The Half Pinafore - A Free Pattern...

Christmas is only nine days away you guys. Eeep!

If you're like me and have left your gift making to the last minute, I've made a little gift for you that will hopefully help you out. It's a free half pinafore pattern; I like to call her Pinny for short (or you may want to call her an apron... whatever floats your boat).

These are super quick to make up and make a sweet and lovely gift for your gardening, baking and crafty friends and family as well as for those who do the washing up - David in a floral half pinny doing the dishes? The gift that keeps on giving...

Plus, they're a great stash buster for all of those pretty remnants of quilting cotton you have laying around.

I like having multiple half pinny's around too, I wear one in the garden to stash away my gloves that I'm forever loosing, and have been wearing one in the kitchen lately while experimenting with ginger bread.

However, as I mentioned above, Christmas is only nine days away, so although these are really quick to make, if you still don't have time to whip one or two up, why not print out the pattern, raid your stash and give it as a little kit to your best crafty friends?

The instructions come with full diagrams and detailed descriptions of each step, just like my regular patterns, and I've provided the pattern itself in a standard A4/letter print-at-home format as well as an A1 print shop version if you wanted to gift the pattern as a kit.

So, do you think you'll be making one or two as gifts? Or even just for yourself? I'd love to see them if you do :)

Speaking of experiments in the kitchen, as you can see in the photo above on the left, our rhubarb is growing like a weed at the moment (and that's only one of the spots it's currently growing!) - do you have any yummy rhubarb recipes that you might care to share? I'd love to hear them!!

Talk soon,

xx
J

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Your Felicity Dresses...

Hello, hello...

Today I wanted to share some of the lovely Felicity Dresses I've seen around the blogoshere since releasing the pattern. Before I get into it though, I wanted to let you all know that my dear friend Caitlan (who runs Indie Stitches) is now stocking my pdf patterns as well as the paper Bronte Top pattern! Caitlan is in Australia and has some gorgeous indie patterns in her store and come early next year, she'll be stocking a beautiful selection of fabrics as well. I've been lucky enough to have been given a sneaky peek and there are at least four I want straight off the bat.

I'll be adding more suppliers next year and will keep you updated as my little list grows so that you know when one pops up that is close to you. On that note, if there is somewhere in your area that you would like to stock my patterns, please let me know so I can get in touch with them in the new year :)

Anyway, let's ooh and ahh over some beautiful Felicity's shall we?

The Boyer Family Singers

The College Seamstress

Miss Jenny Homemaker

Crafty NH Mom

The Kninja 

Lavender Lane

Le Fil A Coudre d'Anna

Busy Lizzie

Mint Green Sewing Machine

Nikki Stitches

Stitch Talk

I'll be back this week with a free pattern for ya'll! Just in case you've left holiday gift making to the last minute, this may help you out :)

Talk soon,

xx
J

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December

All photos taken by me and shared on my Instagram.

It's December and the weather has been glorious. Hot and sunny most days with a few cool, wet ones (perfect for floral-sock-wearing) to water the garden and keep those salad greens coming. They've exploded over the past few days and I think we'll be eating salad morning, noon and night in the coming months. We did plant quite a lot of them...

And Christmas is only a few short weeks away now. Oscar's first Christmas.

He more than likely won't remember it this year, but along with a few small bits and pieces, we've bought him the loveliest book. I found it when I was about 8 months pregnant and thought it was so pretty - both the story and the illustrations. Now, Oscar is spoilt for choice when it comes to books in this house - he has all of David's old childhood books, as well as new books given as gifts when he was born (and then there's David's current collection of books, but that's for another day. She gets fabric, He gets books...), but I've kept thinking about this book ever since I saw it and knew that we'd have to get it for him. It's called The Dawn Chorus by Suzanne Barton.

The Dawn Chorus for our little dawn chorus. Perfect.

We've continued offering Oscar solid foods since my last little update and he's officially all for the strawberries. They are his absolute favourite at the moment. He's my little strawberry baby - and he smells so good after he's eaten one. A mixture of happy baby and strawberry... I do wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that I was in my first trimester this time last year and that all I could stomach eating was strawberries and stone fruit (peaches, nectarines and apricots - lucky it was the right season for them!!). I could eat A LOT of strawberries in one sitting, but I did try to put some kind of limit on them, lest I turn into a strawberry...

And yesterday afternoon, Oscar rolled over from his back to his tummy three times - which is no minor accomplishment for someone who doesn't particularly like tummy time. He mastered rolling from his tummy to his back early on (and has perfected it over the last couple of weeks, making tummy time almost non-existent now) but to roll from his favourite comfy back position to his tummy was something we weren't sure would happen any time soon. He would lay on his side to get a better look at something, but was more than happy to leave it at that. So, we're pretty excited.

And I've been sewing!! I only really get moments here and there, but it's been lovely. I'm really excited to show you some of the new things I've been working on, hopefully in the new year. Or maybe sooner if I get too excited... you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be sharing sneaky peeks here.

Talk soon,

xx
J

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Black Friday Sale - 15% Off All Patterns

I'm having a little 24 hour sale on all patterns in my shop at the moment in honour of Black Friday.

You'll get 15% off storewide by entering the code THANKS at the check out.

While we don't actually celebrate Black Friday in New Zealand, I wanted to join in all the fun - I hope you'll find something you like :)

Talk soon,

xx
J

Holiday Shipping Dates...

Oh thank you, thank you for your kind comments on my last post. It can be a hard one to talk about can't it? The fact that our lives are not all perfect and that being someone's mama is really really hard, but in the best kind of way? It's amazing and it's hard all at the same time. Words can't really describe it (and I can't find those darn words today anyway. I asked David where they lived and he turned to me and said 'That's a good question...". He has a PhD in words - I kinda feel like he is one of those magical people who should know where they live...).

