Stash Avalanche

New gadget #3: walking foot

I got this walking foot when I bought my new sewing machine, but it felt pretty pointless posting about it when all I could say was 'look what I got', so I decided to wait until I'd actually used it. And now I have, so...

Eeee, missus, look at my fancy new walking foot!

To be honest, using it was a bit anticlimactic. Mostly because it just got on with the job and didn't have a troupe of dancing girls with feathers in their hair doing the cancan when I took it out of the packet. Honestly, they sound so fabulous on the quilting blogs that I really felt something like this was going to happen.

But despite my (humorous) cynicism, it does seem to be pretty handy and I'm glad I got it. I did another baby rush job at the weekend and made some cushions for Baby Stash's new highchair. The seat was made from a bought chair pad which I cut to size and recovered (easier and cheaper than searching fruitlessly for a shop that sells foam) but the back ended up being some quilt wadding (because the chair pad foam was too thick).

So I did a bit of ad hoc quilting, and was even more slapdash than with the mattress cover. I just cut the wadding to the right shape, stuffed it into the case, made sure it was flat and stuck it under the walking foot. No pins or tacking, nothing.

And ok, I probably got away with it because it was such a small item, but I only got one bit of puckering and that was because I wasn't paying attention (due to Stashlet having a small fit of annoyance about something at that moment). But you can't see it in all that check madness anyway.

I was going to quilt the whole thing with small squares, but after an " I'm off to light the barbecue because people will be here in 20 minutes" warning from Mr G, I decided random sizes would be quicker.

And, as I said, it went without a hitch. The walking foot just tootled across the fabric (a gingham - 4 layers of cotton wadding - gingham sandwich) without any fuss and did the job in no time.

Obviously I need to test it out on something bigger too, but first attempts all point to it being money well spent.

One warning though, if you do decide to get one: make sure it's the right one for your machine. Mine's for horizontal rotary hook models, but you might need something else (and frankly, I couldn't tell you want a horizontal rotary hook is anyway, the bloke in the shop just gave me what went with the machine).

Oh, and can I just say: Yay! Gingham!

A useful rediscovery

 
Agh! Here's another post that I wrote two weeks ago and then had to wait until this morning for the combination of good weather and Mr G being available to take photos (before he rushed off to work). So you'll have to forgive the squinting (sun very bright) and my shove-it-in-a-scrunchie-coz-I'm-feeding-the-baby hairdo.

Every morning for the past 5 months, I've woken up and thought to myself " today I really need to start doing sit ups". And have I managed it? Have I, heck!

Ok, well, I did about 12 once, but that was it.

Then a few weeks ago I started running again, which was part fantastic and part hell. I love running once I'm fit and practiced enough to be able to keep going for 30 minutes or so, but it's the getting there that's the hard part. A week of run 2 minutes/walk 42 minutes four times, then a week of run 3 minutes/walk 3 minutes four times, blah blah blah until I can run for 30 minutes non-stop. Not fun.

And then we went to Germany (with my running gear) and the luggage got lost (with my running gear) and Baby Stash needed extra cuddles because he didn't like the heat, and my running mojo evaporated.

So, what with all this failed running (I really need to get going again but getting up at 6.30am to do it doesn't exactly act as an encouragement) and distinct prominance of post-baby belly, I have been rediscovering all last year's Spring Tops (blogged here, here, here, here and probaby some place else too). Empire line tops are a godsend when you look 5 months pregnant but are actually 5 months post-pregnant!

And digging around in my box of summer clothes this afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I found this...

A Spring Top dress, which I can't seem to find any posts about at all. It's based on my fourth Danielle top which I think was Spring Top 3 but without the band between bodice and skirt. It was made (as usual) in Ikea's Bomull cotton and dyed with my favourite Denim Blue Dylon dye.

The ridiculous thing is, I really wanted to make a plain blue dress to take to Germany but never had the time, and there was one sitting in my cupboard all along. Doh!

Added today:

There is no zip or anything, it's just a pull-it-over-your-head dress, and while that is really easy and comfy, it does make it look a bit on the baggy side. We tried taking photos of it baggy and with the back held tight (with a clothes peg) which makes it look somewhat more sophisticated, but rather annoyingly they came out looking exactly the same.

So next time, and I think there will be a next time because I've been pretty much wearing this dress non-stop since I found it, I will make it more close fitting in the bodice, and also raise the armholes a good inch and a half (because there's far too much bra side showing). I was going to take a photo of my armpit to illustrate the problem but I thought I'd spare you.

And in other news... Baby Stash goes for a trial couple of hours with a childminder this afternoon, so fingers crossed he has a good time. If that works out, he'll go for a couple of mornings a week and I'll be able to job hunt, house hunt (found a really nice one this morning but they wouldn't rent it unfurnished), finish the distance learning course I started last year, and sew. Sew! Hurrah!

Update! I felt so rubbish about not doing any situps after I wrote this post that I started them the very next morning, and even though I have never felt so unfit in my entire life, I think I'm actually making progess. So hurrah for that too.

