nesting or just my usual obsessiveness?

according to my little countdown up there at the top of my blog there are 20 days to go before this little monkey makes it's entrance in this world - maybe more if it has inherited any of my stubborness and contrariness and chooses to come when it's good and ready! The good husband and I thought it was about time we set up the baby's room so on the weekend we cleared out the study/my sewing room, dismantling the built in desk and moving more non living room furniture into our already jammed packed living room (the filing cabinet now joins the washing machine, fridge and freezer as visitors to the living room!).

On Wednesday I was a hive of activity -

• vacuuming the loose cotton threads and pins where my sewing desk used to be,
• ironing the carpet over a damp towel to get rid of furniture dents (and the builder inspector happened to arrive to inspect the works out the back and must have thought I looked like a loony pregnant woman ironing the floor),
• moving all the baby furniture into the room ready to be set up,
• sanding and painting a timber armchair for the room,
• giving the rest of the house a good clean because everything is so dusty thanks to the building works at our house plus the house two doors up being constructed.

Meanwhile this day turned out to be a very hot day (it is summer after all), but I didn't really notice how hot it was until I brought in some woollens that I had handwashed that morning and they were crispy and hot. So are you getting the picture here? A very hot day and I did all this activity when I am heavily pregnant - clearly I have lost my mind!

By Wednesday night I had the sorest rib pain just under my bra strap on the right hand side - every little move, sneeze or baby movement caused me so much pain. Husband adopted a 'I told you so' tone and told me to stop doing so much, but then I found out via the trusty internets that rib pain, especially on the right hand side is actually very common in the third trimester due to the uterus position, the baby pushing on the rib and all the muscles being stretched. So it might have happened anyway.

Alright enough rambling, coming to the point of this post I had to spend yesterday doing much much less activity, so I started to clear out the cupboard in the baby's room which holds part of my fabric stash. Well I got a bit sidetracked when I was moving out the fabric because I decided to photograph each piece, measuring it and cataloguing it in an excel spreadsheet noting fabric composition, weight, purchase date and place (if I could remember) before trying to find somewhere else in the house to stash the stash, so to speak. I started doing this for purchases made this year, but not for the previous 10 years effort of stash accumulating. When my husband came home and saw what I was doing (it took much longer that I thought it would and I was still in the middle of it when he got home) he firstly laughed very loudly, and then told me I was an obsessive nutbag! Come on, all you sewists know that not only is this a normal thing to do, it is actually a handy thing to have, right? And maybe, just maybe, it will help curb my fabric purchases a teeny tiny bit - because what I visually estimate to be about a third of my stash equates to 480m (524 yds). Which is SABLE (stash accumulation beyond life expectancy) for sure, but the good news is that very little of that was actually purchased new, mostly it comes from op shops, garage sales and some given to me.

So maybe the cleaning spurt is nesting, although I think it has a lot to do with having more time at home to notice the dirtiness and actually clean up, but definately the collecting of fabric (but not the cataloguing) is a tad obsessive....

Anyway I'm itching to do some real sewing, so I managed to sneak in a quick refashion to wear out to a fancy dinner this weekend. I bought a mini dress from Supre, which is Australia's version of the cheap disposable fashion stores like Top Shop, for only $10. I don't normally go in to Supre, because they're fashion is more for young trendy skinny things, the music blares and the fluroscent lights are far too bright (yeah I know I sound about 100 years old!) but the vibrant print of this dress caught my eye.

Because it was a mini dress, I only had to lop about 10cm off the bottom to make it into a top. I didn't take any length off the front though, instead I pulled the seams apart at the sides up to the bust line, and just gathered up the front piece to create ruching over my stomach so the top now fits very well. And here it is:

And yes, this big spotty dog:

managed to get in the foreground of every photo I took:

Looky looky neighbourhood.gal, there's those white pants again! I know that according to the 'fashion rules' women with larger bottom halves (pear shape which I used to be or pregnant women with expanding lumpy legs which I now am!) should wear dark colours on the bottom and light colours on the top, but somehow I think these pants just work - I made them from a thick but stretchy cotton drill so they skim over the lumpy bits, they are the perfect neutral base for colourful tops and most importantly they are comfortable! Plus I reckon I'm tempting fate by wearing the most noticeable and stainable clothes I own - surely my waters will break at the most embarrassing time so come on gods of irony, I have them on now let's get it started.... Ha ha ha just kidding, there's no hurry, particular with this rib pain there's no way I could push right now

In response to Elizabethe, I was planning to transform some of the maternity clothes back to normal clothes, but I have so much fabric to make more I don't think I will. Besides mooimadeit hit the nail on the head, I have an extensive wardrobe for the next time I decide to do something silly like get pregnant!

And thanks SO MUCH to the rest of you for point out shonky pelvic floor muscles, sore nipples, sleep deprivation and hemmorhoids! Jean, I'll be staying in hospital for about 4 days if all goes well, so hopefully that's enough time for me to get used to my leaky body before I come out into the real world!