Introducing...

A few things I have learnt over the past 4 weeks:

• Going a week beyond due date was not comfortable and I do not wish it upon anybody!
• Giving birth naturally is something I almost have no words for. I feel such an overwhelming  sense of achievement whenever I think about those 7 and a 1/2 hours.
• I feel very lucky that labour passed quickly and without any complications or drugs - we did not plan this and still cannot believe I did it on my own.
• Being a teacher to up to 18 primary school aged ESL students did NOT nearly prepare me for life with a newborn. Yes she is totally amazing, perfect and I am utterly smitten ...but boy it is hard work.
• My confidence as a first time mummy is growing daily, and I couldn't be happier to put the emotional whirlwind that was the first fortnight behind me. 
• Eve is one lucky little lady to have such a confident and fun daddy, and I am so grateful for his ability and willingness to parent our daughter as an 'equal' alongside me ♥♥
• Watching Eve's content milk-drunk face and listening to her gurgling coos makes for the BEST kind of entertainment. Thank goodness we have a Magic TV box and we record all our fav shows, as we find ourself realising entire fave tv episodes have finished without us really having any idea what happened.
• The love I have for our Evie Bear is undeniably the best type in the world!

She's stirring after her morning sleep, better go get her bottle ready.

♥♥♥

afternoon rain

DIY boppy pillow

It was mighty hard to restrain myself from going out and buying a Boppy pillow but... I am glad I did as this project has kept me busy during week 39 of pregnancy. It's been an absolute shite week to put it mildly. Mostly I'm just not sleeping properly, fun hormones raging, crazy heartburn and reflux lingers without breaks and not knowing when she could make her arrival (will it be today? tomorrow? in 14 days?) ready for our little peanut to arrive. Following such moments of complete ICK! I'm trying to stay positive and be crafty.

I have sewn an internal pillow and two covers using this cover pattern from A Load of Craft. It's a fairly straight forward pattern. I made sure the internal pillow itself had no zip and sewed the edge using a 1" seam allowance, instead of the 1/4" suggested, making it slightly smaller than the covers. 

This patchwork cover is my favourite I think. Fabric charm pack 'Oh Deer!' by Moda and the backing is a snuggly minky in cream from Spotlight.

Very impressed by Spotlight's fabric range these days. The woodland print is a thick cotton drill with brown minky backing.

Your pillow is ready, so come on baby!!! 

Pre-baby maternity leave pics

Testing out the Blogger app.

indoor bulb update

It's gone to plan! My indoor hyacinths have started blooming... all a week before our little girl's due date. Now it's just a waiting game... and quite an uncomfortable one at that.

♥♥♥

baby shower

Two very lovely friends organised my Baby Shower 10 weeks ago. I have lots of photos but I'm aware that not everyone enjoys having their photo plastered all over the internet so I'll share food and shower gifts instead. It was a fab afternoon!

DIY baby capsule liner

So, we hired a rather unsightly Safe N Sound Safety Car Capsule last week. Apparently it is Australia's safest capsule so we went with it. I didn't realise how uncomfortable the existing velour liner was, nor how ugly it was until I took it home. After an intensive search session for online patterns all I could find were some eBay covers asking $50+ aaaand funnily enough multiple baby forums where lots of mums complained of the sheer ick-factor of the capsule :S

So I got to work, and took pics along the way (iPhone quality, sorry) to remind me of the making process (I have a few requests already from friends!) and for any crafty mammas out there wanting to have a try at making their own. I'm not putting up pattern pieces to enlarge or anything, you just trace around the 3 parts and make sure you add an extra 1/2 inch around all sides for the seam allowance.

1 The not so pretty beginning. 2 Material from stash. 

3 Trace three pattern pieces. 4 Cut quilt wadding for all three pieces. 

5 Cut backing and top fabric using pattern pieces. 6 Cut straight lines using a rotary cutter.

7 Assemble in order a) wadding b) top fabric c) backing fabric and pin. 8 Sew around edges.

9 Snip all rounded corner edges. 10 Turn all three pieces in right way and pin.

11 & 12 Pin some more then sew 1/4 inches in to create a neat edge.

13 Match up original liner, trace all seatbelt gaps and sew around all. 

14 Line up the three pieces over original liner and pin where the two seams need to be sewn. 

15 Sew up the two seams at the back. 16 Use a zigzag stitch along those nasty fraying edges.

17 & 18 Make a sweet corduroy bow or two like this.

Done! I think it's pretty cute and so much more snuggly. 

Despite a few unsightly seams I couldn't be happier!

♥♥♥♥♥

36 weeks pregnant

Mark was a complete trooper and took some great maternity shots last weekend. I took a few happy hours editing them in Phososcape, and now more than ever can hardly wait for the arrival of our baby to obsess over taking a billion photos of her ever 2 minutes.

hats for baby

Cold days & nights + maternity leave + crazy strong nesting urges = out came the (dusty!) knitting needles & crochet hooks.

It has been a very long time since any motivation to craft up a storm has hit me. It is great having it back! It's funny how knit and crochet stitch lingo comes back after all this time away. Ravelry has been keeping me busy - SO many free cute baby patterns to peruse and choose from. 

Currently my favourite yarn is without a doubt Moda Vera Beetle. It is super soft and extraordinarily easy to knit with.

♥♥♥

our little girl's nursery

Hello.

