More stitching and only a little bitching…

Busy fingers in attempts to drown out noise of screaming baby with the clack clack clack of needles…

Limited success on the drowning out front, but great success on the creativity front.

This mobile was so much fun to make. It feels a little bit ‘Blue Peter’ in that it uses up old buttons, a wire coat hanger and scraps of fabric. All that’s missing is the washing up liquid bottle…

 

 

 

Also finished off this scrummy little vest for my new nephew, Harry. That kind of name requires vintagey-looking buttons and a homespun look about him, don’t you think?…

My little madam has been a little monster for most of the day – oh, please, let’s put our lovely daughter in a carseat for four hours to go meet Harry. That will be just splendid.

Frankly, I could leave her in a lay-by and no one would know. Apart from the fact that I’ve just told the internet.

If anyone finds a moody, but incredibly well-dressed, baby somewhere off the M1 tonight, she’ll more than likely answer to ‘Tilly’. By screaming.

Stitching and not too much bitching

Oh it is so very satisfying being creative.

Does that sound nauseating?? I mean it in its most sincere way.

 

A little knitted picnic for my 6 year old goddaughter’s birthday. The basket was a post-Easter sale find at Waitrose – the sum total of charity shop yarn and basket was about £12. Hoorah.

Patterns found on many and various websites including:

Sandwiches adapted from Jean Greenhowe here.

Knitted doughnut here.

Knitted strawberries here.

Pie slices and battenburg from this lovely little tome of patterns.

And cupcake pattern purchased from the GORGEOUS Little Cotton Rabbits.

The exception of the creativity came in the form of the SCRUMPTIOUS lemon meringue pie made for us by the gorgeous Emily and Emilie (one cousin, one friend) . The happy travellers made a very generous but entirely uneventful stop on their world tour of travelling extravaganza to sunny St Albans and enjoyed the delights of a home kitchen, mixing up mac’n’cheese, pancakes, cookies and suchlike. The highlight of their trip was the daily pooping escapade of my delightful daughter and endless episodes of Friends.

The fun never stops around here.

New Vogue Patterns

Love the glorious neckline of the jacket on this fabulous Badgley Mischka.

Can’t work out if this is gorgeous and chic or ‘old lady in Savannah’…

Whereas this is FABULOUS in a Desperate Housewives kind of way and.... POCKETS!!

These are interesting with midriff options…

And then the glorious Vintage Vogue… OH MY GOODNESS CHECK OUT THE METERAGE.... far too much fabric to justify for any but the most SPLENDID event…but that skirt is FABULOUS

And then the collar... oh my goodness the collar...

And finally, there’s just the fabulously high-fashion and fabulously bonkers jumpsuit!

 

Get thee sewing my ladies, get thee stitching!

In the wee small hours of the morning

I had a realisation.

I guess you could call it *the* realisation.

I looked at my sleeping daughter and had ‘the moment’. She will be four months old this weekend, and it has taken me this long to feel ‘it’.

The much talked about.

The BOND.

That amazing, overwhelming, innate radiance that you *should* feel the minute they put the baby in your exhausted post-labour arms.

I’ve spent the last four months in a ‘methinks the lady doth protest too much’ state of affairs, proudly telling anyone who would listen that I was FINE with the lack of feeling and simply patiently waiting for the moment to come. In truth, I had horrendous fears of simply never feeling ‘it’… Maybe some people just ‘have’ kids. Maybe some people don’t want to smother their child in love and adoration and are happy just having a small, diaper-wearing buddy around the house. Maybe the absence was all I was going to have.

And I can’t tell you what changed.

To others in the same situation, I don’t have a magic formula to what makes it better. I can just say that after a feed at O Dark Thirty O’Clock last week, I looked at the sleeping baby in the cot and my stomach went ablaze. I don’t know about butterflies…. there were fire-breathing dragons in my abdomen and I suddenly realised that I LOVED MY CHILD. I would throw myself in front of any thing, any one, any anything to make sure she comes to no harm.

And so I smiled, kissed her forehead and went back to bed.

And I’ve not looked back since.

The relief is extraordinary.

But the feeling is even better.