Camping Trip with a One Year Old

I've just got home from holiday. We went camping and hiking with our one year old daughter. A lot of people thought it would be next to impossible doing this with a small child, but we had a lot of fun. A few impressions... 

The Aletsch Glacier - impressive!

We went to Switzerland and decided to pitch our tent on a camping site we knew from a previous holiday. Our goal was to do some hiking and this way we knew the terrain, so as not to embark upon unknown adventures.

Camping with Lily was a lot of fun. There weren't a lot of things she wasn't allowed to do - besides jumping in the garbage or trying to eat grass. That resulted in happy and relaxed parents and a happy and relaxed child (a bonus!). The only problem we encountered was that Lily wouldn't sleep in the tent during the day time. Too light and too hot... That of course resulted in a tired child at the end of the afternoon. But it also meant she went to bed very easily in the evenings, and fell asleep almost immediately every night.

She learned to open zippers and at the end of our holiday she could let herself in and out of the tent.

 

 

We'd bought her a Didrikson's waterproof suit. Perfect for those rainy days when she wanted to crawl, but the ground was humid, cold and everything was really wet.

We received a Deuter child carrier from a colleague of mine and bought a rain cover to go with it. The first two walks were really hard but after that you adjust to the weight of your child and it becomes easier to carry. Lily is used to being carried around and she loved every bit of the walks. She could easily sleep in the Deuter and the rain cover proved to be very effective on the rainy days.

 What is cuter than a sleeping child...

I guess that if your child isn't used to being carried, sitting a whole day in a child carrier can be a bit of a challenge though...

 Lily and me on the Swiss border with Italy (Albrunpass) - yes, those are the shorts!

On the camping we used our tried and true Ergo Carrier (also received from a colleague) to carry Lily around when we had some cooking or other chores to do. I guess this would be something I'd never thought to buy but it's the one item that I couldn't live without anymore. We use it a lot at home as well, to carry her around and get some work done. We didn't bring her pram and actually didn't miss it at all.

So all in all a very relaxing and fun holiday! I guess the bottom line is that like always the idea of what you can and can't do with a child is mostly a mental barrier that you create yourself...

More Sleeping Sacks!

My daughter really loves to sleep in sleeping sacks and I love making them. Talk about a perfect combo :-)

 

We've really got quite a collection in the meantime! I suppose though that the last one I made, will be the last one she wears. We're planning on buying her a duvet in the fall, when she's old enough. But who's said that I can't switch to making duvet covers?

 

These two were made for the cold winter months. They consist of one cotton layer and one fleece layer. 

One has the cotton on the inside because I loved that colourful fleece too much to hide it!

The other one has the softest white fleece I've ever felt on the inside.

The last sleeping sack is made out of two layers of cotton and some fusible interfacing, used for quilting.

 

It has the most lovely cotton fabric on the inside. The pattern reminds me of waves or even dragon's scales! What a great way to begin a bedtime story!

And one last picture with a roundup of all the sleeping sacks I've made so far :-)

Crib Bumper

Babies sleep in cribs. Everyone knows that! But what comes after the crib?

Lily spent her first months in a crib that we borrowed from one of my aunts. When she got too big, she spent some months in a second hand baby bed. Our backs soon began to hurt until we were kindly given a baby bed by another aunt. It's a bed my grandmother actually bought for my aunts, uncles and my mom. It's a real 50ies number and is called vintage nowadays! One of the sides opens, which is great for people with bad lower backs! (And let's be honest, who hasn't?)

The bed, however, came with a 14 year old mattress and without a bumper. We've had a new mattress made for the bed, which hasn't got modern standard dimensions. I, then, made the bumper myself, using some lightweight denim fabric with white stars on it and some white fabric with grey stars on it.

I attached some bias binding to the top and bottom of the bumper to tie it to the bed. That way you can turn the bumper upside down (and change its appearance from denim to white).

I had some fabric scraps left after making the bumper and decided to use them to sew another baby sleeping sack.

I actually copied another sleeping sack that we were given when Lily was born. It's proven to be a really useful design! I lined it with the same fusible interfacing I used for her first baby sleeping sack. Just fine, not too hot and not too cold for a typical Belgian summer.

Here's a pic from the back, which I like best. I had to patch it together like this, because I hand't got enough fabric left to cut it out in one piece. Sometimes working with scraps can really stretch your creativity!

Baby Peasant Blouse

Are you ready for the second post in my baby sewing series? I know I am!

