A wrap for Wrigglewriggle- my first baby make

So, yikes, it's been a while team. Sorry about that, although I guess I do have a good reason; Ramona is 8 weeks old and a whopping 6kgs. She is completely amazing. She is smiling and gurgling, and still sleeping lots which is delicious for us.

I wear her everyday, every where, in a beautiful ring sling my friend made me. I love having her so close and believe the benefits for both of us are massive. However to keep the weight distributed evenly I wanted to mix it up with another one. I have been to a couple of Slingmeets, seen and tried loads of carriers -as well as meeting fab parents too- and decided that a stretchy wrap was most comfty with a tiny tike. And, easy to make too!

I cycled along today to Peckham's famous fabric shop and purchased two metres of thick tee shirt material. (It was the first time I had been without Ramona, but she had a lovely half hour with Dad!)

This afternoon I cut it lengthwase so I had 4 metres, about 75cm wide. I sewed three lines (extra strong) to join end to end. Where the seam showed I sewed some bright salmon lace, meaning the other side was smooth and plain so Tim doesn't have to have the lucious lace revealed when he wears her.

It feels so good on, really supportive. I love the look and it is easy to put on.

All for £12 and half an hour, my first very practical baby make! Hoping to tackle a Mei Tai carry next.

More exciting things coming soon...

PS I look, um, yellow, in this pic. I haven't fake tanned, and i'm not anemic. It's just a weird un.

Flapper band for a lovely little head

Ah, maternity leave is the bees knees! I basically just make stuff all day, maybe have tea and cake with someone, loll around on my birth ball. It's lush. I've also been initated in to the mums club with my two besties and my sister and their riot of rapscallion kids. Tomorrow it is a party for one of them who is turning two, so I whipped up some pretty head gear for her, 1920's styles with a few bits of lace, polka dot fabric from a pillow made into rosettes and then some delightful buttons.
To be delivered in its own little felt envelope, with the wrist from the armpit slipper jumper.
With a personalised stamp and a quick knot she can undo.

This is probably the kind of thing you make for a little kid before you have kids and know how unrealistic it is for them to keep something fancy like this on their noggin. Oh well, I'm soon to become a more reality based maker of kids things!

Impending motherhood...

So, birth pool is in the lounge (well, originally it turned up at my work and sat in the middle of my open plan office, all massive and logo'd up for three days that I was away = mortifying) 43 hand me down baby grows are washed and I had my last day at work yesterday. At 38 weeks this little bun is pretty much just getting a good crust on. I am still loving pregnancy, it is all pros and no cons- i.e still able to ride my bike but get the joy of people's double takes, hehe.

I am having a luxurious day reading the paper, listening to my lovely new Brooke Fraser album, watching the odd delicious youtube video while Tim gets on with painting the halls. In the last week we have had all our halls plastered, hoping to paint and get Carpet Derek in before this baby checks out.

I just saw this image and love it - thanks Juliet.

Tomorrow we have our first Make in our lounge. Make is a monthly craft afternoon, tomorrow we are crafting up social justice patches for the Craftivist Collective's social justice quilt. Exciting!

A spot of craftivism- Yoko Style

Friends over at the Craftivist Collective have just launched an initiative "And sew to bed". It is craft based activism (I love it) in bed (I love it doubley) to raise awareness of global injustice (can I love this any more?)
The idea is that people craft up a patch on a global issue of their choice, then send in a flick of them talking it through, and a picture of their bed- in.
Never one to miss such a moment I got stuck straight in this morning in a few delicious spare moments I had free from work. So this is my patch:
Being 34 weeks pregnant (I know! Can you believe it?!) I am hoping for a world where every women can have a pregnancy as low risk and safe as mine. In the world's poorest countries, 1000 women are dying a day just trying to have a child. This is insane. With a commitment to good, free and universal healthcare this is a problem that can easily be fixed. (Pressure our government to make this choice here.)

This is my bed in.
Do join in. How can you resist?

I love lamp and B for Betsy

After the brilliant news that we are exchanging on Monday (house buying speak for swapping contract for cash) and a joyous evening of dancing to the All Stars at The Scoop I arrived home late on Friday night feeling not at all tired, but very craftilicious and filled with energy. I tried milk drinking, yoga, all sorts, but I was just too excited to go to sleep so took it out on some objects around the house.

First, I bettered an old lamp with the aid of some scrabble letters. I love lamps, their ambient warmth, the endless possibilities of crafting them up. And I love scrabble letters; glued on to the end of clips to stick in my quiff, stuck onto old wood with a dollop of paint. So I did a little match making, using a line from a Coldplay song. Lights will guide you home (Minus some vital L's and a G- anyone got any spares?)...

Then I paired up a white summer blazer with a cherry dress, both of which fit me no longer, and made a B for Betsy, our little friend, offspring of the fabulous Mel, who is having a birthday tomorrow. Mel used to run the kids club I went to and now she is Mum extraordinaire, with a whole hoard of the coolest little people in a lovely Camberwell home too.

Off to go an play with my mums just-bought chickens, yay for poultry in the garden, fresh eggs daily. Maybe next summer we will get to go on a chook buying journey ourselves. Woop woop!

Introducing Nessa and Stacey...

Three little birds sat by my doorstep

A month ago I heard about an art exhibition being held at my work's atrium, for employees to display their artsy skills to their colleagues. How fabulous, Count me in with bells on. I am really rubbish at getting on with my crafty shenanigans when I'm purposeless, but when there is a "thing" like this I get a huge surge of juicy energy.

Over the last year I have found a proper love for collage on old wood. I used to live with a crowd of people in a big old house in Oxford Circus that had an attic full of old rotting wooden planks. (We had to move out because of fire issues but we still sort of commune there a bit.) When I decided to display at Art Week I clambered up to the attic to choose a few choice cuts but to my dismay saw that I had used up the stores!

I did manage to forage some white tiles though and have tried to do something a little similar...

They are based on the Bob Marley tune about three little birds telling him not to worry but to be happy. I think there is some potential, but do miss the multi-layered look that I can normally create on wood because you have more space. You have to be a bit more deliberate with these tiny tiles. I'm also a bit cross about the varnish yellowing. I am a big fan of varnishing, it gives papery things their mojo, kind of like how laminating did in the early 2000's. But tiles are much less forgiving then wood when it goes wrong. (Husband Tim had to take charge of the varnishing so as to not intoxicate our unborn!)



This is the first stage- tiles, gel pens, old magazine paper, scissors and glue!



Second stage avec old sewing pattern paper (love this stuff) and bits of cotton threads.


This is them pimped with varnish so the sewing paper goes see through but still adding texture, and mounted on wood. Not too happy with the finished result but feel like there is some future between me and white tiles.

Crafting babies and homes: a bit about me and what I hope the new blog to be...

I love creating stuff, I'm not too picky about what, although at the moment I am big into making collages. Oh, and babies. I'm 14 weeks this week, it is our first and we are hand clappingly happy about it. It is pretty cool making something without really doing anything. At the moment I believe I am working on a hearing system to make those ears functionable.

We are half way through moving into a little Victorian terrace in Camberwell, South London. Once in, we (that's my husband, Tim, and house mate, Shelley) we will be obliterating the worst-of-the-eighties- decor and unleashing our dreams of a recycled, beautiful, best-of-all-era's design theme. We are just waiting on all those boring bits like land registry checks and all that.

This crafting blog will hopefully document the foetus to new-born, no house to delicious home stage in our lives...