Recent Ta-Dahs

Well I say recent but I think I finished this project well over a month ago. Ah well, never worry, it's just a little overdue but here goes........

A wee while ago I took a notion to work with some fabric and my sewing machine and I did a little patchwork project. After Baby R was born I spent many hours (most of which in the dead of night) feeding him in a wicker chair in our bedroom. The chair was fine as a decoration but after some time spent breastfeeding it in, it was soon realised to be hideously uncomfortable! So we made a decision to get a new chair so that I could nurse in comfort in the wee hours. Having Baby R did strange things to me.. a usually very, VERY indecisive person I knew we needed a chair IMMEDIATELY and within a couple of days (very decisive for me I can assure you) we found and purchased a green velvet chair (this was actually our exact requirements, probably a bit specific but hey we found one!). So why am I telling you this? Well the chair was very comfortable and looked very sweet in our pale green bedroom and fit the bill for quite a few months but as my little Baby R got a bit bigger I realised little spills of milk were being left on the very comfortable and very sweet little chair. So we covered the seat with a baby blanket (just a yellow one that someone had bought for us, you know the kind of thing you get when you don't know your baby's gender in advance) and an old cushion that I made a cover for when I first started to learn to use my sewing machine. To say I wasn't in love with either the blanket or the cushion (which was falling apart at the seams!) would be an understatement and a much more organised and efficient blogger (which I most definitely am not!) would have taken a 'before' picture to help you understand the injustice being done to the very comfortable and very sweet little green velvet chair. So I devised a plan. I bought some fabric squares from Ebay and set about making a patchwork cover for the little chair. I couldn't stop there and I bought some beautiful Tilda fabric called Christmas house (I intend to make some Christmas stockings with this stunning fabric but I'm not entirely sure which year or indeed decade I'll get this done!).  I combined the fabrics and this is the result.

A little close up

I couldn't stop there though. The very comfortable and very sweet little chair needed a new cushion, I was rather ashamed of the existing cushion cover. I didn't want to use up all the lovely Tilda fabric, like I say some day it will be a proud Christmas stocking, but I also didn't have much money to spend on fabric. I did a little blog browsing and general searching for some reasonable cheap fabric and I came across the Ikea Cath Kidston fabric range. A trip to my local Ikea in Belfast paid off, I got 1M of scrummy floral fabric for  roughly £5. Result! 

So I covered the old cushion...

In my crafty drawers I found a little cushion that I had never found a use for and made a little cover for it too...

 I didn't bother with zips, I just did a little envelope at the back as I was under time constraints and I'm very happy with how it turned out

I think the very comfortable and very sweet little chair now looks much better with it's patchwork cover and little cushions. It's protected from milk stains and looks pretty too. 

I felt the very comfortable and very sweet little chair's corner of the room was lacking in the picture department so I had these lovely Rob Ryan cards (I can't tell you how much I love this man's stuff) that I bought for my husband for our 4th Wedding Anniversary (a few weeks before Baby R was born)... 

and for the arrival of our little bundle of Joy.

D always said he liked the cards so much he wanted them framed and hung on the wall. However I only just got around to framing them and mounting them on the wall when the chair was sorted. Am I lazy or a procrastinator or just extremely pushed for time?! I'll let you decide! 

♥♥ I'm really happy with the look of this corner of our room now and so happy to have been able to play with fabric and my sewing machine. Little amuses the innocent they say! ♥♥ 

Christmas Cheer

It's been a busy old week here at Belmont Yarns. We had our first Christmas with Baby R and it's been totally magical. Unfortunately little R developed his 3rd cold and 2nd ear infection the weekend before Christmas and he was in terrible form. I thought he was teething but then on the 3rd day of him being out of sorts he was so lethargic and clingy and only wanted to lie on my chest so we were lucky to get an appointment with the doc that afternoon who promptly diagnosed a red raw sore throat and nasty ear infection. The poor wee chap, a few days of antibiotics combined with calpol/nurofen and he was back to his bubbly self. But unfortunately it doesn't end there, he was on the mend for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day but the day after Boxing day started coughing and has a runny nose and now has his 4th cold (or maybe the same one from last week - who knows) and is in rough form again. Sleep is scarce for us all but we'll survive. 

So I wanted to say a few words about how we got on over the Christmas weekend. Christmas Eve (my absolute favourite day of the whole year) was lovely. My younger brother (the godfather!) and his girlfriend came to visit to give Baby R his first present, a lovely red fire-engine which we had a good play with and Monty even got in on the action as Baby R wanted to share his little fireman with him, so cute!

