Sewing: the Cycle Lane Quilt

Hello! I've been looking forward to showing you the Cycle Lane Quilt I made in November, as a commission for a new baby. His parents are keen cyclists and climbers, hence the bikes and ropes, and you may also notice there are four magpies for a boy.

 

The quilt is cot-sized, modern in style and colour, and quilted in wonky lines. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. My lovely neighbour (who commissioned it) particularly wanted the magpies included, so after too many hours spent trawling UK online fabric shops, I ended up sourcing it from spoonflower in the US. The rest of the fabrics are a mixture of lines, including a couple from Julia Rothman's Ride, Michael Miller Ship Ahoy ropes, and my favourite Violet Craft from Michael Miller Waterfront 'flight'. The birds are just lovely, and the charcoal background... sigh. I bought those four key fabrics from Celtic Fusion Fabrics; they always have such a lovely selection.

Look at that, I managed to take a close-up picture of one of the few spots where my corners don't perfectly match. That's hurried photography for you!

A little shot of the back too. Just look at that blurred focus. It's clear why I usually get my husband to take my quilt photos! (By the way, I never used to be a fan of orange, but the slightly burnt tone of that pumpkin shade? It's totally won me over.)

Baby quilts are my favourite to make. All the joy of the fabrics and the quilting, and none of the stress and effort of getting two square metres of fabric rolled under the arm of my sewing machine! I'm starting my business this year and baby quilts are definitely going to be a key product.

Baby steps

What's new pussycat? Well, the Tiny One went from these...

to these...

Yes, his first pair of shoes. Time's just rolling on by, and I feel like a twig in floodwater some days. Whoosh.

The Tiny One also had his first swim at the weekend (tears to smiles in five minutes) while the Little One went in for the first time in over a year (and finally likes it). The Big One wouldn't come. He was having a teenage moment. Usually I just let those moments roll over me, but this time it was sad. He would have loved it. He used to love it. And the two littlies would have loved him there. So I say, "next time" (or else!)

In other news, tonight was a sewing night, but here I am still at the computer. So much for rolling back the blogging stuff: I feel sucked in again. And I don't seem able to stop writing, thinking about writing, reading, searching for inspiration and being inspired. It's hard to roll back on something that feels like it's doing you good. But the balance is better this time round.

I've got a blog redesign up my sleeve but I need the lovely husband to give me a hand with the photography and the design side (he has a good eye, and I need a sounding board). Watch this space!

Thank you kindly

Little time, lots of thank you's needed. How do you send a meaningful 'thank you' when the child doing the thanking can't speak, when the parent thanking on their behalf wants to make it thoughtful, but when the thought of fitting in 14 home-made thank you cards is just, well... too much?

Answer: see above. It's a little thing, this drawing round a baby's hand in card, this cutting out around his finger images, this printing a little phrase, and this tracing around a little hand cut-out in a pen shaded baby blue.

But it's a big thing to say thank you. A meant thing. And I'm so glad I did it - not just the thanking, but the method. Because that little hand - with its baby blue pen marks - is now sitting by my sewing table reminding me of how lucky I am. One day I'm going to hold that little, chubby cardboard hand against the large, strong hand of a boy turning into a man. And smile.

My first quilt

Ta-dah! Here is the Tiny One's birthday quilt...

This is a first quilt in two senses: the first one I've properly made and his first quilt on his first birthday. There are lots of things I've learnt and will improve on, but I'm so proud of it, and myself. I really love it so.

There's a bit of a zoo animal theme in his room, hence the Noah's Ark fabric (from John Lewis). I bound it in yellow and backed it with a lovely, rich orange. I machine-quilted in straight lines either side of the squared rows, giving a striped look on the back (I love the back). All the fabrics are new except the blue stripes which came from a dress I wore as a child.

It is a pretty basic design, perfect for a first quilt. I loved making it. I can't wait to make another! I wonder if there's much of a market in quilts? I'd gladly be a quilter for hire. The next quilt I make will be a strip quilt, trying the 'quilt as you go' method (see here for a tutorial) and using a spray-baster to hold it all together, since it will be a full single size. Oh I wish I had a rotary cutter!

There's something really special about making a quilt for your child. It will wrap them, warm them, comfort them through the years. They will still have it when they grow out of it. It will soften and crease with time (it's already got a few). If you're lucky, and you made it well, you'll see it wrap, warm and comfort your grandchildren one day. I know, I'm a little odd to be thinking about my grandchildren already, and a little young. But I do. And I hope I'll be quilting for them too.

You do something to me

Here is a baby card for a friend's new little boy. But I'm just using the picture to introduce a few thoughts about my own baby boy. My Tiny One.

Oh he is so lovely. He has the cheekiest, silliest smiles. The Little One didn't smile as much as a baby so the Tiny One's smiles are so much appreciated. They usually make me giggle, and a little giggling goes a long way.

He smells delicious. Bury-your-head-in-his-hair delicious. I sink my nose in his big, soft, cushiony cheeks and smell him while I dance with him. I dance with him a lot - he's not too good at getting to sleep on his own, so the ever-familiar mummy-jig comes out of my hat regularly.

