Entries Tagged 'Fitz' ↓

I know!

Having taken a couple of months to make a top for myself, during which time my body changed enough to make the exercise almost futile, I decided to put down the needle with regard to clothes for myself for a while. I’ve still got a hankering to make garments, and realised I have the perfect recipient: Fitz. Being small, his clothes are too, which translates as super-quick to sew.

I was gifted this wonderful book by Kyoko when Fitz came along, which is a japanese pattern book dedicated to sewing with knits for babies.

Knits are wonderful for little ones, especially once they get to the wriggly, shuffly stage that Fitz has reached (so quickly!). It’s also good practice for me to work with the overlocker (or lock machine as they call it in Japan), since I realised that my skills aren’t quite as smooth as I’d like them to be, though I think in part the trouble is confidence, for which the only remedy is more practice.

I decided to make the little trousers on the front cover, since they have a gorgeous flared hem, and a cute inset bottom. Sadly I didn’t have contrast jersey so it’s all one colour, but Mr J offered one of his red t-shirts for next time. I’m yet to be convinced… The sizes in the book are 60, 70, 80 and 90 cm, and I made the 80cm – wonderfully, even if they did turn out to be a little long, Fitz is going to continue growing. Rather splendidly, the trousers are called Monkey Pants, which I was compelled to call out several times during the making of, just because it sounds so joyous. I’m still compelled to shout it whenever I put them on him. I really ought to find other ways of being entertained.

Florence has just done a great post about japanese pattern books, so I won’t repeat anything about how simple they are to follow, especially since I hope you can see from this picture how indecently easy these were to make. (One thing I will mention though – I so want the little plastic clips used throughout this book instead of pins. So clever!)

Monkey pants! A little long, but no matter. He seems happy enough in them, and in all I think they took less than an hour to make. It might have seemed longer but that’s because I made the pair of shorts on the facing page at the same time. See? Indecently easy.

They’re not pressed due to ‘must make the baby wear them immediately’ excitement, hence the slightly wibbly looking seam – it’s not wibbly really. I’m going to make another couple of pairs, which will hopefully save some more of his better going out of the house clothes from weaning disasters (weetabix, tomato based sauces …) and give us go to house pants for days when we can’t be bothered to get dressed. Cheap, cheery and above all, replaceable.

You know, I kind of want some for myself…

Is it time to confess that I owe Tim Berners-Lee an awful lot? More than that – pretty much everything, if I’m honest. If he hadn’t invented the internet, then I would never have been building a website for my boss in ‘97, and I would never have got chatting with Mr J, who lived far away, and there would never have been a meet up and I would never have met best friend Jo, and we would never have persuaded Mr J that moving to London was a good thing, and then we would never have got together, and moved in together, and got married and bought a house and got cats and had Fitz. I also would never have been able to connect with all the lovely crafty people, who have been so kind in sending things to celebrate Fitz’s arrival. Time for some public thanks…

Susanne sent this beautiful little jacket all the way from Germany, which she’d knitted by hand of course. It got great notices when he wore it for our trip to the cinema. Susanne’s been commenting on my blog for good few years now, and has an interesting, thoughtful blog of her own: creative.mother.thinking, where she talks about being a mum, musician, crafter, spinner and woman with wonderful honesty.

The Queen of Applique sent a little collection – lovely things for the boy decorated with beautiful playful cats. This one playing with a ball of string is one of my favourites. Since Fitz gets very happy when he sees our black cat in particular already, I know he’ll be happy. Of course as the mother of two little teacakes herself she has been very wise and sent things for 6m+ so it will be a little while before Fitz is in them, but he’ll look wonderful in them.

And Helen, despite being terribly busy herself, sent this wonderful knitted jacket, with funky fabric insert. He wore it out to my NCT meet up yesterday and had lots of nice compliments on his outfit. I’m so glad I leave the knitting up to other people – they’re so much more talented than me.

Kyoko is not someone I’ve met personally, but I’m convinced she’s delightful, and as if to prove it she sent me something for the baby that doubles as a treat for me. The book is full of baby patterns all for the overlocker (or lock machine as they call it in Japan) – all deeply cute and practical. Unfortunately it makes me want to go back to Japan, and also start studying Japanese again since I’ve realised I probably don’t even know the 103 kanji I knew for level 4 anymore. That’s all beside the point. The book is gorgeous, and so is the fabric she sent with it, which I keep picking up just to look at because it’s lovely.

Lastly, I should point out that this post has taken days to put together, what with trying to manage photos, and get ten minutes together to write it. While I try to snatch time for the next post you can find me more frequently twittering away, because this is much more easily achieved with one thumb and an iPhone.

Funny how some months are longer than others. Funny how some months make it hard to remember what all the other months were like.

The beautiful play mat was made by my lovely friend Jo, and we’ve been enjoying it a lot. One of the squares asks ‘How many animals?’ and I can see us having a lot of fun answering that question. (OMG he’s already outgrowing that outfit…)

Thank you all so much for the congratulatory messages – they were so warmly received by both of us. I had thought that I’d reply to you all personally, but I’m afraid I’ve sacrificed keyboard time for cuddles, a trade off I’m sure you’ll understand.

The past month has been about a lot of firsts: pushing the buggy to the shops, eating lunch out, driving the car again, getting the bus, feeding out in public, trying to make it to an appointment on time…I still haven’t figured out how people with children are ever on time for anything, never mind attempt to do more than one thing per day.

But does it matter? Not really. Not when I have this little face to look at.

Fitz (our little one’s nom de plume) finally joined us on Saturday 12th September at 11am. I can’t quite believe he’s a week old already, and such a beautiful week it’s been. I’m recovering well, and we’re making the most of these precious first days as a family. I’ll see you again soon, but for now a couple of pictures will have to say what I can’t find words for.