Interchangable mei tai

What a clever lot you are for guessing this was a mei tai!


Our friends that live in Paradise had a wee baby girl last week. I was going to make her some clothes but I remember when I had my first that you get so many clothes as gifts that some things are only worn once before outgrowing. So I was racking my brain for something that would last them a long time and was a bit special.


Just look. Four years old and still happy to be carried. I apologise for the quality of the pictures, Jamie took the one of the front carrying and Maia took the picture of back carrying. Yes, I did let my two year old use the camera. Yes, I will be paying the price for that decision. I read 6426 tutorials for making a mei tai before I started and mashed them all together for my version. The one feature that I really liked was a window so you could change the panels all the time. I've included some testosteroney ones so hopefully Dad will get in on the babywearing.


The inserts are double sided so you can just flip them around. I went a bit nuts so there's eight different inserts. But Mum is crafty too so she can make heaps more.


It took an surprisingly long time to make, mostly because of the straps which are a massive 75 inches long and needed ironed, stitched, padded, stitched, stitched, stitched. Also, I hadn't noticed that Steven had set the iron to Evil and it left some black residue after I had quadruple safety stitched the straps to the body. Rather than unpick a bajillion stitches I just cut another panel and sewed it on top so the body is even more sturdy. Anyone guess what I used for padding? Thinsulate. I'm gonna use it for everything. Jamie has started referring to the huge roll of Thinsulate as 'my friend'. So true.

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Animal, vegetable, mineral

Here's a sneaky peak of what I've been working on for the last 187 days. Or the last three days, which just felt like 187 days because of the number of stitches sewn, ripped out and sewn again...


Anyone guess what it is?

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Ask the expert: results!

Remember last week how I asked you all to send your questions in because I'm an expert? Well here's the answers...

Do you pick your nose?
Hypothetically speaking, if I was to pick my nose, it wouldn't be this one: In fact, I've broken my nose so many times that using it as a breathing apparatus is nigh on impossible. You might also notice it sits on the right side of my face. So, if I was to pick my nose, I'd pick this one:
And I was very close to making a new nose a reality, but after I had jumped through all of the hoops of the NHS 'Cannot Breath Through Nose' wait list, I was pregnant, then breastfeeding, then pregnant, then breastfeeding, then booted off the list.

Why are kids cartoon so annoying now, but the ones that were on when I was a kid were so very much better?
Well, I have difficulty answering this because I grew up in the US and didn't have the same cartoons as you. That being said, I did heaps of research and I've come to the conclusion that the reason that you feel so nostalgic for 70's /80's cartoons is likely to be mescaline. That is this only reason why you would feel that Button Moon and the Magic Roundabout were awesome rather than completely crazy head f*cks. Don't judge your mum, it was a different time and it was totally acceptable to add psychotropic drugs to your breakfast cereal.

Why don't girls have wee men?
Simple fact. If girls had wee men, Jamie and I would have no common ground. Seriously, what would we talk about? As he grows and questions his world, other variables will change, but there is always wee men as the constant.

How does one get one's blogging mojo back, because I really can't be arsed with my blog at the moment....?
Good question. I battle this frequently as well. I think the key is to have a really insular life. If you do not speak to adults from Monday to Friday, you'll appreciate your blog way more. And you might be crazy, and that'd be funny and lots of people will come and marvel.

What's the female equivalent of the term 'wee man'? I have no idea what to call munchkin's bits when I'm talking to her. I'm currently using 'front bottom' which sounds frightfully prudish.
According to my husband, that is pretty prudish. We've agonised over this as well. Proper parents use the technical anatomical terms but the anxiety surrounding Jamie telling the nursery about my ba-gina is too off-putting. We've inadvertently decided on 'wee lady' because we like themes but 'bits' is also comfortably vague.

Why do two perfectly sane American girls move to Scotland where it rains relentlessly. I mean, you have an excuse as you have Steven but me, what is my problem? That is my real question to the guru. What is my problem?
Eek. Considering where we met (*cough* therapy *cough*), I'd say plain old masochism. The End. Sorry.

Why it is dark in winter but not summer without using an astronomy book? This one stumped me.
Hmm, tricky. If I can't use an astronomy book, I'm gonna have to say it was never like this before we joined the European Union.

Why does hair grow?
It absolutely has to, because I kid you not, I'm losing it by the handful. Clumps of it, every single day. Enough that I'm wondering which disease I'm secretly dying from. I've narrowed it down to a shortlist of six, of which I probably have three because I'm a hypochondriac seriously ill. So I don't care why it grows, just that it does, so no one else knows I'm dying of three very serious conditions. Because I'm private like that.

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The fairytale coat

I hadn't made Maia a winter coat yet this year and once my Thinsulate arrived I had no excuse. I've been agonising over which of my fabrics to use and then last month when Vonnie and I were out fabric shopping I saw this amazing fabric. The print was huge, but I was quietly confident that if I placed the pieces strategically it could work for a coat.


I think my favourite bit of the fabric is this cute little woodland house that sits on the hood.


Or maybe this quaint little fence that runs across the back?


