Apron for a baby

I was in Ikea the other day for a lunch with a mommy friend, it was quite an ex tempore visit so I did not really think through that we would have actually needed something from there. I should have bought a painting apron Måla for Likka from there. Not that Likka paints, but many of our friends wear that apron on their kid when they feed them. The apron has sleeves too so it protects the clothes way better than a regular bib.

Likka has now started to practise eating, so far it's not going very well. She has tasted quite many vegetables already, but from most of them she has not eaten more than a molecule. She might have eaten a full spoonful of sweet potato in the course of a week, maybe. Which means most of the purees given to her squirt out from her mouth and onto her clothes. I've also let her 'eat' on her own, she likes to chew cucumber sticks and I've gived her some salad, tomato and avocado to try. But it's awfully messy ofcourse. So we could have used that Måla apron.

Then I decided to make one. I had some PUL fabric left from making the diaper covers and so I used that. The apron turned out ok, but it is bit difficult to dress on Likka, the fabric is not very slippery so the sleeves are slightly difficult to pull on. I should have made bat sleeves for the apron, then it would be easier. Also the apron could be slightly longer, so it would protect Likka's pants too. Anyway once it's on it does work quite nicely, but it won't fit her for long. I guess I could make another one but I don't have enough material anymore and I'm not going to go and buy any, the material alone is more expensive than the ready made apron in Ikea. So I guess I need to make another trip to Ikea sometime later. 

I forgot to take before shots of the apron alone, so here it is after eating or tasting just one slice of tomato. Beautiful.

Long overdue installation of a wall hook

After months of consideration I added a wall hook next to the terrace door. Back in November I noticed a need for a wall hook or some other way to keep the blankets and sleeping bags used when napping Likka on the terrace cradle. I just threw the sleeping bags on the floor when I took Likka inside from her nap. I did occasionally fold them but usually I did not bother.

I did consider also a basket, but that just takes too much floor space on an area which does not really have much room. I decided on a wall hook, but then I had to decide which one to get. I considered all sorts of hooks, even design ones like the Hang it all or the Muuto Dot. All those desing hooks are nice for sure, but I didn't need anything fancy and just wanted something that suits our home. 

In the toilet and bathroom we have wall hooks, which are original to the apartment (you can see two of them in this picture), those are fairly plain and common, but have prooven to be good in use and seem to be practically unbreakable. Remarkably those hooks are still in production. The size has changed a bit but the style and material is same.

So I bought one wall hook finally from a home improvement store. I screwed it on the wall, it hangs fairly high since the blankets and sleeping bags are quite long. When we do not need the hook anymore next to the terrace door I can move it to the bathroom or Likka's future room or any other place and it should suit to that place too.

Better safe than sorry

So far Likka does not move much, but suddenly one day she will somehow crawl/drag/walk to a place where she should not be allowed to go. Our neighbour mentioned about an insident where their first born had somehow managed to move herself into the kitchen and had eaten some dishwashing detergent, which is highly irritating. Their kid did not get injured, but ofcourse they had to visit the hospital because of that.

With that story in mind we moved the dishwashing detergent to a higher cabinet and now I also moved the laundry detergents higher in the cleaning cabinet. They were kept on a quite low shelf before.

There are many things in our home which we might need to move higher or reorganize as Likka grows, but now atleast these chemicals are out of reach of the little hands.

Stamping rehearsals

Remember when I made the owl stamp? Finally I managed to use it. I was inspired by the Piipadoo blog and their stamped kitchen towel. They had used a potato as a stamp. I have stamped with a potato back when I was kid and wanted to do it again. So I also did some stamping with two potato stamps.

I used the owl stamp on a plain white duvet cover for Likka. I used three different colours and also mixed them to get two complementary colours. The stamping quality is nowhere near perfect, but I do like the duvet cover now. 

I made two potato stamps, a half circle and a star. With the potato stamps I decorated two flats, which we do not use when cloth diapering. These flats I use mostly when nursing and for wiping some drool and the occasional burp. That means that those flats are kept out in the open, like near the sofa and it does not hurt if those flats look nice. 

The minimalist game - the progress

As mentioned here I started a minimalist game with Christina and two others. So each day of this month we should find things to get rid of that correspond to the day of the month. Today is the 17th day, so today I need to have 17 items to get rid of. Yesterday it was 16. All my items so far can be found from a separate blogger page here. 