Trousers

 Here's the thing: I sometimes have time to write posts, but then I forget to take the photos or the weather is so gastly (I do love that word!) that there just isn't enough light to get a good shot or there is too much rain to get anything other than me looking like I just fell in a pond. So here's a post I wrote nearly two weeks ago (small grimace) but have only just remembered to take the photos for...

Reading through my feeds last night (hmm, well, more like a couple of weekends ago now), I came to the latest post from Film in the Fridge. Ashley had her baby son, Max, about 6 or 7 weeks after Baby Stash appeared, and she has recently been making fabulous trousers and shorts for him to wear.

And that reminded me that I never got round to showing you the pair of trousers I made for Baby Stash. Hmmm, I think I must have made them a good month or two ago, but I included some room for growing so I hope that they will still fit in the autumn.

Unlike, Ashley, I put a popper crotch into these trousers, and although they are more functional this way, I can't say I like the finished look as much as Ashley's versions. Baby Stash has several pairs of pull-on shorts and his jersey trousers, of course, which have come to be known as his yoga-combats.

In fact these navy ones are exactly the same pattern as said yoga-combats, but in a medium weight cotton (I think I made a skirt or something for work with it a long while back). The hem trim is some Kaffe Fasset bias binding I made a couple of years ago:

The idea is that Stashlet will wear the trousers with funky turn-ups now and then when he's a bit bigger I can just turn them back down and let the elastic out in the waist a bit.

I'm not sure I'll make any more trousers with popper crotches. It's just as easy to pull them off completely for nappy changing, although now Baby Stash is a bit older, it takes a bit longer to get them back on because he has turned into a right wriggler. They also don't really work with turn-ups unless you have the poppers a lot closer together than I sewed them.

The fabric is not great either. Although it's cotton, it seems to attract fluff in the wash like nobody's business, so it never looks entirely clean. Admittedly this is a minor point when there is baby dribble to cover up the fluff but it's still a small annoyance all the same. So now I just have to find some fabulous fabrics to sew with and Stash can look as fabulous as Max does.

ps. the lurid grass in the photos... well, I had my camera on it's 'foliage' setting and normally the images are very green but not so washed out looking. But I did take the photos literally just now so the sun its at it's highest and brightest so perhaps that's the reason.

 

Meanwhile, in the garden...

I didn't do much with the garden over the winter and spring, except plant out some things in pots, because I was thinking we would have moved by now, but we're still here, and the garden is just a little bit crazy but at least it's not overrun by nasturtiums this summer.

I have a kind of ad hoc herb garden (because some previous tenants had planted rosemary and sage) but the mint is (unsurprisingly) taking over the chives...

Time to do a bit of chopping back I think.

One of the Phormiums is flowering...

They always remind me of miniature bananas.

What remains of the Buddleia (the wind snapped a lot of it off) is flowering...

This variety is called Harlequin and is supposed to have variagated (green and white) leaves, but they all fell off about a year after I bought it, and it's never shown any interest in becoming re-variagated since.

Another plant put in by previous tenants is this Leycesteria.

We have a west facing garden and it had been planted against the south wall. This meant it faced north and got no sun. I moved it to the other side of the garden and it seems very pleased with the relocation;  it grew nearly 6 feet in the first summer after I moved it. The birds love the fruits in the winter too.

These geraniums came with us from the UK, and I planted them out earlier this year...

They seem to be glad to be out of the confines of a pot.

I love Lobelias. They're just so blue, they're fabulous. I bought some in the spring (I have to buy plants and seeds even if I know we're moving - I think it's something genetic), and this is the only plant that didn't succumb to the slugs.

OK, so some of them are pink as well. I don't care!

Raspberries. Delish. These were also in the garden when we arrived, and I didn't prune them back because they didn't seem to be doing very well (another victim of the north facing wall).

Well, this year, they've perked up and we have a raspberry jungle. And lots lof raspberries.

Double yum. I feel a pavlova coming on...

I have nearly as many pots indoors as outdoors. A large proportion of them are Sansevieria (Mother-in-law's Tongue). In retrospect, I was far too soft hearted. I bought one plant. It liked the windowsill so much that it produced a load of new shoots. So I divided it and repotted the plants. They all liked the windowsill too and produced new shoots of their own. Awww. I divided them and repotted them too.

Now I have TWENTY pots of Sanseveria. I will not be doing any more repotting, I can tell you! So if anyone is in Ireland and wants a free pot plant, you know who to ask.

And this one is about to flower...

I've never seen Sanseveria flowers before so I shall be interested to see how they turn out.

So not a nasturtium in sight this year. I do like them, but a garden is so much more interesting and rewarding (ummm, pavlova) when it has more than one plant in it, don't you think?

 

ooh! p.s. Second tooth through this morning!

 

 

First tooth!

Awww.

You can barely see it (mostly because he won't keep his mouth open for long enough) but little wee Baby Stash woke up to his first tooth this morning. He usually gums my finger while I one-handedly change his nappy, but today there was a little sharp bitey thing in there too.

Awww.

And on a related note... While we were in Germany last week we met up with a friend whose daughter was born in April, only a week early but weighing just 2.5kg. She now weighs the same as Baby Stash did when he was born, and felt light as a feather when I held her. How time passes!