Making for the baby - Part 2

It's finished!

I can't believe it's finished!

I started it so long ago I didn't actually think I'd get it done, but once I knew I was adding in pink for a girl I had a sudden burst of enthusiasm to complete it.

You know what I'm talking about don't you?

The blanket!

The baby blanket for our little girl! I finished it!

Woah, need to calm down on the exclamations. But I am a little, teensy winsey, tiny bit proud of myself :)

Without further ado, I give you my first ever crocheted blanket - especially for my first born. *drumroll*



What do you think? Do you like it? Do the colours work? I was a little unsure about the pink at first but now I love it. Joining the squares was really fiddly and I think I need more practise but I couldn't find a decent tutorial anywhere, it's as though everyone just *knows* how to do it. Well I didn't!

I wasn't too sure what to do for the border, I wanted it to work quickly so I did a row of trebles to add depth, then a row of doubles. To finish off I wanted something a little but fancy, I though about a scalloped, frilly edge but thought that might not be good for a baby blanket. Not sure why, but it didn't feel right. Instead I went for a reverse double crochet stitch which has given the blanket a lovely ropey edge, still nice and soft but it looks finished.

One picture just isn't enough to show you how proud I am of this so here's some more.









I know there are some parts which don't look the best but I'm still a beginner here! And as my first ever blanket I think it looks pretty darn good. I just hope she likes it too.

Oh and if you'd like to try your hand at the teddies, the link to the pattern can be found in Part 1

Making for the baby! Part 1 :)

Woohoo! So I've actually been making things for the baby :)

I've been making this particular item pretty much since I found out I was pregnant, but I couldn't finish it until we knew whether we were having a boy or a girl. Now we know that she's a she I'll be able to finish it!

Using my new found crochet 'skills' *cough* still very much learning *cough* I decided I wanted to make a crochet baby blanket for the little one. My fiance's nan was always in charge of crochet items in his family but she sadly passed away a couple of years ago - someone needed to pick up the hook so I'm going for it! I'm not the best at granny squares as I get bored too quickly and I was determined that I wanted to make something that was clearly for a baby so I decided to try my hand at fillet crochet :)

What is fillet crochet I hear you ask? Well to be honest, I don't have a clue! I saw a pretty pattern here, decided I wanted to use it for the blanket and then found out it was called fillet crochet! My best definition would be that it's a way of making pretty pictures within your crochet.

Teddy bears seem to be perfect for the blanket, they're cute and cuddly and could be for either a boy or a girl - as long as I picked the right colours!

Following the pattern, I had a bit of trouble - it just wouldn't work, but this is probably due to me reading it wrong somewhere rather than the pattern itself. Feeling determined that this would be the pattern for my baby I didn't give up, instead I enlarged the picture and copied it! Spaces were made with tr-ch-tr and then the 'block' parts were just straight trebles.

Clever right?

Here's one of the squares!



Argh, I'm so proud of it!

I chose an apple green and a lilac yarn to begin with, planning to add in a blue or a pink once we knew. Now that we do, and with a huge thank you to a competition I won with Abakhan, I've gotten more green yarn and lots of pink to finish off the blanket!

This is how it's looking at the moment :)



What do you think?

I'm pretty darn proud of it! I'll be using the pink to join the squares and make the border :) Though that will probably take me another month!

EDIT:

I've just noticed that at some point I made a mistake with the bears and carried on making them that way! Whoops! I hope it's not too noticeable? Kinda hope it adds the handmade-ness of the blanket....eek!

Cakes, chocolate, caramel...Give me it all!

I love to cook.

I really do. I especially love to cook things that people think are really difficult and impressive but in reality just take a lot of chip-chopping and preparation. In other words...I like the glory that comes with producing a good meal almost as much as the eating itself!

Strangely enough, throughout all the sickness the one thing I don't have a problem with is cakes and chocolate! Hurrah! Although I'm not sure this will work in my favour when I go for my gestational diabetes test...booooo. Anyhows, with Easter fast approaching (last week *cough*), I decided I wanted to whip up something scrumptious for the big day.

Enter the Mary Berry book.

Oh how I love my brand new Mary Berry book! All the classic recipes are there along with scores of new ones :) One of the things I LOVE about the book is that it has sections telling you exactly how to prepare foods and present them. From how to bone a chicken, to the exact times and temperatures for roasting meat, to how to perfectly fold and present a Danish pastry - I LOVE this book!

Within 5 minutes I'd found a delicious chocolate cupcake recipe, decided to knock up some caramel for a topping and I was away in the kitchen. With no sickness woo!

