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Saturday, September 06, 2003
sewing & planning for baby - 08:30 AM
yesterday i did the first bit of sewing i've done for a really long time. i turned half a single bed sheet into a fitted sheet for the baby's cot mattress.
after trying to cut corners & make it easy for myself (which, deep down, i knew would backfire) i had to do a kind of patch job to make it fit right. at least i only sewed up one that way. it fits right now, anyway, so lesson learned for the billionth time that taking shortcuts doesn't work. 
today i'll do it properly from the start & turn the other half into a fitted sheet too. if i feel energetic enough i may even do a third one!
i really quite enjoy sewing once i get into it. i've been sewing since i was about five years old after watching mum make us some nice clothes & various other items.
the very first thing i sewed was a pair of pajamas for my beloved snoopy (you can read about when i lost him). i made them all by myself, with no help from mum. the end result showed this, because although the general shape was right (i'd laid him down on a piece of fabric & cut around him), i didn't know about seam allowance so they fit him literally like a glove.
i also didn't allow for shoulders in the design, so they turned out as a kind of unintenional boat neck style pair of pajamas.
mind you, i still think i did pretty darn well for a kid.
i don't actually sew all that much these days. if i did, i would probably have made curtains for the house by this stage. i guess i've just become a bit lazy, as well as having other things going on which have left me with not enough time to sew. the only things which i'd been sewing, previous to making the fitted sheet yesterday, was to take up hems to fit shroom's & my short legs, or to put pockets on a pair of jeans which didn't have pockets (i used the fabric which i cut off from the too-long legs).
once things settle down around here, i'd like to make some clothes for the baby, or maybe leave it until the kid grows up a bit & wants unique items of clothing which aren't necessarily available in the shops. that's one of the great advantages of being able to sew. notwithstanding sometimes being unable to find the perfect fabric, which is so dependant on the fashion at the time, you can make yourself almost anything you want.
when our bub grows up, whether we have a boy or a girl, i hope that they might like to learn how to sew. it's such a practical skill to have. the latest ultrasound measurements showed that our baby has shorter than average legs (no surprises there. i would have been more suprised if they were the average size) so if nothing else, if i could teach our children how to sew, at least they would have their own solution to the ever present problem of store bought clothes almost never fitting right.
one another thing i'd like to make before the baby arrives are a whole lot of cloth, washable bottom wipes. since i'm going to be using cloth nappies anyway, having washable wipes makes sense. any wipes i use will go straight into the nappy bucket along with the dirty nappy. they'll be dead easy to make, i think i'll simply cut up one or two of the terry towelling nappies i've bought & edge them. i'd prefer to use an overlocker to do it than a zig-zag stitch, but since i don't have an overlocker, zig-zag will have to do. a long time ago, mum promised me that for an engagement or wedding present she would buy me an overlocker, but for various reasons it never happened. oh well. since it'll be a bit of a boring job to sew up all the edges, i might use some different colours for the stitching, just to amuse myself.
i also plan to make my own 'wet stuff' to go on the wipes. i don't fancy the idea of putting all those chemicals, as gentle as they promise they are, on my baby's sensitive little nether regions. what did mothers use for years before all these 'convenient' products were produced anyway? plain old water & cloth, i'll bet. i've found a good recipe online for a chamomile tea wash to use on the cloth wipes, with a drop or two of lavender or tea tree oil in it, as a preventative measure but also with healing qualities in it just in case any nappy rash does occur. i think i'll prefer using my own bum wash anyway compared to putting up with the horrible scents they put in those wipes. i did buy some unscented ones, but even those have a kind of smell to them which reminds me of sanitary pads. *shudder*
i'll have to see if i can make the wipes the right size to fit in the handy boxes which the store bought wipes come in. i ended up buying a small quantity of scented wipes, because they came in a travel sized container which will be perfect for carrying in the nappy bag. depending on how many wipes i go through, i can possibly keep the wipes wet in those containers, ready for use. if that doesn't work out, then i suppose i can keep a small plastic bottle of the bum wash ready to sprinkle on the wipes as i use them. i'll play it by ear, i guess.
there's a bit more planning required for doing it this way. i just had a thought that if i'm going to use my own cloth nappies & my own cloth wipes, i'll have to have some type of storage container ready to put the the dirty ones in for when i'm out of the house & bub requires a nappy change. i guess a plastic bag or two will have to do, one that will either tie up or seal up securely in one way or another. maybe some large glad snap lock bags will do nicely for that? the shaped nappies i intend to use are really quite small & i think they'll fit nicely in one of those.
this is kind of fun, all this planning. i imagine the fun might only last four or five nappy changes in real life, but hey, the simple pleasures in life amuse me, i'll enjoy it while it lasts. *chuckle*
your doing the right thing by making your own "bum wash".I reckon half of the bad nappy rash I see is caused by the harsh nappy wipes. Whatever's in them to sanitise has gotta sting and feel terrible on chaffed skin. Have you heard of Calendula cream? you can also get in a liquid form and it is good for healing cut's and abrasions and the like.
Instead of using baby powder to keep my kids bums dry after washing up, I used corn starch. My kids only got a rash when I forgot to use it. It's a natural product and I used to put it in a jar and punch holes in the lid, that way it was convenient to use like a salt shaker. And no artificial perfumes and stuff.
Most likely the hospital will give you a gift bag with baby goodies in it. Ours always do. I love the baby lotion and assume they give the mild and gentle kind because it is their job to know babies.And to this day when I smell it all I can think of is "babies".
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sounds like you're nesting
I'd also consider using flannelette for travel wipes, they'd be less bulky than towelling ones, which might also make them good for getting into tiny folds