Little one has arrived

In the wee small hours (1.47am) of Monday 12th December our family was blessed with the arrival of a baby girl.

Baby Lyra made a pretty fast arrival.

She is our biggest baby yet at 3.8kg almost one kilo bigger that H. She only just fits into the 00000 clothes that her big brother and sister wore.

We are all very much in awe of Baby L and just how perfect newborns are.

A and H are handling the arrival very well with the biggest issue being who gets to cuddle Baby L first each morning.

Baby L went unnamed by her parents for the first week so big brother A took it upon himself to name his littlest sister. He called her 'Silkie' and we all found ouselves using this name. Even now that she has been Lyra for four days we still call her Silkie about one third of the time.


I had been very busy in the weeks before Baby L's arrival and hope to post all the little homemade things that I have been making for Christmas soon.

I recently used freezer paper stencils to adorn a few t-shirts for my boy. I have used this technique a few times in the past - but those early experiments were for gifts so I hadn't really had a chance to see how the paint stood up to repeated washing.

One of the gifts from last Christmas was for my youngest brother and after seeing him this year wear the t-shirt that I stencilled and how clear the image looked after months  and months of a 21 year old's laundry routine I decided to revisit and decorate some t-shirts for A.

 

There are lots of tutorials available and images can be found in a number of places. The first that I did was the paper airplane found here. So appropriate for my paper plane folding boy (I am sure that on some days he folds a dozen!).

The second design was freehand, inspired by A's other love - stones (and I was also trying to use up some of the freezer paper scraps).

In action at A's mini sports fun day

I love the results and what's more both shirts are on high rotation, often being picked out by A. It was a fairly quick project that could be done in small pockets of time, so perfect for me. Now I want to make more, perhaps a few for H and even some for me when I am back to pre pregnancy shape!

I found a treasure

On Wednesday between dropping A off at preschool and a playgroup excursion to the farmyard nursery H and  I had a bit of time to fill. As we were going to Mugga Lane anyway I thought we would visit Tiny's Green shed and have a look around (this is our local rubbish tip recycling centre). Not that I was looking for anything in particular but on the way out I spotted a treasure.

A beautiful old style wooden sewing box! I have always loved these - I thinks its all those little compartments - the promise of organisation. Anyway this one is in pretty good condition - its amazing what people throw away isn't it?

I am not sure if this will be used for a sewing box yet given the ages of my children and the fact that H seems to think it is a seat, but it would make a pretty good Lego storage box don't you think? Hmmm I wonder what else . . .

Fun with a ball of wool

A couple of weeks ago Mum and I went for a drive to Spotlight (a chain craft / haberdashery / homewares shop) . We had a few things on our lists but of course walked out with much more. And all because of a fairly obscure sign advertising 60% off Moda Vera yarn. I have knit with this yarn a few times and it is really nice to work with and the 8ply / DK was $1.80 per 50g ball for pure aussie wool - well how could I resist?

Adding colour is a bit adictive - its easy to go overboard

I ended up with enough wool for several knits for the coming winter  - two bloom tunic / rainbow dresses, one milo vest, three balls of sock yarn which mum will knit for me as I am not yet up to tackling socks (in fact she has already completed the first pair), some organic cotton to knit a summer hat for the baby and six balls of white to play around with and dye.

I decided to have a play around with some food colouring and dye one ball of the white. I wanted the overall look to be lots of red with pops of other colours as I want to knit a little gnome hat to use as a prop to photograph the baby. I think I got a bit carried away with the colours and there was not as much red as I would have liked but still a fun rainbow resulted.

The techmique that I used was from an article from the Fall 2009 issue of Living Crafts magazine.

Fall 2009 issue

I have used this article before and it is simple and fun - A even got in on the action last time.

Drying is the sun

Just realised that the photos of the wool all balled up are still on the camera. I will have to add these another time!