shop this coming weekend - yay!
I am aiming to start off incredibly small with approximately 5 items in the store and go from there. As if to spur me along, my horoscope from today said that I should channel my creative energy as there is money to be made from a hobby lol. I hope they are right!
When I say I need to think of ways that I can generate money, I am not only thinking of ways to get my hands on some cold, hard cash, but also of ways that I can either spend less money or obtain items of value so that I don't need to spend so much.
For a while now I have been a member of the Opinions Paid site, completing surveys in return for 'zoints' which can then be exchanged for vouchers in their shop. Although it takes a while to accumulate enough zoints for a voucher (you need roughly 2300 zoints), I have recently earned enough to obtain a $20 coles/myer voucher. It might not seem like much, but it is $20 of 'free' money and everyone loves 'free' money!
I am also planning on using my Simple Savings membership to look at ways to reduce our spending. This site is excellent as it brings together a community of like-minded individuals who share tips on ways in which money can be saved. We have already saved a bucket load of money by implementing some of the tips, but I think we could save even more!
Finally, I have been inspired by a recent post over at The Life and Times of an Ordinary Girl blog, to look at ways in which to generate income via my blog. While I was not overly keen to do this when I initially set up my blog, I am coming around a bit now - especially if it means I can stay home and spend more time with our son.
Nope, it's not because of my little man. See my hands? Well they are (for want of a better word), screwed.
