Strawberries

One of my favourite things about summer is it is strawberry season. I have a few plants of my own. Strawberries always taste better when you pick them yourself, fact of life.

Here is a strawberry themed onesie I drew recently.

Alphabet Quilt

I made this Alphabet quilt a couple of years ago, long before I even decided to start trying for a baby. I didn't have anything in mind for it, I'd just learnt how to appliqué and wanted something interesting to do with that skill. Letters are interesting shapes! It will have a purpose when my little lad is a bit older.

I hand appliquéd each of the letters, then machine pieced everything else together.

It measures about 30" x 35" overall. I love doing a bit of appliqué, I find it really satisfying.

I admit to being super lazy when it comes to prepping for patchwork. I don't even pin or baste the appliqué patches to their backgrounds properly before sewing them. I just hold them in place and hand fold the seams as I go. I'm astonished it ended up as neat as it did in the end! I did use templates to cut out the letters though. I made my own just by printing off a font I liked in a large size and cutting them out. Super simple.

It's a bit of a mish-mash of colours as I was just using up random scraps from my fabric stash, 

but I don't think my little lad will complain. 

Blue and Purple

You may have noticed I like drawing stars. It's true. Here's my latest star onesie in purple and blue. Because boys can wear a purple and girls can wear blue.

It goes nicely with my other star onesies, I seem to be slowly developing a whole range of them!

 

Citrus

I find something beautiful about the natural form of citrus fruits. 

I loved making them in miniature from polymer clay. 

And with a US penny for scale

I still enjoy drawing citrus fruit. so here is a citrus themed onesie I drew recently, 

including oranges, lemons and limes. 

Another citrus themed crafty thing I saw recently are these fruit jellies. 

There is a helpful tutorial on NotMartha.org. 

I am so going to give this a go when baby Andrew gets older!

Miniatures

In my previous life when I didn't have an adorable but demanding mini human to care for, I very much enjoyed miniatures of another kind. I made dollhouse miniature food from polymer clay, which is a kind of modelling clay you can cure in a normal home oven. I usually stuck to 12th scale (one real life foot = 1 inch in miniature) as this is the most common scale for dollhouse collectors.

12th scale dollhouse turkey dinner

I enjoyed making my miniature food so much I set up a shop on Etsy in 2009 called Little Time Wasters, and have had a fair few sales over the years. I'm not quite quitting my day job, but it certainly paid for itself and was pretty satisfying as hobbies go. 

12th scale dollhouse fried breakfast

Unfortunately the dollhouse food making has ground to a halt. It just isn't compatible with caring for a baby. Your hands get dirty, there are lots of small, sharp components all over the place, and it's not the sort of activity you can just pick up and put down when need be. You need to dedicate a couple of hours in one go, which is a luxury I rarely have nowadays! I still run the shop as I still have a few bits I've made available, but it doesn't get the time I'd like to give to it.

12th scale dollhouse cupcakes

I also make 12th scale miniature quilts as this combines my love of patchwork and miniature. I still make one of these every so often as they don't take up much space (of course!) and more importantly I can do it sat on the sofa and put it down when I need to. My dollhouse miniature quilts are entirely hand sewn and usually paper pieced as it's the only way I've found to maintain precise joins on such a small scale. 

Eventually I hope to start making more miniatures again, although I have no idea when this will realistically happen. At what age do kids get easier? Haha who am I kidding? 

Candy

I have a terrible sweet tooth. I'm hoping my baby won't have inherited this from me, but I'm not optimistic. I'm slowly discovering the joys of banana ice cream and sugar free jelly, 

but oh my I love chocolate and sweets most of all. 

Here is a candy themed onesie I drew recently, for the sweetest of babies.
Lots of candy and lollipops, this one makes me crave sugar just looking at it!

The Lost Gardens of Heligan with a baby

One of my favourite outings we did while in Cornwall recently was the Lost Gardens of Heligan. This large garden is on the south coast near Mevagissey. It used to be a huge and beautiful country estate which fell to into ruin after most of the staff left to fight in the war and never came back. It was rediscovered in the early 90's and brought back to its former glory. And glorious it is too!

My husband is massively green fingered, but even if you aren't, it's a beautiful place to walk around. There is a mix of formal gardens, vegetable gardens, woodland, fields, more wild bits, play areas and a pond in the valley.

There was an almost endless array of flowers. We went mid May but I expect there's plenty to see throughout the season. There were lots of these 'tangly trees' as I call them (I'm no horticulturist) which I just love and don't know how a child would resist climbing them.

Andrew was about 4 months old when we visited. We decided in advance to use the baby carrier rather than a pushchair and I'm glad we did. The formal gardens and vegetable gardens are pretty accessible, but beyond that there are some very steep paths that I wouldn't have risked with a pushchair. The map of the gardens does denote them as 'steep' or 'very steep' and it isn't lying! Some of the less formal areas are actually quite wild. The paths are wide and clear but our none all-terrain pushchair wouldn't have managed. When we were visiting the bluebells happened to be in bloom and the woodlands were truly magical.

As well as beautiful formal gardens and woodland walks there are a few animals to find on the way. You'll spot the chickens, geese and Shire horse easily. You'll have to be a bit more eagle-eyed to find the pigs (my favourite).

We did brave some of the steeper paths. I managed them fine despite being dreadfully unfit. I was 4 months post c-section. If you're even below average fitness, you should be able to cope. There are plenty of benches too. I'm glad my husband was carrying Andrew though.

We hadn't intended on going over the rope bridge, however the path we meant to take was closed that day and we didn't want to back track on ourselves. So over the rope bridge, baby and all, we went. Just as well we didn't bring the pushchair. I'm sure there are beautiful views from here, but I was concentrating too hard to notice them.

It being Cornwall, there are some beautifully exotic looking plants we don't get up north. I was particularly obsessed with the tree ferns. There are loads of them!

And you can't really talk about Heligan without mentioning the Mud Maid. There are a few sculptures dotted about the place, but she is the most famous. And very pretty she is too.

I would definitely recommend the Lost Gardens of Heligan for pretty much anyone. I saw people of every age there, and you can also bring your dog on a lead. There is also a very nice looking restaurant and a shop I could spend a dangerous amount of money in. Too much nice stuff in there! Heligan will probably become a regular feature of any future trips we make to Cornwall.