You know what? This challenge so far has been so easy! I do not know if that is good or bad, because that means that I have way more stuff than I ever assumed which I do not do anything with. But I kind of saw that coming that is why I knew I could even participate in such a challenge. I know and hope that this will get more challenging, I'm pretty sure it will because before I was able to brainstorm places where to look for discardable items but now it's not coming so easily anymore.

Well, we will see what happens. Love this challenge!

Balaclava for Likka

I was not going to post anything this friday, because I had nothing to write about. But then suddenly I made a balaclava for Likka. I got some fabric pieces from my grandmother few days (or maybe weeks already) ago and two of the pieces were already cut, but my grandmother had never sewn them together, so I did that.

From those two pieces I got Likka a balaclava. I did not bother to sew a rib knit around the face opening, I just used stretchy honeycomb looking stitch on it. That works well too. Likka is already sleeping when I'm writing this so here my hand represents Likka's head.

I'm not sure who my grandmother was going to make the balaclava but if it was for me then she has had the pieces waiting in her fabric stash for thirty years.

Babies grow fast

What I dread almost happened. I almost forgot to dress Likka on those clothes I made when pregnant. I had made the overalls using a bought piece of clothing as a pattern which was size 70 (cm). But it was a small 70, Likka is not that tall yet and so I assumed the overalls would still be too big. Luckily I went through the piles of clothes that are waiting for her to grow and noticed that the overalls did not look that big. Whew, good I noticed that because the overalls just fit her, in few weeks those are most likely too small.

And incase you are wondering A is not shaking her, Likka loves to jump up and down and the camera is just too slow for her. So you don't have to call the child services.

Knitted vest for a toddler

This was supposed to be a knitted vest for a baby but I again did some missjudgement on the amout of stiches and this turned out way bigger than intended. 

And to tell the truth I was first making a jacket from the yarn. But that turned out way too big and I unraveled it. I don't know what is wrong with my math skills. Then I for some reason desided not to do a jacket at all but a vest. I was inspired by this pattern in Ravelry. I did not actually follow the pattern, maybe that's where it got wrong. Anyhow I finished it quite fast, the yarn was so thick.

Separated side curtains

I sewed curtains for Likka's room, which she does not yet have. Perhaps not the visest thing to do. Before she gets her own room I might change my mind about the style of the room or we might even move (well, that is very unlikely).

We visited Alvar Aalto house in Helsinki over a year ago. There in the office quarters of Alvar Aalto house was a curtain between two rooms from Siena fabric. I fell in love with that fabric right there, but it took me quite a while to decide where to use that fabric.

Lately I have been thinking about Likka's future room, I like to ponder on future projects, which of some I never even start, but this one we will sure start although not very soon. At least so far our sleeping arrangement feels good and I'm in no hurry moving Likka to her own room or more accurately me and A will move out of Likka's room.

But I already have an image in my head of Likka's future room and the curtains made of Siena fabric are included in that image. So since I had time and inspiration I bought the fabric and sewed the curtains. Now since we already have curtains in the room that will be Likka's room and I like those curtains there for now I hung the other curtain to the office where we had no curtains and the other to the kitchen were we had a curtain, but a really dull one. I hope I don't change my mind later about the curtains, the fabric was not cheap.

PS. If you have been very perceptive you have already seen the curtain here

The minimalist game

Christina told back in December already about the minimalist game she had been doing with her mother. The idea of the game is that in one month on the first day you need to find one item from your home which to donate, recycle or throw away. The next day you need to find two items, on the third three items, get the point? It gets trickyer and trickyer as days pass, but you start to see your stuff in a new light and it makes a huge impact on your home, or so I'm told.

Now Christina started a google+ page for the game, so everyone can join. Check Christina's post about the minimalist game and join us. You do not need to finish, even just starting this is a challenge.

Here is my first item. Too tight tights.

Likka's first trip abroad

We traveled to Stockholm - again. This time by cruise ship, we did not feel like going by plane, not with Likka, not just yet.

We left on Friday evening and on Saturday morning we were in Stockholm. The weather in Stockholm was cloudy and gray. On Saturday evening we returned and were back in sunny  and white Helsinki by Sunday morning. The wind was quite high on both nights and the boat rocked a lot. There was bit more rocking than would have been comfortable, my head is still rocking when I sit by the computer.

Never the less we had nice time and it was good to go somewhere instead of being just home all the time, but I sure felt tired when we got home. I think Likka too was a little worn out, she had a five hour nap when we got home.