Babies one, two and three (four)

We're having quite a baby boom around here. I seem to have spent a fair bit of time over the last year making presents for new babies.....not that I mind, its a wonderful thing to be celebrating. This summer has seen baby business in full swing.

Baby number one is my beautiful new (well 6 weeks old now) nephew. I didn't want to miss out my niece so I've made a dolls blanket and pillow for her, and a baby blanket for him. My original plan was to back it in cotton chenille but I didn't have quite enough and was just considering using a border, or adding a patchwork strip to the back, when I had a delivery of organic cotton flannel - that solved my problem, it really is lovely and soft (see baby number two below for some flannel pics and details)!






Baby number two is John's best friend's new little girl. Along with our friends who recently had twins, he and his wife have been longing for children for quite some time. So it is particularly exciting to know that she has arrived safely. Sadly the closest we will be to her for a while is a Skype video call as they live in Colorado.....but we really enjoyed seeing her, and all of her lovely spikey hair, on Sunday!



So, what's the present this time? Well, I'm afraid, its another blanket (they seem to be very well received and I love making them). Just as we heard she had been born I spotted that Saints and Pinners had taken delivery of some Cloud 9 organic flannel from the Forest Friends collection. Unusually for me (maybe because it's forest themed?!) I bought some straight away (altho' I suspect John won't believe this I am usually very cautious about buying fabric, which isn't really like me, and I tend to swither for days before actually going ahead with an order). It is just as lovely as I had imagined and I had fun last night sketching out a design for the blanket.





I must admit to being a bit nervous about showing my scrappy sketch as I'm very conscious of having no artistic talent or art/craft training (unlike so many people who's blogs and sewing I like) - but however scabby it looks this little plan should hopefully soon be transformed into a cosy little flannel blanket to keep a gorgeous little girl warm this cold Colorado winter.

Baby number three is actually baby number four as we have our own little Ruttlet no.4 on the way! I had my 13 week scan last week and was very relieved and excited (and a little scared and apprehensive!) to see an extremely wriggly little being on the screen. Fingers crossed, all going well, we should have another little one joining the family in early March. All three kids are very excited. The boys reckon the scan picture looks like an alien and I guess they are quite right. They have a reasonably good idea of time but Islay hasn't got time sussed out yet so I think she's quite confused about when it will actually appear - for some reason she has started talking about Santa too....I think she's going to have to try and cultivate some patience - which would, admittedly, make her completely different from her mother!

That's partly why I disappeared over the summer as I was feeling awful, really quite dreadful most of the time. I'm beginning to feel a lot better now so should start getting back into the swing of things.

I have a few bee blocks in progress and a swap to show off and plan to be back to update on them in a day or two. Here's a couple of photos of work in progress.....just to show there is some progress, just a little slow!