Still growing...

I don't know if I'm really getting all that much bigger anymore...but I certainly feel it!! I've only put on a pound this week...so I can't be getting that much fatter!! However as the end approaches I'm starting to feel more and more impatient! I know I should be sitting back and enjoying the last few weeks of solitude...relaxing and preparing...but I want this all done with now!! There are only 2 weeks and 6 days left until my due date, so really not very long at all...of course it could be longer, there's no saying he's going to come on time, but then again he could come tomorrow!! Patience has never been my strength!

It's one of those, rain, sunshine, rain, sunshine, rain, spring days here, and I so desperately want to get out for a walk, but I'm too concerned I'll get stuck in one of the rain bits! We have this horrible plastic roof on our kitchen, so when it rains it's so loud and it feels like you're in a caravan or a tent...I love it...perfect for doing very little but curling up on the sofa and reading a book.

All my brain seems able to process or show any interest in at the minute are pregnancy and birth books, I just cannot get into any fiction at the moment. So currently I'm reading 'birth skills' by Juju Sundin. I got it out of the library on Monday and I'm really enjoying it, I've found the things she talks about and the ways of blocking the pain make complete sense to me. It's really interesting, however I guess the proof will be in the testing so I'll let you know how I get on!

xx

Starting to rest and prepare...

As my due date draws nearer, I'm starting to finally realise what is happening! Yes it's true in approximately 3 weeks and 2 days I will be having a baby a real life little person to look after! As a result I probably won't be around that much over the following few weeks...I do seem to have a renewed energy recently, but it's more focused on cleaning and tidying and doing selfish things for myself! I may also be slower to respond to messages, I'll still be about checking in and reading other's blogs, I just may be a little more laid back and slow!

There are so many different feelings and emotions you go through when you are pregnant...it truly is as many will tell you a 'rollercoaster', if I tried to list them all it would take all day...but I'm happy to say that at the moment the main feeling I have is one of a calm, thoughtful, relaxful state.

I have a few pictures to share with you of yet another baby blanket!



It's still a work in progress, that like most things I'm working on slowly and thoughtfully. I'm using Rowan Calmer yarn (the website is down and the moment so I can't post a link) which is 90% cotton and 10% polyester, it's not the softest yarn in the world but it's quite thick and chunky (although that may partly be down to the stitch I'm using).

The stripey hoodie I posted about last week is so so close to completion now...all that's left is for me to stitch on some buttons. I'll post pictures of it in all it's glory when it is truly finished.

Happy Monday xxx

Growing...

Herbs from seeds...

Beautiful flowers in pots left by the previous occupiers of out little house...

Me...

Making more baby things...

...and doing very little else.

I have become so incredibly lazy the last few days. I know it's down to being pregnant and all that jazz, but I still feel very very guilty about it. Johnny is lovely and tries to encourage me to do just nothing but sleep, but there is so much to do! Granted if the baby were to decide to make an appearance today he would have clothes to wear (all washed and folded and put away in size order!), a bed to sleep in (again all washed and ready to be made up), transportation (both in the form of wheels and seat - but not yet sling), nappies to wear, toys to play with (if he so desired), and a million other things he probably doesn't need. My hospital bag is packed (almost) due to the fact my mum and sister posted me one already made up, I think they were starting to worry I would never get round to sorting it out myself! So in fact there probably isn't all that much to do now...but I feel like there is!! I can't even think of anything off the top of my head, except perhaps little things like a bit of hoovering and clean the bathroom....but I still feel like every moment sat on the sofa watching terrible daytime television and crocheting is a wasted moment!

Well not entirely wasted as this was what I produced from yesterdays sofa lounging...

Approximately half a baby hoodie in red and white stripes...I love the colours and the style of the stripes, although Johnny is calling it the jester hoodie. I got the pattern from this book, that I bought a while ago. I seem to have altered the pattern slightly, unintentionally, but it still seems to be working out OK!

It calls for some duffel style buttons, so I'm planning on making some up out of polymer clay today for it...but I can't decide whether to have stripey red and white, or solid red and white alternately or just plain old red ones...

I have to go out today to post some items, which is wonderful, because it is so beautifully sunny and springlike, and it gives me an excuse to leave the house and enjoy it.

Happy Wednesday xxx

P.S. 4 weeks today til my due date!!

Chocolate and Baby Blankets...

I'm still working on a baby blanket a started a million years ago (well maybe not that long ago, but all the way back here anyway), I knitted up the squares, but well they are not the squarest of squares so I begun to edge them in crochet and then kind of forgot about them! That is until yesterday when Johnny said I was absolutely not allowed to begin on anything else for the baby until that blue blanket was finished! He can be such a meany sometimes. So anyway I continue to edge those squares I did.

