1-UP

I found a t-shirt like this in the second hand store last week, only it was butchered, hem and neck lining cut away sloppily. Payed 1€ for it, intending to fix it up for pup.

My puppy-love races through life at a cutthroat pace, climbing on this and that and whatnot. I figured his guardian angels might need a hand in shape of an extra life, just in case :) 

At swimming, pup has learned "the Dolphin dive"
...one...

...twothreedive!...

 Lucky I knew he would do that...

pupin' in the rain

I found a gazillion 3 seconds long videoclips on the camera. Before them there was this photo... BUSTED =) 

Kitty was forgotten at granny's last time he was there, the reunion was very cuddlesome.

Come out and run and play with me in the pouring rain, it's wonderful!
Kid was soaked when he finally came inside, muttering "cold."
The shorts are re-fashion, aka recycled, and in their past life they served as boxers for his dad, now the elastic waistband gave up and they got butchered =)

pimpin' the pram for spring

Our new seat didn't have a footsack, and since the color isn't manufactured anymore, it came down to sewing =) I missed a bit with the pattern, making it a inch or two too long, but it still fits, just not as snugg as it's supposed to.

Whilst at it, I made a matching diaper bag/nursing bag. Not a big one, but big enough for a few diapers, a change of clothes ans some treats.

I accidentally punched out the wrong size of hole on one side, luckily it turned out that I had misplaced the snap buttons so it didn't matter, now there are one on each side, as if it was meant to be like this =)

The inside of the bag.

early bird...

4:30 was the rise-and-shine time set on the puppy alarm...
Since I was in Sweden on the Sewing Festival (a BIG sewing fair) yesterday, pup was home with D. So far, no biggie, but pup had been a real cry-baby all day, so I figured we might as well get up. We played peek-a-boo (pup in play-pen an me surfing next too it) and around 6 he got breakfast. After that we assembled the wardrobe I bought at IKEA yesterday (uhm, yeah, the buss took a trip there for those who wanted to), I assembled while pup read the instruction and the took on the quality control....
I have pictures of it all, I'll load them later today.

overalls

Edit:: Pictures removed due to lack of space

First out in the parade is an overall (no name brand) inherited from my sister when I was caring for the little sissy one. Both she and my niece (who was the first inhabiter as I understood it) were small in size, and well walking when they used it, so the bottom was absolutely in mint condition as pup began using it. I'm not sure the pictures captured it good enough, but one week of "rump-rally" on the daycare pavement more or less wore it down completely...

So I picked up some sturdy outdoor fabric to enforce it with. I have yet to see it in action, but so far I'm liking the result.

Friday after seeing the Chiropractor (painful!) I slipped in to Bettan's since it's just a block away, not looking for anything in particular, but hoping for a dark blue body for pup, or something to wear to the mommy-party for me. Fail on both accounts, but I did find two overalls for pup, costing a total of 16€ for both. I decided it was a find, since the red one will be outgrown when spring comes, and the light green one (Reima) is 86, which should be perfect for him then. The brown one (Lassie) is "now size" and padded, I figured he could use this one at home, and keep the blue one at daycare.

and speaking of blue, here it is. The first one faired a bit bad first time through laundry, even though I followed every detail of the instruction, so yesterday mom who was in Sweden anyway stopped by the store and changed it for a new one. It's Reima, so it cost -a lot-, but I don't have to worry about him freezing, and that's the most important.

massive picture update =)

First out, yesterday we went to a medieval type of fair, totally boring, and nothing but junk for sale, but pup got to see a little people and was happy.
And no. he didn't ride in the trunk, he just sat there while I set up the pram. Wearing his tank-top as a hat since I had forgotten to bring one.

Exactly 8 month old he premiered riding forward in the Trekko. His opinion?
The bumper-bar was both tasty and mighty fun to kick. Other than that he didn't seem to care (sitting) either way.

And as his mommy disassembled the pram pup was in the trunk again, being quite the little photo model.

Yesterday I bought a stroller. Hold it, it's for the boat, the Trekko will take too much space I realized last time we went. And will be clumsy as hell to get to shore if you go to random islands without jetties.

Edit:: Picture removed due to lack of space
Edit:: Picture removed due to lack of space

Cost me 20€ and I thought it was fair.

Then I tried to lay pup down in it... that bumper-bar apparently flexes if you kick it *groan* so imagine this picture with about 9,5kilo pup kicking away. Yup, a slide. Didn't feel good. As long as he didn't kick it was good enough.
I put some duct tape to firm up the footrest and sold it at the back hatch flea market we attended today, for 20€
Missed taking any pictures though.