After making the caramel I decided for a bit of flair I'd add it to some buttercream to make, what I believe to be, a rather pretty and impressive cupcake display.

There were lots of 'oohs and ahhs' when the cupcakes were revealed :)

What do you think?





And now they're all gone!

It's a.....!!

So I think I may have slightly underestimated how sick I was in my last post.

I expected to be back to 'normal' within a week and making, baking and nesting like a maniac for the next few months. The truth is I've been stuck on my backside feeling sorry for myself, struggling to find food I can keep down and becoming exhausted after even the smallest of tasks. I was ordered a week of bedrest by my fiance when I came out of hospital but that has pretty much turned into a months worth. I've been out of the house probably a grand total of 5 times and have started to need naps.

I know people say 'you're pregnant, not sick' but in my case...I'm both!

Anyway, this wasn't a moaning post, I do have some news! One of those times out of the house included another trip to the hospital, this time not because I felt like I was about to keel over but for my 20 week scan!

I was absolutely terrified before the scan. I was certain that me being sick so much, becoming so dehydrated and losing weight instead of gaining was going to have done something terrible to the baby, but I needn't have worried. The baby looked great! The sonographer was lovely and explained everything she was looking at and why and what it meant. She found nothing unusual and all of the measurements came up within the 'normal' ranges for a baby of 20+4.

Now, some of you may know that a 20 week scan is your opportunity to find out what sex the baby is. From the beginning my fiance and I had been adamant we wanted to know, until a week before the scan! We started wondering if a surprise would be better? Would we regret knowing? Hmmm, hard to say really. So we came up with a slightly unusual plan.

Instead of having the sonographer tell us at the scan, we asked her to write down the sex in my diary so that we could find out at home, snuggled up with a cup of tea (well, hot chocolate in my case) in a nice, relaxed and homely environment :) So... in caseyou're wondering (and haven't found out via twitter/facebook yet!)...take a look at the picture and see!



Isn't SHE beautiful?! I know, I know, everyone thinks that their scan looks amazing and most look the same, but look at her little nose! Tell me that isn't the cutest nose? I'm so excited to be having a little girl! I think I would have been just as excited to be having a boy but I cannot stop smiling whenever I think of her. She already has a name but we're keeping that to ourselves for now.

So that was a couple of weeks ago :) The bump is growing so fast now that my coat is struggling to stay done up! Not good in the snow (Snow in April - still not impressed!)!

Here's a little pic of the bump at 22 weeks :) I've stopped losing weight now which is great too :D



Right! That's enough rambling! Time to start planning all the pretty pink things we want to buy and make for our little girl!

Drip...Drip...Drip...

So I had a great idea for a blog post! A real doozy of one! Well, it was OK and I was going to take lots of pictures, and it would result in me getting something yummy so I figured it was a winner.

However. On Sunday night something got in the way.

Something big.

Something yuck.

I was very, very, very sick :(

So sick in fact that I've only just been discharged from hospital.

To cut a very long (and rather disgusting) story short, I've been diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum and a touch of gastroenteritis on top. I spent three days on a drip on the maternity ward in hospital and was given a total of about 18pints of fluid and lots and lots of needle sticks.

I'm feeling much much better now but it could have been a lot worse. I spent 14 hours constantly throwing up, unable to keep down any liquids at all and decided to go to my docs on Monday morning, thinking he would probably send me to hospital. Did he? Did he heck! He said I had mild morning sickness and gave me antisickness drugs. Even after testing my urine he said 'Take 8 of these a day and you'll be fine'. This was AFTER I told him I couldn't keep down a sip of water, after I told him I'd been sick 1-2 times every hour for 14 hours, after feeling my tummy and I had pains in the lower right side. Just take some pills and you'll be fine.

Well I wasn't was I? As predicted I couldn't keep the pills (or anything else) down so 3hours later my fiance took me to hospital. After a little bit of confusion as my midwife referral hadn't gone through they did the SAME test my GP did and within 5 minutes of that I was on a drip. I was severely dehydrated and needed admitting immediately. A doctor and a midwife had a feel of my tummy and were concerned I might have appendix problems (though thankfully this just turned out to me ligament pain).

I will be writing a complaint to my GP. My levels were double the guidelines for needing IV fluid but he thought sending me home would be fine.

I'm not impressed.

Though one good thing?

I got to see the labour ward, the delivery suite (they put me in there the first night in case I had a virus) and the post natal care at the hospital I'm likely to give birth in! AND I already have a favourite midwife :)

Got to find a silver lining haven't you?