All was going well until I discovered that I hadn't started out with white and two shades of blue, but an off-white creamy colour and 2 shades of blue!!! I was distraught but Johnny pulled me through my anguish and attempted to tell me it didn't matter...I'm still not sure it doesn't look a bit silly as the original creamy yarn used in the main blocks looks slightly yellow when positioned next to the more recently purchased white which lines the dark blue, but hey ho, these silly mistakes seem to happen more and more in my pregnant state!

They're still not attached to each other but they are ready to be!! Now only to decide how to do it and in what colour...that could well take another 3 months at least!!

On a completely unrelated note I made the most ridiculously chocolately chocolate cookies on Friday, they are amazing, but the fact that we still have some of the 12 I baked left just goes to show you how intensly chocolately they are!

They are from this book I picked up at a bargain price many years ago, I have made these triple chocolate cookies before but think I forgot how insanely rich they really are! The recipe calls for 90g of milk chocolate 90g of white chocolate and 300g of dark chocolate!!! I didn't even use that much, as I couldn't find any white chocolate that wasn't nestle I used 150g of milk chocolate and as 300g of dark chocolate just seemed crazy I only used 200g!

I indulged in them still warm with some hot chocolate and family tree investigating on Friday afternoon, and lovely it was indeed!

Happy Sunday all...I'm probably going to go and sleep a lot...after weeks of complete inability to sleep due to kicking, overheating and being purely uncomfortable, my body seems to have developed an ability to ignore all these things and has decided all I really need to do is sleep, it could sleep all day and all night if I let it. xxx

Little Blue Houses by the Sea

Just a quick hello today to share with you my latest embroidery hoop...

Little Blue Houses by the Sea

I sketched out the idea whilst waiting for Johnny at the dentists and stitched it up yesterday.

I spent most of my teenage years by the sea, and since all of my grown-up life has been lived so far away from it I miss it terribly.

Happy Friday!!! The weekend is here!!!

Some Zesty Baby Treats...

After the massive closing down sale of my favourite place to by yarn, a couple of months ago, I now have quite a large quantity of lovely expensive rowan yarn to use up. One of my favourite finds was a bag (10 balls in total) of the wonderful milk cotton in, the colour I have just discovered is called, "fruit salad" (I think I love it even more now!). I also have to share with you the fact that those 10 balls of yarn cost a grand total of £11.50!!

Despite the fact that Johnny has some horrible aversion to orange as a colour, I have crocheted both a baby blanket and a baby hat, with the above yarn and I still have more than 5 balls left!!

I used a stitch I hadn't done before, with the blanket..it's very simple double crochet chain double crochet, putting double crochet into the gap where the chain below is, and I think it works really well as a baby blanket because it's nice and light. Then I just did a few rows of double crochet around the edge.

The hat I managed to knock up pretty quickly and easily (whilst delighting in watching Heston cook up incredible wonders!)...working completely out of my head...in about 20 minutes! The only pattern I had for a baby hat in crochet was done flat and then stitched together rather than in rounds, which seemed a bit silly to me, so I just used the basis of my oversized beanies, but made it much much smaller!!

I'm not really quite sure how big a new born baby's head is exactly and some of the hats I've bought for him look scarily huge, but I think I've got it close to right! We'll just have to wait and see I guess...5 weeks today!!

Happy Wednesday xx

Getting Ready...

Here are some shots of my preparations for my new shop...

And some more shots of my finished Little Multi-Coloured Houses embroidery hoop....

I've backed the hoop with some little houses fabric I've had forever in fear of using it because I love it so much!!

That's all for today...I must return to washing all the many many baby things I have been given...not quite sure how many sheets a baby needs...but I'm pretty sure I now most certainly have enough!! I've also been awake most of the night, the baby has taken to head butting me in the ribs, which wakes me up in quite a panic, so hopefully I'll be able to get a little more sleep before attempting any crafting today!

xx

Buttons and Beanies...

Most of yesterday was spent, not sorting out the baby's room as planned, but instead, stitching up some oversized beanies to add to the stock for the new shop.

I intended on selling them last year, as I made up a couple for myself and kept getting asked where I got them from, but it just never really happened. So hopefully they'll still be successful this time round.

The buttons are for a custom order I received yesterday...the smaller ones I am going to make into hair clips.

Unfortunately I'm stuck in the house this morning whilst I await the delivery of our pushchair, which I missed on Friday, if I wasn't waiting I probably wouldn't have any desire to leave the house, but the fact that I'm stuck makes me feel like I really need to go into town and run some errands!!