He is solid yet delicate. He has a bit of strength and control but is still so baby-like. Today I caught him trying to control his arm as he swiped for something on his baby gym. I think he is very clever.

He has beautiful eyes. I thought the Little One's eyes were just glorious, and they are - so round, big and blue. But the Tiny One's eyes are shaped like almonds, with lovely curled lashes, and a strange, bewitching colour that could either clear to blue or thicken to brown.

I feel like I am getting to know him. I know he is getting to know me. He lights up when he sees me. He relaxes into my hold. If he's getting a little tetchy on his own and he sees me, he goes up a few gears to crying because he knows I'm the one to tell how he feels to, and I'm the one to help.

I think I am falling in love.

Thinking allowed

The Little One has been with us for two months now. I spent a lot of time yesterday feeling low because I was thinking about all the things I cannot do with two children under three. All the things that would have been populating exuberant blog posts full of successes and challenges. Things like...

• I cannot cook or bake as much as I'd like. I wish I could be making stews and exotic salads, scones and quiches regularly. But having said that, there's an oxtail stew spending four hours softening away in my oven right now, and I made a lovely birthday cake for the Little One at the weekend.
• There is never enough time for anything. It was my dad's birthday a fortnight ago and he's yet to receive his 2/3 sewn present. It was the Little One's birthday but he ended up with shop-bought quiches for his birthday picnic and none of the number '2' biscuits I had planned, making me feel thoroughly incompetent (I know I'm not, but every time I have a plan and don't achieve it I feel like a failure). But having said that, I made quiches (shop-bought pastry, but still) the following night for dinner, and I did make the cake. And I suppose sewing any kind of present with a just-out-of-newborn baby and a toddler around is not half bad.
• I've been late for all the presents I should've given in the last month. There's a seven-year-old child of a friend yet to receive April's present, there's my dad, and a good handful more. But having said that, nothing would've been late if I'd have just bought the presents, and things are starting to move again on the sewing front.
• The house keeps descending into what my mum called 'A Bomb Sittit' (but once I'd grown up I realised she was saying 'a bomb's hit it'). But having said that, I did get it vacuumed before the weekend. And a grimy sink here and there is not the end of the world.

Oh I could keep on with this list for hours. But today's me has been adding 'having said that' to every item, because today's me is feeling much better. I've achieved a lot more today, not least the oxtail stew. But I've also been remembering to count my blessings. Some of my friends and acquaintances would do anything to have a busy, slightly out-of-control, baby-filled life like mine: theirs are baby-less. And I keep feeling like a failure for not getting the vacuuming done, or for not making the scones I had planned, but then I remember the reason my time's been full: three lovely boys. Three boys who I've been spending time with. A Big One with whom I spent an hour the other night chewing the cud of life when I 'should've' been ironing. A Little One with whom I've been bouncing balls, setting up toy farms, reading stories and going for pottering little walks when I 'should've' been doing the housework. And a Tiny One who I keep feeding then sitting with making him give me more and more cheesy grins when I 'should've' been hurrying to get on with things.

What I should've been doing is exactly what I have been doing. Domesticity can take a slower pace for a while. And domestic tasks can certainly wait. We are getting there with both. But I'm here already mothering these three boys and there's no more successful way to spend my time.

A touching return

I'm back! And now the mother of three boys. The Tiny One is here, 1.5mths old, and I think we are all beginning to feel a little more settled as he knits himself into the family.

We have good days and bad. The good days are running at about 2:1, and I reckon that's a pretty good score with such a little one.

The good days include getting some domestic tasks completed, because those repetitive tasks each offer a suffusion of success when done, and I cannot get through a day cheerfully without chalking up at least one sensation of success. They include lovely times with one, some, or all the boys, and that perfect selfish-unselfish feeling that comes from being a good mother (give to them, feel chuffed with yourself). They may also, if very lucky, include some achievements that are not the banal domestic (washing up, ironing, etc), but that transcend into domesticity. I have, for example, managed a session of baking, to sew on a button and sew up a slipper, and to paint a large decoration for our window's contribution to 'May Queen'. Those days are the best - a little glimmer of what life will be like when the Tiny One fully settles down, learns how to go to sleep and stay asleep (surprisingly, not a natural instinct), and we can all get on with living rather than fire-fighting.

The bad days usually involve some of my tears, and a lot from the Little One and the Tiny One. The Big One often adds his own contribution, as he tumbles down the hill of childhood into the canyon of adolescence. It wasn't planned this way, but I have managed to have three boys heading into teenage monstrosity (13 this year), toddler tantrums (2 this year), and a newborn all together. What a year it will be! And while the newborn is still so young, and I have had to rewind my life yet again into life with a baby - when I feel disorganised, lost and useless on those bad days - the sense of comfort from where I began this blogging adventure has gone to hide until better times.

Still, the good days win out 2:1!

PS As this blog is called 'a touch of domesticity', and I got carried away with the metaphor and chose to announce the Tiny One's birth with a shot of his hand, I thought I had better give the others a look in. A brief moment of stillness from the Little One (he is always on the go) to the left, and to the right my domestic protege (how do you write French accents on a blog?), the Big One. He has taken it upon himself to make orange and ginger tea. Sometimes I don't notice enough how lovely he is.