KissKus

Bibs aplenty

Even though Linus lives on a strict diet of breastmilk I made him a couple of bibs that I'm sure will come in handy in the future.

I made the patchwork with some of my favourite Dutch fabrics combined with the fabric that I bought on Queensday.

They close with a handy snap (it took me an embarrasingly long time to work out how to adjust these guys...) and are backed with terrycloth.

All in all, I'm very satisfied with these bibs.
However, not as satisfied as I am with the matching cuddly cloth that I made:

Somehow I love how this turned out. The colours, the texture, the pretty ribbons... I'm telling you, if Linus decides for some reason not to cuddle with it then I will!

Going Dutch

We've been having the most wonderful spring weather for some days. We enjoy it as much as we can, spending whole days in the garden.

Linus loves to sleep outside in his pram and when he wakes up hungrily then I just breastfeed him there and then. I cover him up with a blanket at such times, since the sun is really strong and the last thing that I want is for him to get sunburnt. However, all of his blankies are pretty warm so that this was becoming a rather sweaty bussiness... I had to make a 'light' blanket!

So that's what I did this morning, hurrying while Linus was taking a nap.

I used a cotton diaper and one of my lovely Dutch fabrics. Windmills, tulips, the whole lot. I really just sewed to two fabrics together and then 'quilted' it with some squares around the images. Easypeasy, but exactly what we needed.

I'm going to use this for his carseat as well, so that he won't stick to that either. I might have to make another one.

But first I'll finish my other Dutch project... patchwork bibs!

Luxurious burping

On thursday evening my sewing machine and I were reunited and we were both thrilled! It gave me a taste for more, much more. I have so many ideas swimming around in my head; I just need some time to get going. I do think the evenings are best for sewing. Michel and I agreed that we'll both spend some evenings a week being crafty. He'll work on his writing and I will be sewing. A good plan, no?!

Now what did I make? Something quick and very useful... burp cloths! Although I have quite a stack of them already, I never seem to have enough. Linus regularly spits up quite a bit of milk, so I need a clean cloth constantly. Besides, the ones I have are boring!

I used a nice soft towel for these. Drew a rough flowerlike pattern and dug up my fanciest biastape. Sewed it all together et voila! Six pretty burp cloths that no baby will be ashamed to be seen with.

Although I must say that Linus (who is 1 month old today, by the way) seems rather unimpressed by them...

We celebrated Queensday yesterday

Yesterday all the Dutch were merry, because we celebrated Queensday!! Hurray, hurray, long live our Queen!!!

Everyone is (almost) obliged to wear something orange, so the children were dressed appropriately.

We ventured out to the free market as early as we could (which was after 9 a.m. but still!) and already there were quite a lot of people there, but a little later it was so busy that at places the crowd was hardly moving anymore.

Luckily we decided to carry Linus around instead of taking the pram with us.

It was a very successful morning. We all scored some great bargains, the children payed games and Linus behaved very well.

It's so much fun to see that people sell the strangest things on Queensday... I just had to take a photo of this mountain of ugly dolls.

This was my modest haul:

Fabric (love the teapot fabric!)

And two adorable prints. I fell in love with the one on the left immediately. These will definitely be reframed and hung somewhere nice.

So all in all a very good day that we ended with an indoor bbq.

Read more about Queensday and what we did previous years here and here.

No fool

I'm having none of this!

Slightly better...

Aaah, the real thing!

The posse and I

Michel went back to work yesterday and so now it's just me managing our clan and household.

I told myself that I wouldn't set crazy goals. As long as everyone is happy and fed then I consider my day a success. So far so good. I even managed to do the washing and did a bit of tidying up. Oh, and I bathed Linus all by myself and he didn't even cry once!

We've been blessed with lovely weather these past days, so that we've been able to spend lots of time in the garden, which I must admit makes it a lot easier to manage our clan!

By the way, the top photo was taken two weeks ago and the bottom one this morning... what a difference already!

32=3+2=5

Today's my birthday.
My first birthday as a mother of three.

Except for the usual birthday ingredients like cake and presents, this time there were other highlights as well.
I took a shower with Linus this morning, which was really special and we went on our very first walk. It was lovely weather and it was wonderful to be outside.

Apart from a serious lack of sleep things are going very well around here. Linus is such a sweet, easy baby. He is so soft and pink and cute and cuddly... I'm happy just to hold and watch him all day.
Amber and Simon have adjusted very well to the changes too. Simon had a little trouble initially, but he's back to his old self now. It's no small thing to become an older brother overnight!

Look at my two boys taking a nap together... aren't they adorable?!

Ok, just one more photo of Linus then!

I'm amazed at the way he looks around when he's awake. His eyes are so curious and wise... it really seems as if he's absorbing everything. As I said I could look at him all day!

Well, I think it's almost boobtime again and then hopefully some sleep!

Introducing...

Our sweet, beautiful and healthy son Linus Hugo was born yesterday.
We couldn't be more proud. All is good.

3 april 2008
8.18 p.m.
3470 gr.

39+6

Come on out now, baby.... we so want to see who you are!!

So... now what?!

Yesterday I was able to tick off another project of my to-do-list after I'd finished the travelcot. And unbelievable as it may sound, I'm starting to run out of things to do. In fact, right now there is no project that just *has* to be finished before the baby's arrival... does this mean that I'm ready?!

I did really want to get this project finished as I think we will be using it a lot in the next couple of months. I'm pretty sure I want the baby to be close to me often and it's going to be too much trouble dragging the 'real' cot up and down the stairs.
So first I bought a new mattrass (the old one was yuk) which I cut to size and then covered with white cotton.

Then I started with the blanket. It turned out very simple, but I didn't want to add any more frills because the fabric is so pretty. Unfortunately I cut off one bit of the extra fabric of the back that I was going to use for the binding, which caused a bit of frustration and delay, but I managed to fix it alright.

Next up was the lining. Not difficult at all, because I used the old fabric as a template, so all I had to do was sew it together and make openings for the handles.
All in all, I'm very pleased with it and I'm glad that I found a way to use my beloved matryoshka fabric.

While I was at it I also made two matryoshka dolls from the gorgeous fabric that I ordered from the lovely and helpful Erika from MikoDesign. She printed the fabric herself.

I want to make some more to use as decoration. Also, I would like to make a cushion out of the tree fabric for the chair in the nursery. So it seems that I'm not quite done with my to-do-list yet after all ;)