I've been neglecting this little blog of late. I am not feeling much motivation to take many photos (I'm saving my camera battery for more special occasions you could say!), find myself using up any extra energy to work in the garden, clean spaces I've never known needed cleaning and attend all those hospital appointments.... all in preparation for our little bean's arrival sometime in the next 5 weeks (YIKES!!!).

We have been slowly plodding away on the nursery. Just waiting on the two big essential items - the cot and change table, then it's completo.

We have gone for neutrals, primary brights with a vintage and wooden toy appearing here and there. 

Now that I am on maternity leave I find myself wasting time admiring the sweet things I have collected or been given over the years with the hope that they would one day appear in our baby's room.

These four little friends are eagerly waiting our baby's arrival on her mantle piece.  A few years ago I made them during my softie sewing and crochetting days, however they were eventually moved into a cupboard in the spare room. To think that they will soon have a small owner with little hands to drag them around the house makes me all kinds of happy ♥

The ever helpful Lucy, overseeing the hanging of onesies, jumpsuits and seriously small outfits.

The mobile is up. After debating the colour scheme we went with primary colours. We are both happy with how it turned out.

 ♥♥♥♥♥

chillies, bulbs and bottles...

Mark's herb bed is full of the brightest (and HOTTEST!) orange chillies we have ever laid our eyes on. He has high hopes of salting some and making chilli oil out of the rest. The veggie garden seriously need some work one of these days. Soon. There's just not enough time on weekends, and not enough energy in my baby-growing body.

The dining table is yet again (see last years here and here) laden with pots of forced hyacinth bulbs, although not quite as many as the previous 2 years. I'm sticking to purely growing hyacinths indoors as I have had the most success with them in the past, plus they are just so pretty and bright. Looking forward to watching them grow as Adelaide's cold days wear on.

My new bulb garden is coming along nicely (photos to come soon). All 400 or so bulbs (I know - a little nuts right?!) have been planted. The muscaris and last years daffodil sprouts have already emerged!

Autumn is such a nice season!

 ♥♥♥♥♥

around the place

2012 was a superb season for citrus. One of my pregnancy food crushes has been oranges, and more recently grapefruit segments dipped into raw sugar. Soo good. Not so good for heartburn and indigestion tho'! 

Tiny succulent puppies (I'm sure I didn't just make that term up referring to baby succulents) found homes in my tiny glass jar collection.

Today two sweet girls had their fee-range roaming space significantly reduced from the ENTIRE yard to about 20 square meters. They are NOT happy! I wish we didn't have to make the choice to limit the  area they play in, as they were so content pecking and scratching about for worms and weeds, but we couldn't keep up with their constant mulch flicking onto paths, getting into the veggie beds and eating the flowers in the bulb bed.

Mark and I have been all kinds of busy over the past 2 months (3 weddings, a super special baby shower, planning for baby, winery weekend, paving, planting a pretty bulb garden) but we are slowly working through and ticking off (my favourite hobby!) a list of Things to do Before Baby Arrives. Getting our yard sorted before our little bird is born is a priority, with only a few more things to do inside as well (both nursery and dining room related)... we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

We're on the home stretch now - only 10 weeks to go till her due date :)

♥♥♥♥♥

veggie garden transformation

December 2010: One boring corner of our yard growing grass and weeds.

February 2011: Mark and I bolted a heap of sleepers together and started growing our first vegetables!

October 2011: My dad and Mark put up a cute little tool shed (aka The Man Cave).

April 2012: My dad, brother and Mark did an incredible job at paving around the veggie beds, using old red brick seconds from The Old Red Brick Co. Such clever boys.

Soooo - no more muddy shoes .... or mowing of grass (or weeds) in Winter. Hurrah!

We are SO pleased with the final product. This little unused corner of our yard couldn't have turned out more perfectly. Now just for an outdoor chair and table setting... and perhaps a little wood fire pizza oven. I'm not really thinking pizzas, it's all about the possibility of toasting marshmallows ;)  ♥ nom  ♥

I adore the herringbone pattern ... happy!

♥♥♥♥♥

in the garden - March

A rather large front garden asparagus type stalk grew to 5m!!! over the past week from the centre of a spiky succulent. We are now waiting for its burgundy flowers to appear. 

The veggie beds have their second warm season crop growing - chives, Grosse Lisse tomatoes, lettuce, some crazy unknown vine that was purchased as a pumpkin !? (see large white flower and vine below) and a recently sown bed of green manure seeds (back empty bed) which will be chopped and turned into the soil in a month or two. Just in time for the cooler temp veggies!

My Spring bulbs are on their way in the post! I worry that the degree of excitement I feel towards little brown flower bulbs could induce an early labour hehe.  I can't wait to see my tulips, daffodils and hyacinths flowering in the now empty space above! I am hoping they will make the crazy tired early days with my first baby a little brighter.

In the coming month, before I become a gigantic whale, I will be re-locating about 100 bearded iris bulbs and 50 agapanthus from various spots in our garden to form borders. Lots to do before anything exciting can happen - enriching soil with composted cow manure, bricking a walking path, and building a low bamboo fence to stop the feathered terrors from pecking everything green or pretty in sight.

The terrors scratched up ALL of my daffodils and paper-whites from last year. Chickens can be such little turds. I guess I will be replanting these too!

♥♥♥♥♥