We are still desperate to instigate some traditions here at Belmont Yarns but so far we don't have many, one thing we always do is to go for a walk after dark on Christmas Eve with the dogs, and now Baby R hurray, and oooh and aaah at all the lovely Christmas lights in the gardens and in the houses. The posh streets can be a feast for the eyes but we aren't fussy we love to look at all the lights (although we are more of a fan of the tasteful ones, not overly keen on people who have every inch of their gardens covered in everything from Santas to entire nativity scenes but hey each to their own). So after Baby R went to bed (I have to admit I didn't want him to go to bed, I usually get a bit sad when Christmas Eve ends) we treated ourselves to some bubbles and Christmas carols on the TV. We had waited a long time for the bubbles as I had a dry 9 1/2 months due to breastfeeding and I can tell you they were worth waiting for! 

 Then we exchanged our presents as we sipped our bubbly, mind you only small presents this year as the purse strings have been tightened but we never concern ourselves with expensive presents as, for us, Christmas is about being off work (well I'm still on maternity leave for a few days yet) and spending time together and not about consumerism. However is always nice to open a little something. So my lovely husband bought me...

I can't wait to get using these. My husband thinks it's hilarious that I wanted a Japanese crochet book and thinks I have bitten off more than I can chew. I am defiant and although the patterns look a bit tricky I am confident hopeful that in 2012 I will be able to make something from the lovely Japanese book and if I don't I am going to blame working and looking after a baby. K? It doesn't end there though very excitingly I also received this (he really does listen)...

My own little Pecker from Sew Sweet Violet. She is so lovely and as soon as I took her out of her beautiful packaging she flew up into my Christmas tree and has stayed their ever since! Jooles has the most amazing work, such attention to detail and the craftsmanship is 100%, I would definitely recommend purchasing something from her etsy shop if you ever get the chance. So I was very happy with my haul. I also got new PJs that I purchased myself and donned on Christmas Eve, gotta love new PJs! 

On Christmas morning Baby R came into bed with us and opened his presents that Santa left. Now we really didn't buy him that much as he's only 11 1/2 months and he really enjoyed bashing the boxes and ripping the paper. Isn't that always the way. 

We got a lovely crafty present for Rowan from a very talented, jack-off-all-trades-master-of-all, been there done it, friend of mine and I fell in love straight away. A lovely stripy knitted rabbit, which his own jumper emblazoned with an R. I'm not sure what to call him, Roger seems a little too obvious, what do you think?

We had a lovely Christmas day with our folks, we went back home and my older brother and his girlfriend kindly hosted Christmas dinner this year to give my Mum a break and they were so good at it. They told us that they don't really like Christmas that much so I had my reservations but I think they were fooling us as they made their house so festive and Christmassy and they made us so relaxed. It was great, he got the thumbs up from me and can definitely host again!! We then visited my sister after dinner to exchange presents. A few years ago I suggested we did Secret Santa in my family and it was been a hit with everyone so it's now tradition. I received a £15 gift voucher (the budget was £10 so Santa was a bit naughty) to the local craft shop which now excitingly stocks a small supply of yarn so I was very excited and grateful to receive this. I suspect my Santa was my lovely younger brother as he is the only one who is really interested in my rambles about crafty things and my blog. The present I was most excited about was the one I made for my sisters baby. My sister loves dachshunds too and I found this really cute sausage dog fabric on the internet. 

I didn't really have much time to make something bigger like a quilt or something so I decided to make some personalised bunting (I just love bunting) and I thought bunting would be cute in her bedroom. I don't have a good photo of the full length of it as it's about 5m long, just of the name and the fabric, but hopefully you get the idea. I'll try and take a photo of it when my sister puts it up. 

On Boxing day we went to visit the in-laws and little R got some more presents so he is a very lucky boy who has lots of books to read (I love getting books and reading to him) and just the right amount of toys to play with. Unfortunately Baby R then started to come down with a cold but we did manage to carry out another of our newly forming traditions, we watched the new Poirot and enjoyed some yummy Beaujolais and a mini-buffet. Oh we are good to ourselves!!

It's been a busy period for us as we also celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary and unfortunately due to Baby R's illness we weren't able to make it out for dinner to the newly opened Italian restaurant, we wouldn't have enjoyed it anyway as we would have been worried for little R and our baby sitters. Anyway times have changed and Baby R is the best gift we could ever have so we aren't too concerned about not making it to dinner, there'll be other outings I'm sure. 


At this rate of going I'm not sure I'll make it back on before the New Year so I wanted to take this opportunity to say wish everyone a wonderful, safe, peaceful, productive and crafty 2012! I'd also like to thank anyone who has popped by for reading my blog, for commenting and for encouraging me to keep going at this blogging malarky, you really are a special lot. On that note I have been nominated for a blog award, I'd really like to post separately about this as I'm so chuffed and mega excited about it. Cross your fingers that I get time to!


Phew another long post... hope you are still awake teehee
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♥ Baby Quilt ♥

Well hooray, I finished the quilt for Baby R! I never thought I would as I purchased the fabric ages ago but was so occupied with my lovely R that I couldn't seem to find the time to get started. Plus I am a total scaredy cat when it comes to cutting fabric, I put it off as long as I can because I hate the cutting stage as you can never go back but I've since learned a helpful phrase "check twice, cut once" so this is my new mantra with fabric. No longer will I be so afraid of fabric, no longer will it look at me, sticking out it's tongue out at me and goading me. I am not afraid of cutting you anymore, fabric beware, I've got a rotary cutter and I'm not afraid to use it!  Ok sorry about that.. 

