Changing Table

My brother and his wife are expecting their first child, a girl. She is officially two days overdue, so as I sit here waiting for the darn phone to ring announcing her arrival (in reality, my sister in law is at work and is decidedly NOT in labor), I thought I would post about her changing table.

My mother and father in-law bought this changing table for us when Nora was born. We didn't think we needed a changing table until we got this, and then we realized we NEEDED it. It has two shelves, which we used to store diapers, wipes, diaper cream, pajamas, etc. We used it through both girls, and then I lent it to a friend who had third child after giving away all of her baby gear. And then it sat in my garage.

So when I went to get it for Sam and Liz, I noticed that the pad was torn. Badly. It looked awful, and nobody would want to put a baby onto it. The pad itself wasn't torn-just the cover was. So you could see the foam beneath.

Anyhow, I looked around for a new pad and couldn't find one locally. This one came with the changing table, and it came from Toys R Us, which is no longer open in our city. And then I remembered that my favorite fabric shop carries laminated fabric, so I went shopping.

The fabric is from Amy Butler's Love line. I love that it is girly without being ridiculous. There's pink and purple and flowers, but it's modern and it doesn't scream "PRINCESS!"

I decided that the easiest way to do this thing was to rip off the old plastic cover and toss it, which I did. Then my plan was to sew the new cover together, wrong sides together, and to finish it with a coordinating bias tape.


OK, so sewing on the right sides of laminated fabric is pretty much impossible. The stuff is sticky! The feed dogs could not figure out how to get it through. So I improvised, and in the end it saved a lot of time and monkeying around. I cut 2" wide strips of regular woven fabric, also from the Love collection. I stitched the ends together so it would be long enough to go around the entire pad cover. Then I did the whole pressing thing to make it into 1/2" wide bias tape.

THEN I put the wrong sides of the laminated fabric together, and I sandwiched it into the bias tape. I stitched through all of the layers at once, so I had regular woven fabric under the presser foot and over the feed dogs. I went slowly, sandwiching the laminate correctly as I went. I went around 3 sides, then arranged the foam in the cover before closing up the last side. And then I stitched around the entire thing again because I am an overachiever.

And now that I am done, I feel like I should make a couple of absorbent pads out of Love flannel to go on top. Because you can't just change a baby on laminate because it's cold and kind of sticky, and because if there's an accident, there's nothing to absorb it-it'll just run off onto the floor or, worse, onto whoever is changing Baby. And so now that is on my to-do list, along with about 14 other things, most of which are huge and ridiculous projects (like painting the bedrooms).

I am going to go clean out my horrifyingly messy closet now in hopes that the phone call comes while I am in the middle of a disaster. I am dying to see what color Baby's hair is (in ultrasound pictures, she has a full head of hair!), what color her eyes are, and how chubby her cheeks are.

Dress to Skirt

I recently went through the girls' dressers and closet, removing outgrown and weather-inappropriate clothing and things that required mending or a good stain soak.

And I came across this dress.



This is Dana's all-time favorite dress. She wore it for two summers, as often as possible, sometimes several times a week. It has been laundered about 10,000 times. The length is still OK, despite it being a 4T and her being in a 5 or 6 in everything else, so I was going to throw it in the summer bin in case it still fits her in June. And then I noticed that the stitching was coming out on the straps. So I brought it downstairs to stitch them back together, but it didn't work because the fabric on the straps was kind of rotten. There were so many tiny holes that there wasn't anything to sew together. I was trying to think of how to make new straps when it occurred to me that it's a 4T and the chances that it will be long enough next summer are slim to none. And if the straps are rotten, the rest of it can't be that far behind.

And so I converted it to a skirt.

I had Dana put it on so I could figure out how long to make it, and then, after she took it off, I carefully cut the bodice off and threw it away. I folded about an inch down along the waist to form a casing, and I stitched it down, leaving an opening for elastic. I had some 1" elastic in my stash, so I measured it around Dana's waist, cutting it 1" shorter than her waist is around. I fed it through the casing, stitched the ends together, stitched the casing closed and voila! A skirt!

I thought it needed something to spice it up a bit, but I didn't have any appropriate ribbon in my stash. I DID come across some ivory seam binding tape, so I fed it through my machine with the stitch length at 5, and then I pulled the bottom thread to gather it. I adjusted it so it would fit around the hem, and then I just sewed it along the hemline.

Dana thinks it's great! And the whole thing took less than an hour. I didn't even use pins!

Pickles and Hats

I always forget how busy life gets in August. I have been busy making jam, picking and freezing quart after quart of raspberries, making pickles (over 50 quarts so far!)... Last week, Kevin's parents bought me a pressure cooker, which has me over the moon! Jerry, my father in law, picked me an entire grocery sack of green beans from his garden, and I canned 14 pints, including a bunch of hot dilly beans.

My friend Charity and I each bought half a bushel of pickling cucumbers from a local farm and spent a day making 44 quarts of dills. I have also been picking tons of cucumbers from my dad's gardens, and have so far made 9 quarts of hamburger dills and dill spears. I have a bag of 8 cukes sitting on my counter right now, meaning tomorrow I will make another batch.

Today I threw a baby shower for Liz, my sister in law, along with my sister Alyx and Liz's sister Cassie.

It's a girl!

Baby is due at the end of September, so I made her two hats:

The first one is the Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap. It's a nod to my dad and his Norwegian heritage. Plus it's so cute!

Here it is on Dana's baby, Dizzy. It will actually fit like a little pilot cap, framing New Baby's face, but Dizzy is the best model I could come up with. Since we know Baby is a girl, I did a yarn over rather than a make one because I thought the eyelets would look sweet, which they do. I also made the stripes 4 rounds tall rather than 2 rounds tall. I like the wider stripes.

