I need a holiday to recover from my holiday......

Phew, what a long two weeksI've just had. Holidaying with a little kid is certainly not easy, nor a whole lot of fun really. We flew up to Brisbane boxing day morning to stay at my in-laws for two weeks, with a few days in the middle spent out at a beach resort at Kingscliff so it should have been relaxing and easier for me with more hands to help out with the baby. Yeah except I didn't count on Anna being possessed by some evil spirit and turning into an absolute nightmare for the whole time!

Her sleep patterns, which are bad at the best of times, became atrocious and she woke crying and screaming frequently through the night, staying awake for a few hours between 1am and 3am and then waking up at 4.30am for the day. Daytime naps were just as difficult too. Then because she was tired she would scream and have tantrums in her highchair and not eat, just throw her food around making a huge mess. And then because she was tired and hungry she just couldn't cope at all - in the car she would scream and scream until she fell asleep, and all the other times she would be so clingy and whingy all day long. Anyway we're home now so hopefully she'll get back to normal soon.

The little monkey was also terribly spoilt with presents galore at christmas time from my family. I took a thriftier approach though, making her some presents instead. First up I made her a mini moopy stuffed toy, from this pattern over at neststudio:

So easy yet so cute. I also revamped this timber wagon I bought an op shop for $2:

Before:
After:

I gave it a coat of bright red paint and put Ikea wrapping paper inside the tray using some spray adhesive. It bubbled a little when the glue dried which was a tad annoying but I doubt the recipient noticed - she was too busy walking around using the wagon for support:

And of course I made her some clothes. Some really cutesy matching outfits that in a few years there will be no way she'll let me dress her in them, but for now she has no say in the matter! First up I made some yellow gingham shorts with black ribbon trim and a fabric yo-yo, with a top to match with yo yo flowers and the same black ribbon trim for stems. Mismatched vintage buttons too.
Next I made her some polka dot shorts, and made a little cap sleeve ruffle to sew onto a singlet I bought from Target. Again so quick and easy.

I also made some aqua blue gingham shorts with red ric rac trim, and a top to match with an appliqued butterfly from the gingham fabric with a stripe of red ric rac through the centre.

All of the shorts are made from the bloomers patterns in Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little People book, and the tops are morphed from Butterick 400 view C gown just shortened. I've used this pattern several times before because it's so simple with just two pattern pieces and the neck and arm openings are just finished with bias binding, but for these tops I just serged the seam allowance, turned it under and stitched it down.

Anyway I hope you all had great christmas celebrations, I have so much blog reading to catch up on to see how some of you survived the record snow falls in Europe and the US (we sweltered by the way!)

little dresses for little ones

I'm still kicking on making dresses, only this time in miniature. Funny how there's less fabric, less sewing but making little girls clothes takes just as long as big girls clothes - it is quite fiddly making them but they turn out oh so cute so it was worth it.

My friend Lisa, a fellow town planner extraordinaire, is expecting her second child (a girl) in December, shortly before me. Lisa has been an amazing source of support for me in my first stab at this pregnancy game - no question of mine has been too silly for her and she keeps sending me all these great resources, so to thank her I decided to make her a little baby outfit for her little watermelon. I made the comfy jumper dress with bloomers from Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones, because I am still determined to get my moneys worth out of that book! This is the pattern as it appears in the book:

I made the size for 3 - 6 month olds because Lisa's first born was rather large to begin with, and he has just grown and grown since. And this way her little girl will be able to wear it in Febuary when it's still quite hot here in Sydney. It looks rather small to me, but then again I haven't dressed a baby before and I assume that Amy Butler has tested the patterns sizes on real life kids so I'll trust her judgement. I'm not a huge fan of her instructions though - I found them quite complicated, the drawings of little help and the method quite different to what I'm used to from using the Big 4 patterns. I don't want to sound obnoxious, but I think because I'm a competent sewer I found her instructions too simple to follow, so in the end I ignored them and just did what I thought would work. And it did work, so no harm done.

