Introducing...

Miss Amelia Roxy Beckinsale



28th September 2010



Happy, healthy & home.

Maternity Leave Day 13 - Jump Rope Dress finale!

The buttons I ordered from eBay finally arrived, and as soon as I saw them I couldn't consider using anything else! They'd be perfect if they were a bit smaller and flatter, but I can see myself having to recycle them on every little dress I make in the next decade.







Sorry about the colour balance on the last photo. The comparitive positions of the sun and the non-rotating washing line were not in my favour! I used my machine's blind hem stitch for the hem, because after all the effort that's gone into this dress there's no way I'm doing the suggested straight stitch hem!

Now that I've completed the Sew Mama Sew Jump Rope Dress Sew-Along, taken up two pairs of Hubby T's trousers and cleaned the sewing room (mostly I directed while my mum did it) my to-do list now looks like this:



I WIN!!!

Dye My Sling

I bought this Bubba Moe sling on eBay.

I think it needs a dye job.

Do I play it safe and dye it purple, or go for a lovely peacock blue or cherry red and let the purple and grey stripes muddy it up?

I think purple would give the best result by far - there isn't enough white for a different colour to be effective.

Unless I went for hot pink with dark stripes, hmm...

Any other suggestions? I'm not going to do any colour stripping, I need the fabric to keep its integrity so it can safely hold my baby!

Please excuse the weird-arse formatting of this post.

Maternity Leave Day 5

Like Joaquin Phoenix, I'm still here. I suspect I may be for some time. I'm due on Thursday but that feels like an eon away. When you wake up in the morning and know that today you might either have one of the most significant days in your life and hold your baby in your arms for the first time, or spend another day lying about with a fifty-limbed being elbowing you from the inside, the second-best option is thoroughly depressing.

On Friday I tackled the last two baby-related items on my to-do list.


First I hemmed a muslin wrap. I bought this piece of muslin the day I found out I was pregnant, so finally turning it into something was quite fulfilling. All I did was make sure the two cut edges were straight and pressed them into a good old-fashioned twice-over hem. It's years since I've hemmed something without overlocking it first. I used one of the few fancy stitches on my machine (I bought my machine as a workhorse, not a prettifyer). Even though the muslin is very light and stretchable, sewing through the three layers of the hem with a wide honeycomb stitch gave a very neat finish. Well done me! I took the easy road out by leaving the selvedges are they were.

Who can guess what my second project was, based on the photo? If you're not a parent you possibly wouldn't recognise a breast pad if it greeted you on the street. I made myself a few pairs for Baby One but didn't prewash the hemp fabric first and they shrunk by at least 25%, meaning I had to position them very precisely! This time I knew better and recycled a rarely-used hemp nappy insert for the absorbent part of the pad. Yes, a nappy insert. Trust me, it was used inside a MCN cover and was never in direct contact with any undesirable elements. I promise if I ever make some for you I won't use a nappy insert.

I copied a pair of commercial cloth breast pads my sister gave me, which have a pretty fabric on one side. I don't really need a soft side as my maternity bras have insert pockets for pads, but the pretty fabric is a bit of a cheer-me-up in what is a messy business. Plus I'll secretly know I'm the only nursing mother with skulls in her bra.

I traced one of the commercial pads to get my circles (two layers of hemp and one of flannelette), pinned them together to stop the layers shifting, and popped them through the overlocker. I wouldn't bother trying to sew these on a regular sewing machine because hemp is very heavyweight, especially when working with multiple layers. Also the overlocker trims off any bits of fabric that don't line up with the other layers and gives a much more durable finish. The thread ends needed to be unravelled, knotted and threaded back through the stitching for a completely secure and neat finish.

So apart from buttons on my Jump Rope dress I'm all ready for New Baby. I guess it's not essential this week to finish a dress that'll fit her around Christmas 2011. Hopefully she'll arrive before the buttons do.

Maternity Leave Days 3 & 4 - Jump Rope Dress Sew-Along 5

On day three of my maternity leave I did no sewing. I did make a packet mix carrot cake, discovered my Tiffany electric mixer has died following my previous cake-making extravaganza, couldn't be bothered waiting for the cake to cool before pouring the included icing over it and have almost managed to polish it off in 24 hours. Next time I'll make proper cream cheese icing - the stuff that came in the box is overly sugary and acts more like a glaze if used when the cake's still hot.