Edit:: Picture removed due to lack of space

What really sucks is that I sat up until 1:30 am last night/this morning, sewing pram curtains to sell today. NO ONE was even interested (or maybe one, she wanted a cheaper one though, maybe if she bought the fabric herself...)
That really feels like crap, being this tired and worn out to NO GOOD!
And I honestly don't think 20€ is overpriced. I was going with 10 or 15 at first, then I remembered how I calculated my actual costs to be around 18€ around the time when I made my first...

But I'm kinda glad no one bought this one, 'cos it turned out so gorgeous that I want it for myself =)

Edit:: Picture removed due to lack of space

While blogging this, pup was in his jumpy. Suddenly it stopped and he was still quiet. My little sweetheart had fallen asleep in the middle of jumping ♥

update

First out, now I've been trying back and forth some, and now the commenting should work again. At least the blogg looks like it should.
Secondly, I've totally tattooed pup's kissing-bunny...

Thirdly, I've made pup another hat, and finally it's the right size =)

and forthly (and once more, Becca, that is a word) I remembered what I wanted to post yesterday *eye roll* It was picture of a certain pup kicking his legs in the pram, when I thought he was sleeping. He had wiggled them out of the blanket and was enjoying the sun on his toes =)

Also to say that my powder diet got off to a flying start, I lost 4,8 kilos the first week. excess water anyone?

The above was supposed to be accompanied by pictures, but apparently blogger is feed up with me right now. Maybe tomorrow?

Soon (in like half an hour) it's only 12 days left until me and pup goes to south Sweden to visit pup's betrothed and parents. She's even a twi-mom (though she hasn't read BD yet) and I hope I'll like her as much in person as I do in text. I'm getting anxious and have already started to stack stuff for packing. And I admit, there might be a gift or two in said stack, because, well, it's fun.

And last, but not least, a big bucket of puppy-poo for the Philippines Postal Service who's being slower than mail carried by actual snails delivering my package to Honey. And Dimber's is lost since 4 month :-[

Pimped My Pram!

I don't mean to gloat or be conceded, but I am so fornicating good that I amaze myself!

It all began with a major mess in the living room, since I 1) needed to continuously measure the Trekko and 2) needed the floor to cut the big amount of fabric. This is however not even close to the mess there was when I was in the middle of production...
You cut a square, you put it there, you see where it needs to change shape....And suddenly it looks this good =) This was easy fabrication, though I am proud since I've never created something (that turned out good, or even useful/usable) from scratch. And I felt it needed something, so there was flower applications. But I've done applications before, just not with the method I used here.
As for the bedding, I've been wringing my head inside and out to find a usable design that's still easy to remove. Finally yesterday (Saturday) when I was at mom's I asked her. While she was draping an old cover sheet over the pram to illustrate her thinking, the corner ended up over the bar and we suddenly saw the light. The handlebar part is lined with both foam and padding since pup's head rests against it. It secures through the back with two buckets that are turned so they lock it all. Mom helped some with the sewing, since we were there she sewed around it with the overlock.
The bag...
And this is the reason for my Mars-sized ego. I took inspiration from a handbag I have, and used a tray to make the pattern. It was tedious, it was a lot of work, cutting, ironing, pinning (and thus stitch wound injuries) and most of all; a lot of thinking. There were no description to follow, so I needed to think before doing. It took some extra time, but I think it saved some that I didn't have to remake more than one mistake (mis-measured for the side pieces).
I had a thought about making a tutorial, but scrapped it quickly. There wasn't enough room in my head to remember to take enough pictures, and halfway in I realized that if you posses the skill and determination to be able to create a bag (somewhat) like this, then you very likely don't need the tutorial any way.

Details...


the inside. Yep, I lined the raw edges from the assembly.
I tagged it too
why I need a smaller bag...

with 4 diapers (two size 3 and two size 4), 2 bottles, a pair of pants and a body there's still room left. Not much, but that's the intention. I don't need to bring all of the household while using this bag.
It's perfect to carry
and hangs nicely on the pram, both above the knee joint...
...and below
So, I don't care what you think of me. I think I am amazing for making that bag. The other stuff is good useful things, but they were in no way challenging other than coming up with the shape, but the bag took all the skill I had. So many things on I have never done before, and some (zippers) I haven't done in over 10 years. So I'll continue to be proud of myself, 'cos I'm so damn good!
And I bet you'll never find a Graco Trekko with this awesome accessories!

just a sewing update

Today me and pup went outside in the afternoon when he woke up after his nap, so there were quite a few hours that could have been spent sewing that was spent doing something else. Oh well. I have until the middle of June before this stuff have to be done.
Now all the pieces are done for the bag =)
That means the hellishest (that is so a word, Becca) part is to come, aka mounting a few inches thick of fabric together, and making it look good while you do it...

slow and steady

that's the progress of the bag. Though it halted this morning when I realized I had mis-measured the side parts. But that was an easy enough fix since I had a lot of fabric left.

