Remember in the dim and distant past, I asked for advice about making a footmuff for Baby S's car seat?
Well, I finally finished it! Complete indecision fuelled by extreme knackeredness and being too busy getting used to a small new sprog meant that although it was finished apart from the fastenings before Baby S was born, it took me a month after the birth to finally get my act together and make it usable.
(Apologies for poor photography, crumpled sheet and creases on fabric - it's a geurilla situation here!)
I wanted to use poppers (the ones you squash on with pliers) but kind of lost my nerve because I had previously made a fleece jacket for myself with them and one and gone wrong. And once they're on, they're on, so you have to get everything right first time. So I thought I'd use normal snap fastener type poppers but then you would see the sewing, so I thought about buttons but that would mean button holes (and you know how well I get on with those), so I thought about buttons with little elastic loops but that would mean unpicking the top stitching to put them in, so I thought about... (welcome to the mind of a new mother)
So...
I finally got up the nerve and went for my first option of squash-on poppers (what is the right word for these? I really can't remember). And they all worked first time. Phew! But...
Well, you know there's got to be a 'but'...
Because it took me a month to do this, and Baby S was a big baby and is now even bigger... they make the neck too small. And you only get six poppers to a pack. So Baby S had one trip out in his new footmuff and I quickly concluded that it would soon be too tight.
But there's another 'but'! Amazing Hickeys came to the rescue - who would have thought! I mean I know they are practically the only place that does haberdashery in Dublin but even they usually have a pretty basic selection. However recently they've discovered that people do crafts (no!) and have started stocking strange and rare items like handbag handles and poppers and (you'll need to sit down here) Amy Butler fabric. Revolutionary! (OK, if you don't live in Ireland you might think I'm over-reacting but really people, it's a desert for crafters here).
So, where was I? Yes, Hickeys. I went there the other day and they had nearly exactly the same poppers. HOO-RAH! I added an extra pair of poppers and hopefully (despite the current sunny spell (although so far today we've only had cloud and rain)) Baby S will get some more use out of it before he gets too tall.
(Oh and the fabric is, of course, from Ikea and the fleece lining is one of their really cheap blankets which are worth buying for sewing as they're about a tenth of the price of fleece in a fabric shop).
Which is looking like it won't be too long before that happens. When he was born, Baby S was 58cm long (I used to lie him on my belly and wonder how on earth I got all that child in me!). Six weeks on and now he's a giraffe-like 76cm. We're already into 3-6 month clothes because his legs are so long! Lord, only knows where we'll be when he gets to 3 months.
Right then. Because this post has taken me 5 days to get to a stage where I can actually get it onto the blog, I've decided to do a second quickish post on how it works and what I would have done differently. If I try to do everything on the same post I predict that it could be another week before you get to read anything!