Today has been a more successful creative day. While Jack had his morning at occasional care I put pockets on my Jump Rope Sew-Along dress:


I followed the pattern instructions rather than the sew-along tutorial which was quite different. The tutorial looked good, but I couldn't be bothered cutting out the extra pieces and traipsing between sewing room and computer all morning to check what to do next.

I get tomorrow off the sew-along as it's just additional bits for View A, hurray! I feel like I've been given a free period at school. All I have left to do is the hem and buttons. I'm having a very deep discussion on Flickr about what buttons to use. I've ordered these red rose buttons from eBay but am thinking about doing tiny covered buttons from the aqua fabric instead.

During Jack's nap this afternoon I've tackled another pre-baby to-do list item and made two double thickness flannelette wraps:


These were a very quick job, even snip & ripping the fabric rather than using a rotary blade. The bicycle and candy fabrics are current ones from Spotlight and the skulls is a few years old from the same place. I image they're all from teen sleepwear ranges.

I made up the technique as I went along. This method won't give you an heirloom piece to hand down the generations, but it's perfectly adequate for making a bunch of wraps for everyday use, or to give to your preferred charity, or to replace the first baby's wraps which you donated to the bushfire babies. The more wraps you have the less loads of laundry you need to do. Imagine - if you had 60 wraps for your new baby you'd only have to wash them every three weeks. At that point you'd probably want to burn most of them rather than touch them but it's still nice not to run out by 4pm every day.

For the bicycles I started with a one metre square piece, cut it into a 65cm square and two 65cm x 35cm strips. I sewed the two narrow strips together to get a piece about the same size as the front, pressed the seam to one side and top-stitched it down. Pinned the two squarish pieces right sides together, sewed around them with curved corners and left a gap for turning. Alright, I went back and unpicked a gap for turning - satisfied? Trimmed the corners with pinking shears, turned it, pressed the edges, top-stitched all the way around making sure to close the gap.

The candy and skulls were each one metre square pieces sewn together using the same procedure for the bicycles. I was going to make another two 65cm square wraps but the bikes turned out a bit smaller than I had imagined. The metre square wrap by comparison is enormous! I'll probably get use out of it as a cot blanket.

Tomorrow I plan to make use of my left-over flannelette scraps - what project could I possibly have in mind for those?

Maternity Leave Days 1 & 2 - Jump Rope Dress Sew-Along 2, 3 & 4

So I've been putting my feet up, erasing from my mind the concept of deadlines, staying far away from the to-do list on the whiteboard...

HA! As if.

On Monday and Tuesday I snatched some spare hours (more than I imagined would be required) to catch up with the Jump Rope Dress Sew-Along. On Monday I made a perfect placket and today I've attached a collar and set in the sleeves - the time spent at the sewing machine has undone all the massage therapist's good work. I'm saving the hand-stitching on the collar and cuffs for telly time tonight - which reminds me, I don't know what the focus of tonight's One Born Every Minute will be. I was so pleased when that eight-part series started when I was 33 weeks pregnant, because it's a race to see what ends first out of the series and my pregnancy.


I don't think I've made this kind of placket before so I was very grateful for Badskirt's wonderfully detailed and insightful instructions. I should have done the top-stitching in cream rather than blue. I was surprised that the sleeves were a bit of a challenge, but then I'm not used to working with baby-sized pieces. Still, that's all behind me now.

You can see that of all my fabric options I went for the girliest combo available. However, I will be making the cream anchor/ navy contrast combination in the future - perhaps as a view B with the full skirt the same as Beccasauras.

My original plan was to make the pockets in the main fabric trimmed with roses. But when I looked at my progress so far I was a bit disappointed with how little of the roses was showing in a sea of aqua. So before I start on the next step of the sew-along (which hasn't even been posted yet!) I'm considering my two options.

Aqua pockets with rose trim:


Rose pockets which could have aqua trim, but would probably have more roses:


Looking at those two choices I'm pretty convinced of which will look better. Your thoughts?

I showed the dress so far to Hubby T and he quipped that it's a Mini Me dress. I insisted it's not, I don't have any dresses that look like this. "But it's what you'd dress yourself in if you were tiny," he insisted. Very true.

The pattern does seem like a lot of effort to go to for kids' clothing, but on the other hand I could certainly picture myself sitting down with it once a year to make a winter and summer version. Of course that means I'll need to invest in the 4-8 size pattern as well!

