The Quiet Book journey begins!

Have I mentioned that I am addicted to Pinterest?  For any of you who don't know, Pinterest is a wonderful website which allows you to create internet pinboards, and to share links to anything that interests you.  I have boards for crochet, crafts, sewing and recipes among other things.  And I have discovered so many new and wonderful ideas through this amazing site.

This is where I discovered Quiet Books.  Here in the UK they are pretty much unknown, but I adored the idea of making a material book for my little one, and making pages to interest, stimulate and educate him.  So I've been planning to make a quiet book for a while, but I finally decided to start the book when we set a date for baby J and I to go out and join his Daddy's ship - it's amazing how much motivation you can get from the thought of having to entertain a very lively 18 month old for a few hours on a plane on your own!!!

I've completed my first page - and I am so ridiculously proud of it!  The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of Baby J's favourite books, so I decided to design a couple of pages on the theme.

This is made completely from felt, and I've had to hand sew it all as I've been without access to my sewing machine (cutting a long story short I had a bit of an accident and am now on crutches and having to stay with my parents until I'm mobile again and can look after my little guy on my own).  The front and back of the caterpillar are sewn on, but the central sections are on velcro so they can be taken on and off as many times as he fancies! 

The pictures of the next pages are unfortunately not ideal - for some reason they uploaded upside down and I don't have a clue how to sort it out!  But hopefully you'll get the idea...? 

This is the cocoon, and it's very basic - just a zip down the middle, so you can unzip it and 'find' the butterfly inside.  I haven't done yet but I think I may have to attach the butterfly to the inside of the cocoon by ribbon - I keep remembering how easily little hands lose things!!!

I am really enjoying making the quiet book - I've got a few more pages underway and I'll blog about these once they're done.  Then the idea is that I'll attach pages together, then break out the crop-o-dile so I can use eyelets to attach the pages together, maybe by ribbon, so it can be added to as time goes on.

So there we are.  We go out to the ship in 4 weeks time, and we'll stay on board for about 6 weeks.  So I'm frantically sewing and trying to find as many games and activites that are small and portable and will amuse a lively 18 month old (as he will be by then!).  So any ideas or pointers gratefully received!!!  And in the meantime, I'd better get back to my sewing.....

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Boys will be boys!!!

Today we have had the amazing pleasure of wall-to-wall sunshine all day!  So not to look a gift horse in the mouth, we had some fun in the garden.

My little man has shown a great liking for playing with water, so I set him up with a tub and a variety of stuff to splash about in the water.  And he had great fun - splashing about and making lots of noise and mess.

And then his Granny and Grandad arrived with a brand new toy for him - a bright yellow watering can.  He was very interested, and fairly quickly picked up on the idea of pouring water out of it - although I could not persuade him to pour the water onto the plants - it was far more fun to pour it on the grass, the patio, his feet ..... 

But everything changed when he discovered a pot which I haven't got round to planting.  He started digging around in the soil, and then found that he could dig up soil ...

 

and pour it into his half filled watering can!!!  Nice!!!

This kept him occupied for at least 15 minutes - almost unheard of for my little fella! - and he gradually got more and more mucky.  And you should have seen the state of the watering can!!!

I resigned myself to the fact that I was probably going to have to strip him and take him straight for a bath - but how can a mummy mind when her little boy is having so much fun!



In the meantime I'm having great fun starting to make a quiet book for Baby J.  This is something I found on Pinterest (I am so badly addicted to that site!!!) and for those who don't know it's a handmade fabric book with the aim of occupying little ones and keeping them quiet.  Hence the name.  Clever, huh?!?  I'm making mine almost entirely from felt, and I have so many plans for pages!!!  But for now I just need to get going properly so I at least have something for J to take away when we go out to visit Daddy on his ship.  I'll blog more about it when there's a bit more to show, but in the meantime I really must get back to it!!!

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Colourful creative craftiness!

OK, slightly naff title, but I liked the idea of having all 'C's and couldn't think of anything better!