Since our winters get pretty ugly, I also made a Meathead to keep her warm. It's 2 strands of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Bulky held together, so it will be really super cozy. The flower accent is just polar fleece from my stash. I sort of freehanded with my scissors, then found a suitable button in my button box.

Meathead and Cucumber

I have been busy with various knitting, sewing and gardening projects this summer. I have finished 3 hats and am working on a gift for my soon-to-be-born niece.

This is a very small version of the Meathead hat that I made as a first birthday gift. I added the optional pocket and filled it with crayons. It's nice and warm for our hideous winters.

The season's first cucumber. I have picked 2 more since, with another waiting on the vine. There are 2 tomatoes that I had planned to pick today, but it's been storming since I woke up. Not worth risking my life over. I've been harvesting 6-8 pounds of raspberries every other day at my parents' house. I have made jam and frozen a bunch. I totally missed out on strawberries this year, as they were ripe very early. I heard from friends that the crop left something to be desired, so my disappointment didn't last that long. I did buy strawberries and blackberries at the grocery store for a jam-making evening.

The project that has been keeping me busy for the past few weeks: curtains for the girls' room. I have been working on them a bit here and there, on days when the weather is bad and I don't feel guilty for being inside, and they are almost done. I'll share when I am done-they are pretty cute!

Apologies for the long absence. We've had out of town visitors, daily swimming lessons, daily sailing lessons, more visitors, etc. Summer's kept us hopping!

White Chocolate Lime Ice Cream: Recipe

I made ice cream.

A few nights ago, I woke up mid-dream when Dana climbed into our bed after a nightmare. I should probably not admit this on the world wide web, but I was dreaming about making lime ice cream with white chocolate.

And so I did. And it's really lovely. It's creamy and limey and sweet, and it's flecked with bright green bits of lime zest.

Both girls think it tastes like lime sherbet, and they are so right. I used white chocolate chips that I pulsed in the food processor, and I am not sure they add anything flavor-wise. In my dream, I was adding a stream of white chocolate syrup as the ice cream churned. In reality, I didn't want to completely mix in the white chocolate-I wanted bursts of it here and there. And I wasn't sure how to pull that off with syrup. Then again, it didn't really work with the chips either. Oh well. The ice cream is still pretty awesome.

White Chocolate Lime Ice Cream

1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/4 cups milk (I had 1% in the fridge)
1 1/4 cups half and half
1/2 cup lime juice (juice of 3 limes)
zest of 2 limes
1 cup white chocolate chips, roughly chopped

Mix sugar, cream, milk and half and half in a bowl. Let it sit while you deal with the limes. This will give the sugar a chance to dissolve.

Remove the zest from 2 limes and mince it very finely. You should have about 2 teaspoons of zest. Add this to the cream and sugar mixture resting in the bowl.

Half the limes and juice them (I needed 3 limes to get 1/2 cup). You may use bottled lime juice if you prefer, but since you need the zest anyway, why not use fresh? Add the lime juice to the sugar and cream mixture and stir until all of the sugar is incorporated. Pour into your ice cream machine and process according to the directions.

Once my ice cream was done churning, I transferred it to a freezer-safe container and stirred in the white chocolate chips. Then I froze it overnight.

I like the idea of pink lemonade ice cream, so I may try that next, subbing lemon juice and zest for the lime, and adding strawberry puree. Sounds refreshing and summery. Yum!

New Purse

I made myself a new purse about a month ago. My old purse was beginning to fray all along the strap, and it bugged me to no end.

This is the perfect size for me, holding everything I need without allowing room to become unmanageable.

I went dark this time. I also used a cotton webbing strap.

I am not entirely sure about the solid black, but at least it won't show grime.

The pocket on the left side holds my cell phone. I sewed a snap in the middle of that pocket so my phone can't just slip out and get lost like it did with my old purse.

I also sewed a couple of mini tote bags for Sophie and Tommy, my friend Jessica's kids. But I forgot to take photos of them. Oops. I made those bags a bit wider than the other kid bags I've made, and I think that worked a lot better. I love the idea of a little tote made from fat quarters, but in practice, it's just not practical.

Sheep and Wool Hat

Way back in February, I brought Nora shopping for yarn. She selected two skeins of Mirasol Tupa in her favorite colors: turquoise and pink (well, magenta in this case). I had a pattern in mind and she found it agreeable, so I went to work.

She asked about it regularly for 3 months. She was so anxious to get her hat!

Well...Nora was at a birthday party this afternoon and I sat down and finished it. When she got home, I tried to put it on her sweet blond head, and it refused. This hat was way too small! My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. The thing is, I KNOW I knit really tightly! But I did a gauge swatch and this was right on.

Nora is so sweet. She told me to give it to Dana, which I did. And Dana loves it. Loves it!

I don't know what's going on with the mouse.

The pattern is called Sheep and Wool Hat, but I cannot find it anywhere! I mean, I know I found it on Ravelry, but I can't find the blog where the pattern actually is. If you want the pattern, you can sure leave a comment and I will look harder. It's out there somewhere!

It's a great pattern with a lovely secret: it's double thickness around the ears! My whole goal was to knit a nice, cozy hat for our horrific winter weather. Nora's other hat is pretty, but it's not super warm and it sure doesn't cover her ears. She asked me to knit this hat again, only bigger, in the same colorways. And so I will. It was a simple pattern, easy to memorize, and the yarn is pretty swell to work with. So watch for another post of the exact same hat in about 3 months. That's the pace I work at nowadays.