Addicted!

Ok, I think it's safe to say that I am now a mum addicted to her own baby. I know it is indulgent to post so many pictures of him, but I really just can't help myself. He really can be such a cutie sometimes.

But, to be truthful, he has been quite a handful and is wearing me completely out. I guess the term would be called colicky, but in fact I have discovered that the problem is a milk protein intolerance. It has been very difficult for him as well as us, but I am now confident that we are on the right track. I have had to give up all dairy foods and it will probably take at least another week for all the dairy to go from my system but he seems to be getting better every day. Apparently this condition is a lot more common than most people realize. At least 8% of all new babies have a food protein intolerance and perhaps more. It can react in babies in different ways including skin rashes, blocked noses, reflux, irritable behavior, wind and gas pains, etc. The good thing is that it does not mean he won't be able to have dairy in future--in fact they seem to suspect that the earlier the issue is addressed the less likely the individual will have allergies and reactions in future.

Anyway, I am just now starting to lift my head from the fog of it all--things escalated about two weeks ago and thank goodness for best friends who have been through all of this already to give advice! As well as a couple of very good nurse midwives... I am now wary of the doctor who delivered him who told me to just put him into a room and close the door and let him "cry it out".

Sorry for not having the quilting photos yet... I will get to it one day soon, I hope.

On the knitting front, I did want to show you in the first photo one of the sweaters (hoody) that I knitted while still pregnant. It's a pattern from Debbie Bliss using her fab yarn called Cashmerino Aran. Yummy yarn that is so super soft!

The second photo is Alexander playing with his Steiner silk... No, he's not being girly with the pink, it's the Steiner color for all babies--so I am told. He does love it!

Alexander and a Little Bit of Quilting

Ok, so these are not my best photos of Alexander, but since this is a quilting/sewing blog I thought I'd better post something sewy/quilty for a change. All these shots of Alexander are of him wearing outfits that I made for him before he was born. I especially like the Heather Ross designer gnome outfit in the first photo. When I see him dressed in that outfit I find him Completely irristable. The pattern, in case you are wondering is from Oliver + S called the playsuit. The second photo is of one of the onesies that I made (I made 40 all together in different sizes!). The third photo is another Heather Ross/Oliver + S pattern. The fourth photo is of him wearing an organic striped knit suit I made from fabric from Nearsea Naturals. The pattern is KwikSew 2978. By the way, if you are new to sewing garments like I am, I absolutely recommend starting out with a KwikSew pattern to learn. They have the best directions and use real paper instead of that flimsy tissue paper. You can also go to patternreview.com and get lots of information on how other people sewed a particular pattern. I used this site a lot to get information as I went along.

The last photo is finally one that involves quilting! Sorry that I have been so quilt absent of late, but believe me, this guy has got my hands absolutely full! He just went through a growth spurt and has had me feeling like I should have been wearing that shirt with the cow across the chest. Moo!!! I started this quilt just a month before Alexander was born. It was nearly finished and as I was sewing the last rows together I realized that I only had 35 blocks instead of 36. I could have sworn I had 36! So, either I lost one, or it never was in existence. Anyway, I need to make another one and sew all the rows together. It's a very 1930's style quilt--I really enjoyed making the blocks, but I am not sure where I would use a quilt like this... Oh well, that is not why I make quilts--it's all about the process for me.

I did finish the bindings on the two quilts that I sent to the longarmers. Thanks to the bouncy seat for that! Rocking with my foot and handsewing. This guy is so difficult to get to sleep! I will post photos of those soon... I hope.

Still Not Much Quilting Going On

Can you see the exhaustion in this daddy's eyes? Happy, but exhausted. Well the mommy of this baby is very much in the same predicament. Little Alexander is suffering from colic and is trying to sort his poor little tummy out. But, we think he's cute so we've decided to keep him around.

Thank you for all the comments on the last post. I was overwhelmingly happy to hear a lot of mentions that I will get a chance to quilt again one day and that things will eventually get easier. I am enjoying him more and more with each and every day and he is not even a month old yet!

I have gotten two quilts back from the longarmer this last week and will post pictures as soon as I get them bound. It is so nice getting quilts back--like opening presents on Christmas day sort of feeling. I love the final part of stitching on the bindings of a quilt, it has always been one of my favorite parts... Let's hope I can get to do it soon.

Welcome to the World Alexander!

So, Alexander finally made his appearance to the world on January 28th after a long and wearisome labor and emergency c-section. All up we were in the hospital for 12 days and so happy to finally come home even though that was an adjustment as well. Mom and Dad can hardly believe how hard it is to care for little Alexander who demands lots of milk and stays awake for very long periods throughout the day. But, they think he is worth every bit of torture he is putting them through and only hope that it gets easier as time goes by. Mom is still wondering how humans have managed to do so well on this planet since these little creatures are so delicate and would make easy prey for large animals as well as vulnerable mums. How did we make it out of the cave dwelling days?

Mom has had no time to quilt anymore, but she is sending off tops to be quilted and will be happy to photograph and show them off when they come home again. It seems to be taking a long long time and mom is so looking forward to having some finished quilts for a change. Especially when the weather has changed from very very hot (over 40degrees) to needing to light a fire in the wood burning stove to make it warm enough for junior in the house. He has had some shocking weather to deal with so far.

We are thoughtful for all those involved in the terrible fires in Victoria. We are fortunate enough to be safe so far this year, the drought this spring may have saved us from any great fire hazards this year. Also helped that we did fire reduction burns during the winter (burned all our nice trees by accident, but a safe home is more important). Our thoughts are with those who have lost their homes and especially with those who lost their loved ones...

Little Houses and a Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and welcome 2009! I hope this is going to be a good year for everyone. I'm feeling hopeful about this year... New baby and a new focus and hopefully I can keep the trigeminal nueralgia under control.