Maker switched off to conserve power

I've done my last shift at the shop (my fourth for the week).

I've tied off the thread ends on my last cushion blank (finishing seven out of the 20 I'd aimed to stockpile).

I am now officially on maternity leave.

To mark the change from work mode to leave mode, I've scrubbed all business-related to-do items off my sewing room whiteboard and left only the baby-related to-do items. I'm very eager to get stuck into them, particularly as there's six items and only ten days til New Baby's due. Some items are quick and easy, like hemming a muslin wrap and turning some square metre pieces of flannelette into 65cm square double-sided wraps. Some items are hideous, such as cleaning the sewing room.

The one I'm really itching to get stuck into is the Jump Rope Dress sew-along. I snatched a day from my business sewing to get the pattern traced and pieces cut out, but haven't been able to touch it since. Beccasauras has nearly finished hers and I'm desperate to catch up! But I know I'd feel like I'd achieved more if I crossed two or three little things off the list of six and left the Jump Rope Dress for one more day, even though that'd put me another day further behind.

And then I remember that I've scheduled an in-home prenatal massage during Jack's nap tomorrow and won't have a chance to get any sewing done. Curse me and my decadent reward-for-hard-work ways! The thought of not being able to do anything productive on my first prescribed day of R&R is making me fidget. Maybe I can prop the dress sew-along instructions up where I can study them while being massaged?

Image from Mommy's Alright

Happy birthday Jack!

I'm TWO!!

Strawberry milkshake rage
(Redheads Rule teeshirt by Elmie)

Handmade present for the year - a knitted dalek from Grandma.

Jump Rope Dress Sew-Along Part 1

Yeah, it's my last week of work before maternity leave. But how can I sew for the shop when I could take it easy and do my own thing instead?

So I'm doing part 1 of the Jump Rope sew-along. I'm going to make view B with short sleeves, same as what Badskirt has done in the past. This means I need to stop stalling and choose my fabric combination. It doesn't matter if I don't make the world's cutest dress first time - this pattern ought to last three years and New Baby will need a number of dresses in that time!

I'm restricting myself to shopping in my stash for the sew-along, partly because I don't have a car during the week so can't go shopping. My dress fabric stash dates all the way back to 1996, with a piece left over from the first fabric I ever bought myself. Not enough left of that fourteen years later to make even a baby dress, but here's some of my other options arranged as main fabric with contrast in the centre.

Rockabilly combos:
Rathdowne Remnants shoppers will recognise the anchors; Spotlight devotees will recognise the cherries.

Black combos:
I'm not sure I even have enough of this black dobby to make a dress! And while I'm not a girly girl I don't know that I could put a baby in a black dress.

Girly girl combos:
There's nothing wrong with letting a baby girl dress as a girly girl. The aqua fabric with white leaf print is a light drill which Mum gave me just the other day, handed down from a friend of hers. I think this is one fabric that isn't going to linger in my stash very long.

What would you pick? I've narrowed my list down to two.

And thanks to everyone who congratulated me on my eventual cake success!

Choo Choo Train, Two Two Train

I did it!














The crumb coating worked like magic. Today's work on icing and decorating the cake was another two and a half hours, which adds up to six and a quarter hours all together, or three and a half if you don't count the time mixing cake batter, baking cakes and waiting for them to freeze. I actually underestimated how long the assembly, icing and decorating would take! Very glad I put in the work on assembly and crumb coating the night before.

I didn't manage to catch a photo of Jack smiling at his cake, just one of his displeasure at the candles being blown out! Believe me, he did appreciate the effort I put in. As much as an almost-two-year-old can appreciate anything or anyone! Between eight adults and two toddlers we managed to get through two carriages of cake. That leaves a lot to be eaten in the next few days! I might send the other two carriages along to work with Hubby T so we only have to work through the engine ourselves. And the engine is mostly jammy swiss roll, mmm!

So will I forget all this angst and go through all this again next year? Probably.

Choo Choo Train Cake, day 2

Last night I baked and froze my packet mix cakes. Tonight I've assembled the cake and done the crumb coat.

Here's the book's version of how the assembled cake should look:



And here's my best effort at keeping it on one platter so it'll fit in the fridge:


I tried turning the top layers upside down so they'd be flat but couldn't contemplate the amount of sawing and levelling required to make it work.