Or maybe the big dopey fox. It's got to be the fox. In order to maintain the continuity of the fox across the front I had to use a zip instead of my usual buttons. And because I was doing a zip, I decided to change the whole pattern... This coat is raglan style, which technically should be quicker to do than the inset sleeves I use for my other coat patterns. And it might have been if I hadn't made this coat four layers. In order to combat the wandering Thinsulate I sandwiched it between the twill and a layer of waterproof nylon. 'Nylon?', you ask, 'Isn't that a total pain to sew because it's so slippery?' Yes, yes, a million times, yes.



And this is the other side in fuchsia twill.


In order the combat the difficulty of folding over four layers (and sewing though eight layers) to insert the zipper, I faced it with ribbon instead. I'm thinking for the next one I will have the ribbon to the outside rather than the inside for a nice contrast.

What do you think? Obviously there are a couple of things I'll be amending for version two but is yet another coat pattern a good idea?

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True or False: Crafting with kids is fun!

Anecdotal evidence suggests that parents like crafting with their kids. I know we're meant to. Some of the most popular blogs in the blogosphere are chock-a-block with incredible projects undertaken by Mum and progeny. I don't like those blogs. My friend Apryl and I were discussing this today, and I maintained that people who say crafting with kids is fun either don't have my kids or they're lying. A lot of us craft because it's relaxing. We craft because making something nice is rewarding. We craft as therapy. A lot of us are perfectionists. Many of us horde supplies. Taking all these factors into account, how is it possible to enjoy crafting with little ones? I've blogged about this before when I had about two readers *waves at parents*, but I thought I'd revisit the topic as I'd be interested in what other people have to say.


Last week I bought more than 10 quid's worth of crafting supplies to make birthday cards for Daddy: new paper, bumper four pack of glue, mixed bag o' shapes for sticking, mixed bag o' felt for sticking, stamps and ink, and new pens. These cards were going to be made of special. This is what actually happened: two and a half bottles of glue were squirted / dumped over the paper, shapes were ignored, pens were dipped in said glue and therefore ruined, stamps were stamped onto the carpet, I kept shouting 'It's not paint, it's glue! Take these shapes and put them in the glue!' and all three of us cried. This is Maia's card. That unhappy face at the right hand side is probably me. And before you say, 'But there's heaps of those shapes!', I did that to try to corral and mop up the glue.


So what about you... do you enjoy crafting with your kids? Obviously, I enjoying crafting by myself and I'd like them to enjoy it too. Which, let's face it, is never going to happen if I go all fascist on them. I know that other people such as the nursery workers and our childminder craft with them and to my knowledge no one has had aneurysm and died. So what do I need to do? Wait a couple of years? Do I need to do it one on one rather than all three of us? Do I need to stick to one clean thing like markers (I actually heart the markers despite Maia's penchant for defacing everything within reach) rather than mixed media which will only end in tears? Or do I just need a personality transplant?

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Ginseng blossom and velveteen coat

In between bouts of self-flagellation I've been working on my first winterised coat using Thinsulate. This is for a customer who (luckily for me) has a coat obsession and this is the first of two coats she's commissioned for her daughter.


One side is Amy Butler's Ginseng fabric with green, olive, fuchsia and cream blossoms and leaves.


It's single breasted with three big fuchsia velveteen buttons.


It has a big fat hood to keep out the winter chill.


The other side is bright fuchsia velveteen that's soft and snuggly.


I like how the hood shows the flowers off even from the plain side and coordinates with the olive and fuchsia buttons.

I have to say that working with the Thinsulate wasn't quite the be-all-and-end-all I'd been dreaming of. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally glad that I'm using this for my innerlining now because it offers wind resistance and eight times the warmth of normal innerlining of the same weight but it was still pretty tricky to work with. Perhaps some of you lovely quilters can give me some tips on how to contend with slippage of the top layer? I should also add that I have a 50 metre roll of 150cm tall, 120g weight Thinsulate. It is literally the elephant in the room. If I'm making you a Christmas present this year, it will be made out of Thinsulate.

Addendum: I think that I've replied to everyone who contacted me as the result of my last couple of angsty-posts but they were coming into my personal email, my work email, through Facebook. None through the actual post because our postie probably stole them or they're sitting in some warehouse in Timbuktu as a result of the postal strikes. So if I did miss your message please send me an email entitled 'What about me, b*tch?' and I'll rectify my oversight! You're all awesome.

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Gratitude (and Linky love)

Again, another heartfelt thank you for all the comments and emails I received after yesterday's post. It's almost as if a weight has been lifted and I feel a bit liberated that I shared and received so much support and insight into your lives in return. I haven't managed to email everyone back yet individually so I'd feel disrespectful blogging until I'm done. So instead, check out some posts that I've liked this week from other people:

• If you want to see modelled pictures of the retro car hoodie, head on over to nickynackynoo's incredibly kind post here. Her son is adorable.
• I found this post by Pickled Weasel about guilt, motherhood, crafting and blogging really insightful. It might have actually been the impetus behind my self-flaggellation fest because I could relate to it so much.
• Mrs Jelly recommended that I follow Piece of Cake a while back because she thought we had a similar sense of humour. Turns out she was right, I love her blog, her delicious photos and tales of her 150 children. She wrote a post this morning about the double edged sword that is blog follower stats and I did laugh out loud more than once.
• And if you have a chance, pop over to Food of Love as Eileen is looking for some advice on how to get her blog more established.
  

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