Another week has flown by, which means we're one week closer to hubby going back to sea and leaving us again :(. But on the up side, I've had some lovely chances to indulge myself with some crafting!

I had to complete a crochet project I've been working on - crocheted bunting for a 2nd birthday present for the youngest daughter of a good friend of mine. I had great fun being able to do something really pink and girlie for once - one down-side of having a boy! I was hugely inspired by things I'd found on some other blogs, added a bit of Mummy Lewis magic, and voila, completed bunting!!! And I am so pleased with how it worked out!!!

The colour choice was to match the redecoration plans for her room: I found a fantastic tutorial for the granny triangles from here, made a visit to the wool stall on our local market, and set off on my granny triangle journey. It was sublime - lovely colours, soothingly simple pattern and very pleasing results!!! I then decided to do a border of double crochet in the contrasting colour, and joined the triangles with a foundation chain between the triangles, and double crochet through the top edge to secure each one. I figure anything to go in a child's bedroom has to be as robust as possible, so I thought a few slip stitches was not going to be enough!!

As the bunting was for a little girl's bedroom, flowers were a must, and I found a lovely tutorial written by Lucy at Attic 24 (here). These has plenty of room for variation, and I altered the pattern for the leaves a little to give what I thought was a slightly better leaf shape.

I was originally going to try and do alternate coloured flowers (like the triangles) and attach them between eah flag, but I thought that might be a bit much ... or to be completely honest I ran out of time!!! Then after several different attempts to attach the flowers in different places, and much demanding of opinions from my very bemused and clueless hubby, I decided to keep the flowers to a minimum and attach them in the middle of the flags. And I actually love the effect!!! Simple but pretty, and not too OTT. I feel slightly smug looking at these pics, and I can't wait to see them in her room once the decorating is done!!!

So now I have to decide which of my WIPs to continue with next. I'm awful at finishing things - I start with a blaze of enthusiasm, and then I see something else I'd love to do ... and I get distracted.... Hubby keeps telling me I need to 'focalise' (he often makes up words - I find it quite endearing!), and he's right, I do. But it's not something I'm good at, and that's just part of me!

At the moment my WIPs include a crocheted zipped sleeveless cardigan for Baby J, an amigurumi monkey made from leftover yarn, and my first venture into the wonderful land of crochet ripples with an ambitiously (or perhaps stupidly!) large ripple blanket. (BTW since starting this post I may have discovered that I've still not got the ripple pattern right and need to frog the lot! Oh well, maybe attempt 2 can be a little more sensibly sized!)

Then one evening this week the wonderful Lizzie D (see her blog here) took me to an amazingly wonderful place of unimagined colour and beauty and scrumptious crafty possibilities!!! Lizzie makes beautiful handbags, and had discovered that one of the EBay fabric shops she particularly liked actually belonged to a lady who lives just up the road from us. She went round to collect some fabric and discovered that her house is an Aladdin's cave of the most gorgeous materials - I walked in and my jaw hit the floor! I'd drawn up a very organised list of potential projects and amounts of material needed, and ended up burrowing through mounds of colourful beauty for over two hours - and emerged with enough fabric to do all the projects on my list, and drooling with desire for more of the beautiful colours and prints!!!

And another pic of my gorgeous materials....

So now follow tons of pics of the scrummy fabric - and I can highly recommend her shop!

This one is to do some crayon rolls (in the optimistic hope that my little man may be persuaded to eventually like colouring!)

And these are for a floor cushion for Baby J - another tutorial discovered through Pinterest - I wanted it to fit in with the colours in the lounge, and have the potential to be gender neutral - and the frogs and tortoises were just too cute!!!

Then fabric for a couple of Mummy bags, with the excuse that I will 'try them out' for possible presents...

And some adorably 'boyish' fabrics for a portable highchair/toddler seat

I can't wait to get started!!! Problem is I need time without an inquisitive toddler - hmmm, maybe I'll just have to look longingly at the pile of beautiful material for a while longer...

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