Present for a baby boy

This is what baby shower present you're bound to get when your parents named you Rafaël... Although the final result is OK, this wasn't one of my most successful projects :-(
At first I cut out the pattern pieces for a little shirt, but I ruined them at once by trying to sew on those fleece wings with my sewing machine. Both fabrics stretching in all directions of course, why on earth did I think I could pull that off? Running out of time, I bought a ready made onesie, and started anew. I stitched the fleece wings onto fusible interfacing, medium quality, and then zig-zagged the black lines on. That was a time consuming enterprise, argh! That done, I cut them out carefully, ironed the wings onto the onesie and zig-zagged once more around them. When I finished it, it occurred to me that I could just as well have painted the wings on with fabric paint. Oh well...

Bow hairband

Half a year has gone by like a whirlwind, with no time to craft, let alone post to my blog! Slowly, ever so slowly, our baby is now learning to sleep through the night, leaving me a little less exhausted than I have been all these months. Arrival of the spring season makes me want to clean up and finish all those projects that had been put on hold! As each year, by the end of winter, mice become a real pest at our house. They raid our laundry basket and eat the stains in the children's clothes, thereby ruining many a favourite piece ;( Ofcourse I'm to blame too: because I can't bear to kill them, we set live traps an expell them from the house when we catch 'em. I bet they slip right back in when our backs are turned ;) Last week I found my daughters bow hairband full of holes, and man, was I vexed!!! Taking apart what was left of it, I proceeded to make a new one right away, taking pictures as I went. This little tutorial came out of it. Enjoy!

Arrrrr!

My little sister recently gave birth to a little boy, named Flint. That name rang a bell somewhere... Suddenly I remembered the TV-series I watched years ago on German television: Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. I enjoyed it very much, but when I hired a copy of the Walt Disney version sometime after that, I was sorely disappointed: it didn't come close! We're talking 1994 here, no Internet yet, I didn't even own a computer at the time... I knew of no way to get hold of that film. My enthusiasm instantly revived, I did a Google image search for 'Jim Hawkins' and recognised *my* film at once. It proved to be a French/German co-production: Die Schatzinsel (L'ile au trésor). Amazon.de carries it, so I ordered a copy right away. Arrrrr!!!! Anticipating it's arrival with delight, I made this hat for the newborn pirate (here modeled by my sweet and patient DD). It's loosely based on a tutorial at Tomlitoo, but done in fleece instead of paper.
For those of you that love the book and would like to read a few passages: Dead Men Tell No Tales offers the complete novel online for free, and sells tons of delightful pirate goodies too.

Keeping those tiny legs warm

It comes as no surprise that having a new baby in the house has kept me very busy. What spare time I had left those past ten weeks, went into sewing diapers and covers in all kinds of colours. I had previously made a number of different waterproof diaper covers to find the best fit, they did turn out gorgeous, but... I ended up liking none of them for the red marks they leave on my babe's tender skin. I like the felted wool covers much better (in the picture Lucie is wearing a triangle style felted wool cover, how to make those I learned at borntolove.com and Bright New Baby) and in addition I whipped up a bunch of fleece covers, using Stacey's method to draw a pattern. I also tried various kinds of diaper patterns, and for Lucie's slender thighs, Shar's version of Wee Weka Side Snap pocket adjusted to a NB size had the perfect fit. I left out the snaps and the Velcro though, as I prefer using Meghan Wyant's Velcro closer, which allows me to toss the dipes in the washing machine without having to bother about the Velcro tabs.
So far the only really new thing I've been able to try is making these baby leg warmers. I made them out of children's tights, as they appear to come much cheaper than ladies knee socks ;)) How to make them is shown by Baby Hopes. Can you believe we needed leg warmers in august this year!?!

Cloth

Finally! The first cloth diaper I've ever sewn! I used the free Mamabird pattern for this one, size newborn, and it's so tiny I think it might even work for a (not so small) preemie. The cover seems to fit nicely over it, and is by Meghan Wyant's free pattern, size small. The idea of using cloth for our second baby actually began to take shape a long time ago, when I was slowly getting bugged by the HUGE load of disposable diapers needed for just one (!) child. The need to go to the store to get them, the loads of waste and the cost all seemed to bother me more and more. Maybe I am getting more crunchy with age ;)) or it could have been this essay by Siobhan that appealed greatly to my imagination. Then there was also my enormous stash of fabric scraps in every possible colour.... yum! Something new to try out!!! Something to recycle, woohoo!!! Luckily I inherited a pile of plain white fitteds from my dear sister that will surely get us through at first, but in the long run I'm set on trying many different models, and maybe ultimately modifying some pattern for the perfect fit... But that is still miles away. In searching the net I found many great sites on the subject, of which Oz Cloth Nappies is one of the most resourceful (IMHO). Let me know what you think!

Pretty in purple

This little cap and shirt I finished yesterday. I sent it to a friend who got a beautiful and really tiny daughter last week. She was born two weeks early and so she is a real featherweight. Luckily they're out of the hospital now and doing fine. If you want to sew something for a preemie (or a tiny newborn), here's a bunch of links to charity sites with great patterns: www.newbornsinneed.org Offers a good Preemie Size Chart.
www.carewear.org Has lovely patterns, and a handy Knitting Needle Conversion Chart.
Barbara Wampler's BWcharitycreations Holds a pattern for a romper, and an open-front shirt.
www.touchinglittlelives.org Sweet preemie sleeper pattern.
www.rayofhope.co.uk Lots of knitting & crochet patterns & links.

Boys wear

For a friend of mine who had a tiny baby boy recently, I finished these yesterday. They match a jumpsuit I made last week -but forgot to take a photo of before I put it in the mail :(
Isn't it interesting how our perception of masculin or feminin is connected to colors? The clothes I made for my daughter were by the same patterns, but look indefinitely more 'girlish' to me. Same as, when I dress my girl in blue and green (which I love) people invariably conclude she must be a boy!