So the point of this post? When I feel better I have a good idea for a yummy, picture filled post that will be more along the handmade home line of things :) I am still planning on changing the name of the blog too ;)

No Wedding Bells

So, we've been engaged now for a little under 22 months. When we were first engaged we were in a position where we could change our lifestyle slightly and start saving with relative ease. We planned on saving as quickly as possible and getting married within a year to 18 months at the very latest, we had everything planned and I had even bought myself a vintage tiara and designed the wedding invites. Because of where we wanted to get married we wouldn't actually be able to book anything until a maximum of 7 months before the date - this turned out to be very, very lucky.

A couple of months after we made our plans we were forced to move to the other end of the country. We were the victims of a both a very violent attack and a fraud scam which left us with absolutely nothing. Now, don't get me wrong, neither of us are silly but we lost a lot of money through very careful scammers (who we discovered played the same scam on three other couples at the same time) and desperation at needing to get out of a difficult situation caused by the person who inflicted the attack on my fiance. Moving meant that we had to leave our jobs, our home, our friends and my family behind - we had nothing. On top of that my fiance was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and we basically entered the hardest time of our lives ever.

So obviously this meant that there were no wedding bells chiming at any point in the near future. I'm still pin, pin, pinning away on pinterest with wedding ideas and thinking of lots of pretty things but there won't be a wedding any time soon.

Now things are changing again. We're having a baby (woohoo!) and, although we're not religious, I had hoped to be married before the baby was born. Realistically, we probably wouldn't be able to afford a wedding (even a little registrar office wedding) anyway but it is something we're thinking about. But I can't help thinking that if I get married with a bump everyone will think that I'm getting married because of the bump and that isn't something I want. What do you think about it?

I guess it doesn't really matter. I know that we're in love, I know that one day we will get married and I know that regardless of when that day is, our baby will be part of a strong, happy family, full of laughter and love. That's what really matters.





On a side note: I said once that I'm scared of who will read this blog and what they'll think about me because of what I write. I think I'm over that. Although I don't want to give you all the gory details of everything that has ever happened or the effects they have, I think it's important to explain why I think the way I do about certain things. So I'm going to try and talk about things. Maybe it will help? Getting all the bad stuff out can only leave room for the good surely. And we deserve some good.

Whoops!

So I kinda, sorta, might have (just a little bit) forgotten about this blog!

Whoops!

Well, like I said in a previous post (way back in June 2012 I think!) I'd been a little bit down and not very happy about things. That didn't change for quite a while and then things got much, much (muchmuchmuchmuch) better and I just didn't think about blogging.

My bad.

So! What's been happening? Well firstly my gorgeous fiance got a small compensation packet from a rather horrific incident. It was a little bittersweet at first because it really didn't reflect the amount of trauma he went through and the subsequent post traumatic stress disorder he required treatment for, but he saw the positive side of it and decided to treat us to a much needed holiday! This was in September and made such a big difference for us! Getting away from all of our problems, if only for a short time, left us with a much more positive outlook on things and quite possibly lead to the biggest, best news I could every report...

We're having a baby!!

I couldn't be happier, I really couldn't!

Just over a year ago I was told by a rather nasty doctor that I wouldn't be able to have children. He then sent me to a consultant who said in no uncertain terms that he 'shouldn't be giving that kind of advice without first consulting one of the many books in his office' and he sent a letter to the doctor in question telling him as much. Now, some might say that the consultant should have waylaid my fears and all should have been peachy - it wasn't. I was terrified that I wouldn't have children, wouldn't be able to have the life I've dreamed of. With all the other things I'd been through this was just another thing that would ruin my life. This fear has been in the back of my mind for thirteen months, thirteen months until I realised that I was two weeks late...two weeks! Three tests and a lot of crying later and I realised that I was pregnant! I was actually going to have a baby. Happy, ecstatic, overjoyed...words really do not describe it!

The best thing is my fiance is just as happy as I am. In fact, I've not seen him this happy in a very, very long time. To see his face light up whenever he talks about our future baby makes my heart glow (wow that's soppy but oh so true).

So...without further ado...drumroll....please meet:

Baby Collins - 12+4 at time of picture (14+5 at time of writing)!

So now I think I know the direction this blog may take (if I don't forget about it again!). Although I guess I could be cheeky and say that, technically, I did make this baby :) With a little help of course!

It's all change for us again, we're moving away from this horrid place we were forced to move to last year. We're moving back to my hometown, back to where we have more opportunities and back to my family which should make things a lot easier for us. There is no substitute for your own mum at times like these is there?