The past couple of weeks have been chaotic here. New preschool and daycare routines. Good things like houseguests visiting from overseas. Bad things like a sick husband and sick kids. I feel like I'm hardly keeping up with the basic jobs that need to be done.
But life seems to be calming down now, and it's been good to have a few quiet days to hang out at home and give everyone a chance to recover. And I did a little bit of sewing - something I've been wanting to make for... um.... about 5 years.
I made a fitted cot sheet.
When I was pregnant with Ali I bought a couple of packets of white Len fitted sheets from Ikea because, amid all the other expenses associated with having a baby, I couldn't justify buying expensive but beautiful cot sheets. And, I figured, I could always sew my own.
5 years later the Len sheets are still holding up well, but when I saw this cotton fabric on sale at Spotlight I decided it was finally time to make one. And, about 1 hour later (at least 30 minutes of which was threading the elastic through the casing) it was done. Even on sale the fabric was $10 for 2m, so it isn't as economical as buying Ikea but I do think it looks pretty - I'm a sucker for cherry print. I used this tutorial from Micheal Miller which saved some time taking measurements, and it's ended up a good taut fit.
I realised when I was taking photos of the sheet that I hadn't ever written about the coverI made for the change table cushion - that was another thing I meant to do from before Ali was born because I didn't like the stretch-terry ones in the baby shops, and finally got around to when Milla was about 6 months old. In the meantime we used to cover it up with a cotton blanket, but it always came untucked, especially when the babies got bigger and wrigglier. This stays in place much better, and you can't really see but it's a grey and white spot cotton. To make the cover I traced the shaped ends of the cushion, added seam allowance, and then measured a rectangle to wrap across the top and tuck underneath. The bottom is finished with elastic, like a fitted sheet, but after I made mine I saw this tutorial which looks like another simple way to do it.
The cot and change table are the same ones we used for Ali, my grandmother bought the cot for us and so it's extra special, especially as she died when I was pregnant with Milla and so never got to meet her. When we used it for Ali the change table shelves were plain plywood, but I covered them with wallpaper from Porters Paints before Milla was born. In this room they are right next to each other (there is a sofa on the other wall) and now that Milla's getting taller I have to be careful to put the baby wipes and creams out of reach. On more than one occasion I've come in to find she's been finger painting with Sudocream. And today when I came to get her up from her nap she'd been posting all the baby wipes between the cot and the wall.
The doll is another new addition. I'd been avoiding plastic dolls, but Milla seems drawn to them - she was playing with all the manky ones at playgroup and daycare, and picks them up and pats them on the back so sweetly that it melted my heart and I forgot about my petty aesthetic objections. This one is quite cute anyway, it's a Miniland doll and is meant to be the Asian baby but I picked it because it kind of looks like Milla. I couldn't stomach the clothes in the toy shop though, they were all fluro and polyester, so I thought "It's okay, I can make some". But given my track record the poor dolly will probably be sitting around in her undies until 2017.
