Working away

I feel like I haven't had any time to do anything. I know that's such an over exaggeration, but this time it's true. The sad thing is, I haven't been terribly busy, things just have not been running smoothly around here. I've decided to do one load of laundry everyday to keep on top of things. That ended up with loads left in the washer because I forgot about it, loads sitting unfolded in baskets around my house, and baskets being tipped over with Shep using the contents as a landing pad. Oh, and the kids have given up on sleep! My kids used to be great sleepers. The house is quiet, with no one home upstairs to wake them and I'm being quiet, usually trying to finish a craft, and an hour into their naps (naps that took 30 minutes to an hour to get them to sleep) they are awake and crying. Sigh!

One good thing that happened the past few weeks is that I got my walking foot in the mail! Yay ebay!

But, it's bittersweet because I have no time to actually sit down with my machine to use it. My machine is sick :( I don't know what is wrong with it. It's making some knocking noises and not sewing properly with uneven stitches and poor tension. I've tried everything to fix it. Cleaned and oiled it, changed the needles, tried every possible tension. The one thing I haven't tried, now that I think about it, is that I haven't tried a really good quality thread. I've been using just whatever polyester blends and some are pretty old. I think I will try some new thread and pray that it works.

Today, I did manage to do a little craft with the kids for my dad for Father's Day. I know, that was last week but they live up North and we're going to visit them this weekend for a week! I'm so excited. So, I found this stepping stone kit at Michael's on sale and figured I would give it a go. I'm not 100% pleased with it. Here is the progress so far. It needs to set for 48 hours and we did it at 11am this morning.

Well, I must be off. Liam has been screaming for a little bit and I don't think he's going back to sleep :(

Baby Eli's finished blanket

My dear friend had her little (well, little isn't really how you can put it, he was 10 lbs!) baby boy this month and I finished the baby blanket I made for her.

It's the "girly" blanket I was making if I had a girl, but I figured it could be gender neutral. I also added another round of blue on the border after this picture was taken. She loved it and I'm sure Eli will like it too!

I think I will start selling blankets soon, probably once Liam is a bit older, but I'm sure I can whip them up pretty quickly if the price was right ;). I'm also making a brown basket weave blanket for Liam right now so the orders will just have to wait for now.

same ol' poop, different pile...

I've decided to take on yet another craft... diaper sewing. Yes, I know I can barely get through the crafts I have on the go already but I am determined to make cloth diapers. I have the fabric, the snaps, the elastic, the patterns, I'm just waiting for my new even feed walking foot to arrive in the mail so I can start my cute little dipes. I started with a wet bag but the feeding dogs in my machine ate the material like it was nothing! Besides, I needed to get the walking foot for quilting, yet another craft I will be taking up soon, but that's for another post.

We've been using cloth diapers since our oldest, Shepherd was about 18 months old. We were shocked at how much money we were literally throwing away and decided to look into the cloth option. We're not overly environmentally conscious, just more health conscious and we learned that disposable diapers are full of harmful chemicals! I always hated when the diapers would shed little jelly pieces on our little guy's bum. He was also very prone to rashes and burns that we later realized were from using disposable diapers and he had fewer to no diaper rashes since switching to cloth. Our second, Liam has been in cloth since he was 1 month old and only had rashes in disposable diapers. He did have a few rashes when we tried switching to cloth wipes but for some reason he does much better with disposable wipes. I really would like to switch to cloth wipes, again since the wipes are full of chemicals but we can always choose natural disposable wipes.

Anyway, cloth diapers can get pretty pricey and although I have found a great Canadian store based in Vancouver, I have recently found a site to buy fabric specifically for making your own cloth diapers. It's not Canadian but the prices are great! As soon as I get that walking foot, and assuming my kids are well behaved, I will be posting pictures soon of cute little handmade cloth diapers.