I remembered this platter as being flat, but unhelpfully it isn't. We got this as a wedding present four years ago and clearly I haven't used it often enough to remember its uneven terrain or have scrubbed off the brand sticker! And, my god, my orange benchtops. Another thing I'm looking forward to waving goodbye to when we buy a house and will be ripped out if the new house has them as well.

I followed Smitten Kitchen's instructions for crumb coating, especially the bit where she says "no need to make this coat perfect".


I may well regret the slapdash unevenness of the crumb coat when it comes time to ice it tomorrow, but an hour of assembling and icing was enough for me tonight. Is it inevitable that the decorator's fingers will touch every surface of the cake being decorated, or just when you're trying to hold together layers that haven't been glued together in any way? I ended up using thick layers of icing to glue the engine bits together (and then shoving a skewer through it) which meant I didn't have enough icing left to cover the chimney.


I'll try to remember to give that a coating first thing tomorrow so it can set in the fridge while I do the trucks. Speaking of trucks, I don't like the book's advice to arrange all the pieces on the serving board before you start icing them. How on earth is anyone meant to ice the middle trucks without moving them? I wisely shifted them around and even rotated them so I could reach all sides.

All this took a bit over an hour, so I don't think I overestimated when I guessed the assembly through to decorating steps might take three hours. VERY glad I tackled these two steps tonight rather than trying to do the whole thing on the morning of the non-party.

Another thing I'm very glad of is that my children's birthdays will be two or three weeks apart. This means one annual joint birthday party and only having to decorate one damn cake a year. I'm really not used to being bad at creative things, so this cake decorating malarkey really stresses me out. Maybe by the time they become teenagers and are embarrassed by popcorn-covered duck cakes I will have got the hang of this.

Many thanks go to Cathie for recommending a stainless steel spatula and pointing out the shop within walking distance where I was able to buy one. It's making a huge difference!

To be done next week

It is perhaps bad timing that the Sew Mama Sew sew-along for Oliver + S's Jump Rope Dress begins in my last week before maternity leave.

I have to make another three cushions in the next week (that's three days worth of Jack's naptimes), my stock of cushion blanks is back down to zero (with a goal of 20 before starting maternity leave!) and I'm working four shifts at the shop. I'm blocking out the discovery that Rathdowne Remnants has finally run out of the cushion inserts I've been buying and loving for the last sixteen months and won't be getting any more. Going from the perfect $4 insert to an alright $5 insert at Spotlight might not seem like a big deal, but when one buys a dozen at a time it does add up.

It's not really the best time to start an indulgent sewing project. This hasn't stopped me from signing up. Maybe I'll try to exercise my self-discipline for one more week and start following the sew-along a week late. I'll be able to catch up before the end, I'm sure. Plus this way I'll get to check out everyone else's fabric combos before committing to a scheme for my dress. I'm currently loving this contrasting combo by ASM_Blue:


Before next week even starts I have to make Jack's birthday cake. Last night took about two hours 45 minutes from turning on the oven to getting the last bar cake plastic-wrapped in the freezer*, and that was with using packet mixes. I'm pleased to note that in the last year my understanding of our oven has improved enough for me to be able to bake a cake that doesn't rise like a volcano. The trick is to set the unreadable dial 20 degrees hotter than the intended temperature and only use the top rack. We've lived here for two years and nine months. I cannot wait to buy our own home next year and be able to rip out any dodgy appliances that do not function as intended.

I'm worried that assembling, making icing, crumb coating, icing and decorating the cake is going to take another three hours. Here's Clutterpunk's version of what I'm attempting:


If I ice and decorate the cake on the day of the party as Women's Weekly insist I'll need to start at 8am to have it done in time, potentially with no time left to clean the house or prepare other food. I can already feel my anxiety levels rising. I'm wondering if I can get away with assembling and crumb coating the frozen cake tonight and then icing and decorating it on Sunday morning, when the cake will no longer be frozen. A lot of you swear by crumb coating so I think that'll be enough protection to allow me to ice the room-temperature cake. I hope.

I'm going to put my sanity ahead of ideal cake preparation conditions. Thinking about doing it all Sunday morning makes me feel the same way I do between waking up on a market day and having my stall set up. I'd rather be able to relax and enjoy my currently-only-child's second birthday non-party!

* Thankyou for all the cake tips following my last post. I'm devotedly following Smitten Kitchen's cake tips.