Sickness Sucks...

Well, it has been longer since my last post since I wanted it to be as sickness struck our household (totally blaming my dad for that one!). About two weeks ago Jeffrey had a runny nose and I thought nothing of it – it’s not unusual for a kid who can’t blow his nose yet. That night he went to bed and an hour later woke up with difficulty breathing – it turns out he was having an attack of croup for the first time ever. I crapped my pants to say the least! I took him to the hospital and by the time we got there his breathing was ok and he didn’t need any medication, and he hasn’t had another attack since – thank God. Chris and I have never been as scared in our lives as when he first woke with the attack as Jeffrey is a kid who never normally gets sick. Lets just hope it never happens again.

Since both Jeffrey and I have been sick (I’m still coughing away), I haven’t been able to do as much sewing as I wanted. However, I did manage to get my dad’s fathers day gift done. I made matching aprons for my dad and Jeffrey. Unfortunately due to an uncooperative child, this is the only photo I managed to get of them wearing them!

The aprons are made of cotton, with ribbon as the ties and cotton applique on the front. Deciding on the pattern and making the aprons themselves was easy enough, but boy was doing the fabric applique a pain in the butt! (It says: Big Chef, Little Chef respectively) I decided not to sew the applique on, but rather use an iron on transfer sheet which made the entire process quicker (in theory). Cutting out such small letters from the fabric, with the transfer pinned was very fussy. I’m not sure I’ll be doing something so fiddly again in the near future!

I did manage a couple of other small projects in what little spare time I did not dedicate to sleeping: bean bags, bungee balls and a sock penguin.

The beanbags are made from cotton fat quarters, with one fat quarter making six bags. These were very simple to sew and have given me a new skill to master: namely top stitching (I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned that I’m a novice with a sewing machine…). The bags are filled with dried red beans and are perfect for teaching kids to throw and catch, with less risk of breaking things as they do not bounce – unlike balls!

The bungee balls are a project I periodically make over the years, and something I first learnt to make when I was in Girl Guides many moons ago. These balls are made from balloons, bird seed and glad wrap. They are really easy to make and a lot of fun for young children. Something to bear in mind for little kids though is that through repeated use the strings will eventually break.

Finally: the sock penguin! As requested by my penguin loving friends and family. The penguin is made from one black and one white sock, with felt used for the patch on the front, beak, feet and eyes. The body and wings of the penguin were easy to make, as were the eyes and sewing on the patch at the front. The feet were a little fiddly trying to get them to be the right shape and size – mostly because my small embroidery scissors broke! The beak was also a little fussy to get sewn on to the main body as it didn’t want to stay pinned in place. All in all, I think he turned out pretty well!