my babymoon

Apparently the 'done' thing these days for pregnant couples is to go on a babymoon, a last holiday before the baby comes along and consumes all your waking hours. So last week I had a babymoon of own, except instead of spending time with my husban (who went to work) I planned to spend quality time with my sewing machine. Of course it didn't quite work out like that, but I did get a few things made except for the pesky handsewing of hems and photo taking.

But I did have an extremely chaotic and busy week, and nearly need another week to recover from it! First up we spent the weekend and I spent Monday and Tuesday packing up the house in readiness for the major renovation we are about to do to the house. Yes, you read that correctly, with less than three months to go before my baby is due we are going to demolish half the house and rebuild which the builder promises will be done before Christmas (fingers and toes crossed). But we are only knocking down the back half of the house, which had our dining room, laundry and an outside toilet which leaves the kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms and living room intact so we can continue living in a suitable manner. Although in the loungeroom are the fridge and a small chest freezer which used to be in the dining room, and our washing machine so it is a little cramped but still livable.

Anyway we are building a big open plan area off the back of the house which will have a new lounge and dining room that will be spacious, bright and airy. Then we'll turn the existing living room into a fourth bedroom and a walk in pantry to the kitchen, which should provide lots of storage. We're also building a detached garage which has room for two cars, laundry and a workshop on the ground level, and has a massive studio/home office space upstairs which will become my new sewing space. And that is the reason why I'm putting up with this craziness of building at this late stage in my pregnancy - I will have a huge, bright and airy sewing studio where I can have a big cutting table, plenty of shelves for the fabric stash and basically somewhere that I can create mess but close the door on it and not worry too much about that. And so when my current sewing room becomes the baby's bedroom, it's on to bigger and better things for me.

So along with packing up the house and transplanting plants from the backyard we want to keep (in extremely hot weather I might add) I also had to clean up because I had interstate guests come to stay for a few days. It was bad timing but it's been so long since I've seen them that it was all worth it.

Oh you'll be pleased to know I have bought a cot, mattress and changetable for the baby, all that is needed now is a pram and some (many) nappies - I plan on using cloth nappies and I also maybe foolishly plan on making those nappies!

So when I finally had a day and a half to myself, I managed to make two dresses that just need their hems done - it is so hard getting them straight now I have this massive protrusion out front! I also refashioned a pair of white cotton stretch drill pants that I made years and years ago by cutting off the waistband and adding a stretch elastic panel and to go with it I made a loose fitting and flowy tunic style top from BWOF 4/08, top 121. The top appeared to be already quite loose fitting, but I added extra width to the front and gathered it at the bodice seam line to make sure it would fit around my stomach, which it does with plenty of room to grow (not that I want to grow that much more!). The fabric I used is a polyester chiffon that I bought a while back from Spotlight, normally I avoid their polyester fabrics like the plague, but this was only $2/m and it has the cutest yellow and white little tulip flowers on a beige colour background, so I took a chance. Chiffon is a total pain in the butt to cut out and sew, but the finished product was worth it. I underlined the v-neck band and sleeve cuffs with a lightweight white cotton to give them some weight and to make the pattern stand out a little.

So anyway, back to work tomorrow sadly (it was a public holiday here today) and I have a new staff member starting who will be taking over my job when I go on leave so I need to spend time showing him the ropes which means less time for slacking off! Luckily I'm still feeling quite energised these days, without any significant tiredness or aches and pains which I expect will arrive eventually.

And to answer your question Carolyn, I will get the dutiful husband to do a post when the bub comes out rather than leave you all in suspense!