So, er, moving on - today I was actually just popping in to let you know that if you think you might be wanting a paper Bronte Top Pattern in time for Christmas, I would recommend placing your orders by the end of November (that's in less than a week - WHAT?!?).

Patterns are shipped to you via Airmail which takes approximately 3-10 days to arrive at your door (according to the post shop). However, I personally would take that time frame with a grain of salt, especially around this time of year, so allowing more time is probably better. If you'd like a faster shipping option though, please feel free to email me for a quote - jenniferlauren.it@gmail.com

Oh, and I finally gave in and am now on Facebook, in case you're interested :)

Talk soon,

xx
J

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Six Months...

As of yesterday, it's been six whole months since little Oscar-bug was born, 11 days early and after a somewhat long labour.

I do still find it a bit surreal sometimes to think that David and I are this little person's parents. That he looks to us always if he's upset, sad, uncomfortable and hungry, and just as much when he's happy and smiling. Sometimes we've only left the room for a minute, and as soon as we walk back in, his little face lights up like he hasn't seen us in days. It doesn't take much for those happy little faces to appear, along with a burst of giggles, and it's in those little moments that we realise how lucky we are. All he needs right now is us, our time and attention, and we will give him as much of that as we possibly can.

Yesterday, we gave him his first bit of solid food - a chunk of cooked pumpkin. I have to say, it was a little bit more uneventful than I thought it would be. He put it to his lips, gagged, screwed up his face, squished it twice and then dropped it down the side of his chair before completely losing all interest.

I've read enough about baby-led weaning to know that the first few (or many...) attempts at offering food are more of a time to play and explore for babies of Oscar's age and that for the next few months he'll still be getting the bulk of his nutrition from me, but I was still expecting... a little bit more?

Maybe I've just watched too many videos on YouTube of babies eating for the first time (so that I can make sure I know what the difference between a baby gagging and a baby choking looks like) and seeing those little fingers grab their food and shove it in made me think that Oscar might be the same. But all babies are different, and while we'll keep offering him food, I know that he'll take it when he's ready (which, you know, is kinda the whole point of baby-led weaning).

The last six months has been a rollercoaster ride though - it's definitely not been all pinterest-worthy photos and bunches of roses. There have been amazing moments and there have really really hard moments. 

Our breastfeeding journey was not (and still isn't) the idyllic zen-mother-earth-goddess journey it's all so often made out to be. Instead, I got stuck with low supply, blocked ducts, milk blisters and a regular date with a milking machine (that's the best name I could come up with to describe it, that's basically what it is.)

There are so many images floating around of blissed out mothers feeding their babies, and not a lot of talk about how darn hard it is, that I really just thought it would happen like they say it's supposed to. Instead, I think I had more tears than Oscar did - there was an awful lot of me crying over the top of the whirr of the pump asking David and my midwife why it wasn't working? Because it's supposed to work!

From about 2 weeks old and every day since, I've hooked myself up to a pump roughly every 3-4 hours, and yes, I can definitely think of much more glamorous things I could be doing with that time. But while it's been a time-consuming process, we've made it to six months on exclusive breastmilk and I have to be honest, I'm just a little bit proud of that. Oscar is turning into a cute, chubby and happy little boy and putting on weight like a champ.

So, to all the Mums and Moms out there, if you're struggling, breastfeeding or otherwise, just know that you're not alone. For as many people that I know who have had an easy breastfeeding journey, I know just as many (if not more!) who have had a tough time of it, myself included.

And as a very good friend said to me, something that I've repeated a lot to myself throughout these past months is that 'it doesn't matter how you feed your baby, as long as you feed your baby'. It's so true and has taken the pressure off me during many a difficult moment. And out of all the very well-meaning (but sometimes very unhelpful) advice, this has been what has stuck with me the most.

If you need a friendly ear to talk to, please feel free to email me, I'm more than happy to talk or just listen to you - jenniferlauren.is@gmail.com

Phew! That turned into a much longer post than I had initially planned, and it's our 5 year wedding anniversary today to boot. Talk about compounding major life events, huh?

xx
J

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My Final Felicity Dress

Hello all!

Well, first of all, thank you so much for all of your comments on my last post. I did try to make it light hearted, but it's still a serious thing and I'm glad I've either reminded many of you to go and have a check up, or have alerted you to take a closer look at that little skin thing you've had for a while that hasn't gone away yet. It could be as harmless as contact dermatitis, or it could be a little more cause for concern. Either way, go get 'em checked!

Now, let's move onto some harmless fun, here is my final Felicity Dress from the Sew Along! I took these the day before my BCC was taken out.

I really do love this dress and the colour combination, it just feels fresh and summery and like I should be eating a massive ice cream on the beach (I wish...).

The only issue is that it's really not very breast feeding friendly, and since I cut it in my usual size, it's a wee bit tight around the bust and waist at the moment (and my boobs are such different sizes right now too! Really, I had no idea this was a thing until it happened to me. It's so much tighter on one side than the other! But I've been assured by many people that they will go back to normal, here's hoping...). This means I probably won't get much wear from it for a little while at least, but I can still look at it and pretend...

There's not really much to write about the dress itself, since I think everything was petty well documented in the Sew Along (?), but if you have any questions, feel free to sing out in the comments :)

Have you sewn up a Felicity Dress? I'd love to see it, I'm hoping to do a little blog round up soon, so leave a link in the comments to yours if you'd like to be included.

xx
J

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