Our dinner table doubles as sewing table. The flowery bag is the one that has been model/inspiration for the bag. It's one of my favorite handbags, has about 500 different compartments.The front side (I have yet to decide if I want a lid) all done and I'm amazed that I made that...

Be dazzled! 'Nuff said!

Pup 'n pram

So, I've been sewing. It's not progressing fast, but it's coming along.
I decided to show you what is done, though I first had decided to not show until all 3 pieces were done.

This actually snaps in place further down, but the pup was wild so I attached it a bit higher up. You can also see the applications that I hated very deeply yesterday, not sure I'm entirely OK with them, but oh well. I think I did a fab job at color matching since I didn't bring the pram when buying the fabric.

and don't tell D about the hat...

revealing the mystery

So... What was this, really?
A few guesses that it was child related, which it was. But I was a bit sneaky and folded it =)
No one was right, but then again, it was really tricky.
The recipients favorite color is purple, and they have two cats (there's also a cat on the back piece). This was really fun to make, and turned out better than pup's, since I made changes due to what I learned making his.

preparations

I'm alive.
But D's home, which means he occupies the big 'puter and that gives me time to sew (since I'm not loitering the net) and I've actually gotten some stuff done.
The plans are a nursing/diaper bag, a sun cover and a sort of hammock/footmuff. All for the car pram. It takes some time though, since I'm creating everything from scratch. Well, the bag I'm copying, with some changes, from a handbag of mine.

Just found out that the day I'll be going home from Neva is the day of the Royal Wedding in Stockholm. Lovely... Hopefully it won't affect us, since we're just leaving town. Mom has decided to come meet us.

Now dinner, then more sewing. Will post pictures when it's all done

getting crafty... ish =)

I want a smaller, not so bulky nursing bag for the Graco Trekko. Not that there's anything wrong with the Emmaljunga bag, far from, especially since I renovated it (did I ever blog that? I don't think so. I should!) but...
As seen below is one of three available colors, the others are black or orange where this one is blue. Yep, ugly as hell.
That is however not the biggest issue, as you see below I might have found it in matching pram colors after some digging. But...
The size! I thought it looked a bit on the smaller side and that the name "Sporty Bag" was referring to the style, boy was I wrong. It's a full size sport bag, it's actually bigger than the one I have.


So what did I do?
I went to the fabric store, and came out with too much fabric (better safe than sorry) of the right colors, for just about the same cost as one of the bags above costs. But mine will be just the way I want it.
So now I just have to figure out how I want it =) I'm fairly sure on the inside, I'm just going back and forth over the outside looks, and how to place the zipper.

should I keep or should I give?

In the middle of my sewing session pup decided to be a lapdog. Loudly. Then he was really happy as long as the machine was running, and whined when it stopped.

I was laying the finishing touches on a little something that went into a package that we'll send tomorrow while in Sweden (because it's cheaper) so I had to get it done.

When I was done with that I decided to finish of a UFO (UnFinished Object) that's been bugging me for a few weeks. It was only the eyelets left to do, so I really don't know why I didn't get my thumb out...
I had to try it on my pram, and it looked great. The fit was perfect, but then again, I had modified the pattern from the first time, and also this has 2 more eyelets. The rings are shower curtain holders, and have the pro that depending on which way you apply them, the curtain is closer to the frame.
It gives an eerie blue light, but is not as loose woven as I would have preferred, so the air vent in the front was opened, or he would have had a literal sauna under there in the spring sun.

The keep or not to keep comes down to this:
I originally made this for someone, without their knowledge. Some stuff has happened since then, and one of the reasons it was an UFO was that it kinda lost it's recipient, so to speak. But I feel almost cheap not gifting it, even though they don't know...
And then today when walking, I'm thinking it looks mighty fine on my pram, maybe I'll keep it for myself...
What should I do?

capped hatter...

Ah, yes... I decided to try and make a cap...It's a year or two too big on Pup, but that's OK, I didn't make it for him. It looks a bit funny as his head is so small. It looked both worse and better when I tried it on myself. The cap is soft (made out of a sort of foam) and the lower edge has rubber band that keeps it all together. I figured a tying-cap might not be the best solution for someone in the I-can-do-it-myself age...If the intended recipient don't want it (I'll make her one from her color of choice and), I'll have a competition with it as price. Sounds good?

The mommy-group met at our place today... 12 mom's and their babies, ranging from 3 to 7 months old. Since I'm posting this pic, I decided to disguise them all. One mom was changing diapers and two were on their way, and I'm behind the camera. Cramped, but very fun! I'm already looking forward to next weeks coffee-date with the mommy-gang