I thought I would post to show you what I was working on. This quilt is one I drafted myself, although I'm sure it's probably not an original. I'm using fabrics from Joanna Figuora's Urban Indigo line by Moda. I've had this sitting in my stash waiting to be put together for at least 6 months now and I thought I better put it together finally before I forget what I was going to do with it! I've still got two more rows of blocks to make before I can piece the blocks together for a twin size 62"x84" without the borders. Hopefully I can finish this one soon!

Katie Jump Rope Does Fanciful Flowers

This is not the best photo in the world, but you get the general idea anyway. It's so hard to take photos of my quilts due to lack of a large enough space with good lighting. I decided to take some time out from baby sewing to do a bit of quilting again. Aaaah, it's nice to be working with some color. I got the pattern and fabric for this quilt at Material Obsession when we took our trip up to Sydney a little while back. The pattern is called Fanciful Flowers and it is one that is in their new book--although I only had a paper copy. The fabric line I used is called Katie Jump Rope by Denyse Schmidt with a little of her Flea Market Fancy line in there as well. I did add the final border to it because I really liked the blue flower fabric.

I finally sent off a couple of tops to the long armer as I don't quite know when I will be delving into buying a machine and starting my own long arming business at this point. The week I decided I was definitely going to go ahead with it was the same week I found out I was pregnant! So, I decided that maybe I would "wait and see" instead. It will be a real treat though to get a few quilts back and finish them off so they can start being used!

Talking about the baby, I can't remember now if I mentioned before that the baby was sitting Frank Breech when I had an ultrasound done at 32 weeks. Everytime since that time when I went to the doctor or midwife they couldn't tell me for sure if it had turned or not either. I tried everything I could to get it to turn--being upside down, playing music, light, acupuncture-moxabustion, chiropractor using the Webster technique and whatever else anyone told me might work. In the end I suspect that it may have been the chiropractor on the second visit that might have caused the baby to turn. The reason I think so is that after the second visit I felt very different to what I had been feeling previously although I couldn't say what in the world felt different. Maybe that it was easier to walk and move around suddenly. Still, I just got the official word from the ultrasound yesterday that the head is down and so I can sigh a breath of relief! The doctor was going to recommend sending me up to Canberra this week to do a manual version if it hadn't turned which we really didn't want to have to do. And I Really don't want to deliver by Cesarian either if I can help it either!

I am really getting excited now, I can't believe in a few short weeks we will have our baby! Life will never be the same again. It's all a bit scary really, but hopefully it will all be worth it. If not, too late now!

Return of the Colour Green

I just thought I would post a few pictures of the farm since we finally got a tiny bit of rain in the last few weeks. We've had such terrible drought this spring. Also, I haven't posted any pictures of Teejay and Moxie since they were still pups. Well, they're all grown up now and hard little workers. Moxie (black dog) is as eager as she ever was as a pup and loves to pounce into the water whenever she can. She still manages to stand in the exact wrong place at the wrong time, but hopefully she will learn yet! Teejay (brown dog) has been a real wonder as he is a good barker, a great yard dog and still is great in the paddock as well. We call him WoollyBear, Beady Eyes and Mad Dog on occassion. He has a hard time sitting still and loves to chase the bike whenever he can.

I'm not going out too much anymore as driving over the rough roads is uncomfortable being 34 weeks along now. I am really starting to feel big and ackward now and much more tired than I was just a few weeks ago. The baby is still sitting breech and we are trying various things to get it to turn. I really hope so as I really want to be able to have a natural birth. But, on the other hand I've decided that I just need to go with the flow and not try to write the birth plan--it will happen as it will.

I'm still sewing lots, I haven't posted pictures because I didn't want to give away the sex even though I am still trying to sew with neutral colours anyway---just in case. I just heard from a friend that her daughter had a boy a couple weeks ago that she was told all along was going to be a girl!! So, we'll see...

Purple Charm Quilt Chain

Recently I received two of these quilt chain letters, which I would like to participate in. My problem is that I live in a rural area which has a limited number of quilters and I don't know enough quilters to send this letter on to that haven't already participated in it. Please, if you are interested in being part of this quilt chain send me an email with your address and I will send you squares as well! You will need to send 2 six inch squares each to 4 new people and one person already on the list. I don't mind forwarding this onto as many people as who would like to participate. It would be really fun to get this letter outside of Australia as well:)

Thank you for being a part of this--it really takes so little fabric and will be fun to see where all the quilt squares come from around the world, wouldn't it?

Nigella Pillows Finally Finished

These pillows have been a project in the works for a long time now. I originally wanted to stuff them all with wool from the farm and started with three last year. I sewing those closed and we've been using them all year. It took me forever to wash the wool and fluff it out and in the end the pillows went hard and felted all together inside. So, last week I bought some fiber fill and took out the old wool and restuffed all the forms, plus finished the other five. I remade the covers and thanks to my new snap press, I was able to put snaps in so that I can take the covers off and wash them! Ooohhh, I love my snap press even though it took me almost an hour to figure out how to put in the metal snaps. I also like that now that I know how to do this, I can always make new covers when I get bored of Nigella and want to look at something different. I'm not sure that I would have ever been able to figure out how to put in zippers and make it look professional enough. Snaps are good.

More Onesies

I guess some people might think it's a bit crazy to actually be making onesies, but the challenge was that I have never worked with knit fabric before as well as I really wanted to have them made out of bamboo. I think it is worth it when I feel how soft and lovely they are compared with just plain cotton. I'm also having fun cutting up bits of fabric to applique onto them! My snap press machine arrived and I am so happy with it that I know I will be putting snaps on everything now. Hmmm.... What to put snaps on???