I'll leave you with a little picture of me modelling the above mentioned beanies!

xx

Little Multi-Coloured Houses...

Hello...

My trip to the hospital was all fine...our little one is measuring almost bang of target for his dates and is estimated to weigh almost 5lb already, which is wonderful...he is however still breech and the sonographer didn't seem too convinced that he's going to manage to find his way into the right position in time. Which is a bit of a worry, but I'm not going to give up on jumping around on my ball thing and getting down on all fours in an attempt to encourage him!!

I didn't post yesterday as I was kept very busy all day building a wardrobe! Exciting indeed! But it had to be done as we do really have far too many clothes...I guess it's one of the problems in working for a fashion retailer...but it's done now and today we get to build the cot and make a lovely little home for our baby!

I did squeeze a little crafting into the day and stitched up these little houses...

They are a variation on the ones I did here...but in different colours as Johnny keeps on insisting I do. I actually very much like them indeed.

They are a little bit crumpled in these photos but will be making their way into an embroidery hoop and once up and running into my new shop. I hope to have enough time this week to build up lots of stock so that I can get it open by next weekend...fingers crossed.

Happy Sunday I hope you all have lovely relaxing days. xx

Lilley Stitches....

Hello...
I just wanted to quickly share with you some stitching I did for the banner and avatar for my new shop.

I'm off into the lovely sunshine to make my way to the hospital for my last scan....that means the last time I see the baby until he is really here in the flesh!!

xx

New Buttons and Beads...

Today I am mostly cleaning and tidying...not quite sure how it happened but I just woke up with an urge to do it...and haven't stopped...well not until now. I thought I'd take a quick break, sip on some raspberry leaf tea and share with you some pictures of the beads and buttons I made yesterday.

I needed some black and white buttons to go inside the black and white corsages I have been making so thought I might as well knock out a whole batch of them. Unfortunately I seemed to have had my pregnant brain on yesterday, and not until I removed them from the oven did I notice that I managed to forget to put holes in the black with white heart buttons....making not very useful buttons at all. Not really sure what will become of them now...any ideas?

So I best get back to my nesting/spring cleaning before I lose interest in the venture!!

Happy Thursday x

Some completed corsages...

An update on yesterdays flowers...some of them at least...have now become corsages, ready to adorn a coat, a bag, a scarf...well anything you like really.

And, although not ready and open just yet I'm also in the process of setting up my new shop, LilleyStitches, I'm very excited about this new venture indeed.

I don't feel like I need to sacrifice my time spent on my other shops either because my making of buttons, beads, ninjas and the like mostly happens during the day when my beloved is at work whereas crochet and embroidery very much tends to be a sat on the sofa in the evening kind of endeavour.

And on that note I am off to make some buttons. xx

Flowers...

After a bit of a panicked trip to the hospital yesterday morning (everything was OK in the end) and a very bad nights sleep, I really didn't feel up to much, so I spent most (well maybe all) of the rest of the day under a blanket on the sofa doing some crochet.

And I whipped up these little lovelies...

I'm going to turn them all into corsages, in various colour combinations. After much pondering on the subject I also think I'm going to open a new etsy shop. I love all the colourfulness and silliness of the polymer clay objects I produce, but also really want to be able to produce nice high quality pieces of embroidery and crochet, although I do still do this at the moment, I'm not sure it really fits in with the rest of the items in my store. I find it quite difficult to get items to sit well amongst each other and think perhaps it's time to open a different more sophisticated (maybe) store as well.

I know it's going to be difficult to run and promote 2 separate stores, especially as I'm already selling on Folksy and dawanda as well, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Happy Tuesday xx

Baby things....

As I have no craftiness of my own to share today and we went and purchased our pram yesterday I can't help but think about baby things...so I thought I'd share with you some of my favourites on etsy at the moment.

Set of Three Sweater Balls

By handmadepretties

algiers, 1932
By tollipop

The Adam

By BabyThingsByJessica

Happy Monday xxx

Cupcakes...

I'm so glad that Bethany from CherryRiot got in touch with me last week about some custom work she wanted, because what she wanted was cupcakes. It's been such a long time since I made cupcakes of the pretend variety and I really really enjoyed it and I just love seeing them all lined up together.

I made a few extras for myself which I will be turning into rings and broaches and adding to my shop this afternoon.

Other than that I think a lazy Sunday will probably be on the cards, maybe including a little bit of pram shopping and baby room organizing.

Happy lazy Sundays to you all xx