I made it from a soft cotton voile in a pink and light brown cherry blossom print, fully lined in pink cotton poplin because the voile was rather sheer and too light on its own. I embellished it with a gunmetal grey ribbon round the waist and some bows on the top to reduce it's overall pinkness, and it just looks adorable:

The fabric is actually left over from the dress I made there on the left that I wore to my brother in laws wedding last December. No reason to post it here, except that I like to remember what my waistline used to look like!

Thanks for all your comments on the last post, especially Linda - please come back and post such nice comments all the time! And yes I know you're right Vicki, every time I feel huge I do see some other poor woman who is much bigger all over, including the swollen feet and fingers which I haven't really had yet so I shouldn't complain (too much anyway!).

And yes my husband is very tall - he is over 6 feet, I think 6'4 or around there? I'm average height, I think around 5'4 but I do only come up to his shoulder even in my tallest shoes, as you can see in my wedding photos I posted here. It was pretty funny when we went to China a few years ago, because he towered over all the native Chinese people and they were alternating between staring at the giant and the redhead, especially in the rural areas. I think it comes from being born in Australia, because his brother and cousins that are also Australian born are very tall, must be something to do with the food, water and quality of life.

The building works are kicking on too - the framework to the house is completed, the framework to the garage nearly done and apparently by the end of next week we should have a roof and possibly windows! If only those pesky builders didn't take so long to lay the slab they could have saved me (and hubby) a huge amount of angst..... But I always say that things usually work out alright in the end, and this looks to be the case here (fingers crossed).

The baby is also having a jolly good time kicking away in there, particularly at night time after I've managed to get comfortable and ready for sleep. So I'm guessing if there's still enough room in there for all that movement there's still a fair amount of growing left for the little monkey - eek!

finally made some baby clothes (by default though...)

So, bad mother confession first up: I'm 7 months pregnant and haven't made anything for my baby, haven't set up the nursery (it's still my sewing room) and haven't even bought a cot or a pram yet - plenty of time for all that!

But I have now made some baby clothes although I originally made these as a gift for some friends who had a baby girl six weeks ago. I wasn't too happy with the way they turned out, so I ended up buying something to post to them (they're all the way down in Tasmania), and picked these apart to try and finish them.

I made the 'easy' empire waist top and little bloomers from Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones. She did give it a difficulty level of 4 out of 5, but I think that is due to her instructions and lack of diagrams (no offence Amy, but your instructions are on par with BWOF!). But I also made it more difficult for myself by using french seams instead of just overlocking the raw edges, which worked fine on the bloomers but resulted in a fairly big gap where the kimono sleeves met the side seam because I just couldn't get them to meet property. Also she has you turn and press the outside edge of the v-neck facing and apply to the right side of the fabric by topstitching - I found it difficult to get a neat finish doing that. And I think I made the sleeves too long by not allowing enough of a turn up cuff.


Anyway, these must have taken at least a day and a half to make (I could have made myself a whole outfit in that time)! If I have a little girl she can wear them, they'll only get vomit or baby dribble on them afterall, so no point being too precious really. I made these from materials in the stash - some lilac poplin inherited from my gran's stash and some gingham picked up somewhere along the line.

In response to all your questions about maternity leave in Australia, well the answer depends on who you work for as to what leave you get. The government is at the moment debating whether to introduce paid leave for all mothers, but who knows how long that will take. Luckily since I already work for the government I am entitled to pretty generous leave provisions: up to two years maternity leave of which 14 weeks is paid, and the right to work part time until the child starts school (ie at 5 years of age). I plan to add to my 14 weeks paid maternity leave with about 8 weeks paid annual leave that I have saved up for the last few years and then I will take off the remainder of the year unpaid, and the plan at the moment is to come back to work part time for another year or so. Unless I win the lotto or something equally as good and never have to go back to work (the dream............)