As I said I purchased the fabric what feels like a longtime ago from the lovely people at Seamstar (who were soooo kind and helpful, they even helped me pick my binding fabric). 

This is how the fabric arrives from Seamstar. Attention to detail. Scrummy!

My lovely fabric bundle arrived and I oooohed and aaaahed over it for a while and then I put it away in my craft cupboard in the hope that someday I might get the time to start (and I still had issues about cutting fabric then!). So the quilt began life as this lovely fabric bundle by Monaluna, called Anika. It's really fun and super soft, 100% organic cotton.

All wrapped up in a neat little bow

Mmm fabric goodness

The planning stage of the quilt I did in the evenings when Baby R was sleeping, dreaming of dachshunds with long tails licking his toes and tickling his nose. The planning of a quilt is very important and I drew lots of sketches and deliberated and cogitated long and hard about the size and layout of the quilt, size of the squares etc, until finally I was ready to begin. Then a few weekends ago my husband (who is very supportive of my crafty endeavours) took Baby R to visit his Granny which gave me the chance to get started. I must add though that I am not a quilter, I really don't have much experience but I am of the opinion that you can learn as you go and this is what I did with help from tutorials on YouTube along the way. 

I must add that the internet is really a lovely place. I am so grateful to the very talented and clever people who give up their free time to make tutorials to teach people like me the art of quilting, crocheting, hand-stitching and whatever you fancy. You name it, some kind soul has made a tutorial on it. ♥♥ Thank you all ♥♥

So eventually, after a few weekends of baby R and his dada doing the rounds of relatives and friends, I finished the quilt. Yay, Yay and double Yay. 

Would you like to have a look? (Teehee as if you have a choice!)

The front of the quilt

 So I chose to make the quilt using 4" squares with 6 squares across and 7 down, I added a plain white border and as mentioned the lovely Courtney at Seamstar helped me match the fabric for the binding (in addition to cutting fabric stressing me out, all things binding also stress me out, but not anymore I have also overcome my fear of binding! Hip hip hooray).  

The back of the quilt with the super cute swedish forest fabric 

 I had originally thought to use a plain fabric on the back of the quilt but then I decided to go the whole hog and make the quilt reversible so I picked one of the main fabrics from the bundle. The one called Swedish Forest just looked so cute and I thought that Baby R would have fun with the animal characters on it as he grows up. It might have been a bit more cost effective to use a plain fabric on the back but this is something that will stay in our family forever and I really hope Baby R loves it as much as I loved making it for him (oh dear writing that just brought a tear to my eye!).

Now for a few close ups of the fabric as it is just so lovely you really have to see it

Is it bedtime yet? I think I'd like to climb under the covers  

The clever fox

Check out that naughty fox slinking it's way around the hen houses!

Can you see the hens? I tried to protect them from the crafty foxes by placing some dots in between!

All is well in the Swedish Forest

Now this brings me to the small matter of the binding. Well I have never done the binding of a quilt before and I was very nervous about doing it as it has always looked super difficult. So I did extensive research on the subject and watched many YouTube videos and thought about it and dreamt about it. But I did it! I made my own binding and joined it together with mitred seams and joined it to the quilt without the aid of a binding tool (the lovely American woman on one of the youtube videos I watched said "if you can finish your binding without a binding tool more power to ya" so that made me even more chuffed as that's exactly what I did). And the other thing about binding is that I am petrified of hand sewing, I just don't have much experience and I really never thought that I would be able to hand sew the binding to the quilt. I thought long and hard (yes lots of thinking and burning of grey cells has gone into this quilt!) about machine sewing the binding to the quilt and in the end I just couldn't because I wanted to do the job right and I don't think the finish of the machine stitching would have been very good. Also I wanted a part of me to be in the quilt for Baby R so slightly reluctantly I decided to hand sew the binding to the quilt. And I am so pleased with the result, this is my proudest moment of the whole quilt.

NB: When the EXPERTS in the YouTube videos tell you that it is vital to match the colour of the thread to the colour binding fabric you must not say "pfft" and ignore this because it turns out that the ladies (and sometimes gents) in the YouTube videos really do know what they are talking about with their countless years of experience. So after starting with white thread which looked absolutely horrendous with a capital H, as the ladies in the YouTube videos said it would, I went out and purchased lovely green thread to match the binding! 

Binding done

Now you may not think it is up to much but to me it is my finest hour!

Folded and ready to be presented to Baby R

So now that I have finished the quilt I must hand it over to it's rightful owner. And do you know what, I think he likes it. He had a play with it this afternoon and tussled with it and played peeka underneath and it truly made my heart swell with joy and happiness. 

♥♥ Thank you Mama ♥♥