The second item I made for my little girl was a baby peasant blouse. I used this tutorial and found it a nice pattern and very easy to follow!

I used a beautiful Liberty fabric. It was actually a leftover from a dress I made for my sister (pictures coming up!). As I've told before, she's Lily's godmother and was very proud carrying her niece around in matching outfits. Hehe!

I lined the blouse with a light and soft cotton batiste. Perfect for a hot summery day! Lily loved wearing it (read: she didn't protest when I put it on!)

The First Few Weeks

So, what actually happened between my last post back in September 2011 and now, August 2013? Was I abducted by aliens? No, no! But you're close ;-) I got pregnant and had a baby. She's a lovely one year old girl, named Lily Kate.

I didn't do much sewing while pregnant, apart from the traditional how-to-turn-your-jeans-into-a-maternity-jeans kind of thing. However, I started sewing again when my daughter was born.

I mostly altered my clothes into nursing friendly garments, but I've sewn a couple of things for my little girl too. So, let me introduce to you, the first of a series of posts about baby sewing. 

Spoiler alert: if you're not into baby stuff, turn away now, while you still can!

One of the first things I made was this Baby Sleeping Sack, from the book Homemade Beginnings by Anna Maria Horner.

 

We didn't know if our baby was going to be a boy or a girl during the pregnancy, as we wanted it to be a surprise. So, when sewing this sleeping sack I had to choose 'neutral' colours. I still do love the colour scheme though and would choose these exact colours again.

The sleeping sack is made from several cotton fabrics. I made the patchwork front from remnants of a (too big) duvet cover, the fabric of two dresses I made and an old pair of my boyfriend's pyjama pants (so soft!). It's not perfect, but I love the way it looks.

The inside is made from some fabric I had still lying around and that I used before to make a wallet for my sister (Lily's godmother). The back is cut from the aforementioned pyjama pants and I lined the whole thing with some fusible interfacing, a leftover from a winter coat I once made. Talk about stash busting!

But what I love most about this sleeping sack is that is made out of different fabrics, that make me think of all the people who love her!

Shorts!

I finished my first pair of shorts! Hooray!
I used this Burda Pattern:

I'm very happy with the result as you can see in the picture below.

 

As usual, I had a lot of problems with the Burda pattern. I don't know what it is with Burda, but each time I give one of their patterns a go, I remember why I cursed my last Burda project.

That means I had to do a lot of adjustments.

Here's the back view: (BTW Do you notice my 'Katniss Braid'? I'm so proud of being able to do that myself! Ha!)

I had to take in the side seams and the inside leg seams. Burda's patterns seem to run larger than other companies. I also lengthened the shorts. Because seriously, who wants to look like Madonna in real life? Obviously, I only realised the shorts were so short when I tried them on, so I had to cut out and sew on a new piece for the cuffs.

My finished waistband was a bit on the small side (3.5cm instead of the promised 4.5cm), so I cut another piece and folded my new waistband on the seam. Does that make sense?

I also did my very first lapped zipper. I wish I had done some research on beforehand and used this method instead of the Burda method. It makes more sense and would probably have turned out a little bit better. (Although I'm not totally unhappy with how my zipper looks now.)

All in all I'm very happy with my new shorts and I love wearing them. They're so comfortable! I used a cotton with some stretch and it suits this pattern perfectly. I was a little worried that this fabric might be a little on the thin side, but that wasn't necessary really. It wrinkles a bit but not too much and feels light and breezy on a hot summer day.

Oh, and did I tell you I used a fab nautical button?

seamRIPper

I'm working on a pair of shorts. I've never made anything remotely resembling shorts before, so this is quite an adventure! 

We're going on holiday soon (camping in Switzerland) so I need a pair of shorts. That speaks for itself. Right? I'm using this pattern form the July issue of Burda Magazine. (The only garment worth making in that whole issue! As you can read here and here.)

You need a tiny zipper for this pattern, so I decided to harvest one from an old pair of my boyfriend's jeans. This was the result:

The zipper had no stop and I pulled that tiny sliding thing off. Anyway, not being one of the faint hearted, I decided to give it another go. I used an old skirt of mine this time and made sure that the zipper had a stop, before getting it out. I hadn't even got halfway through, before this happened:

RIP my trusty seamripper :-(

So, I bought a new one from PRYM:

It's a small one. The shop I bought it from also sells large ones. I figure that they're more difficult to handle. Or am I wrong? Does anyone know what the difference actually is?

And I also bought a small zipper. Fate does not want me to use an old zipper on this project for sure!