Shoes shoes shoes

I have found a cute pattern for babies shoes online, and after a frustrating few attempts I have perfected the pattern and now am going crazy making shoes. Today I made three pairs! I have also been working on my own variation of a 'gym' for babies and some wrist rattles. Today I found some lemon flanelette at spotlight 110cm wide for $2 a meter. Perhaps tomorrow I will make some bassinet sheets as I only have one set. Maybe I could funk up the fabric with a bit of baby bling just for fun. Hmmmm
On another note my planting is not going so well. So far no sign of my wee stevia babies, and all the others seem to be a bit traumatised from being replanted outside. I have decided I wont bother mucking round with transplanting in the future, the seeds can grow or not grow where I put them. I am wondering about growing some ginger too, in all its 'genetically modified' thick root glory. Not sure if you can grow that here though.
I think I will move onto lotions and potions for a change tomorrow. There seems to be alot of wasps around so I want to make some sort of citronella concoxtion to repel them. Also I got some lovely beeswax from the honey lady at the market to make my babies bum balm or some nice calendula cream if I can find some flowers soon.
The ginger beer project is going very well. Andrew made a yummy one the other night with star anaise and it inspired me to have a play today. I have made 2 batches that are currently brewing for our wee party on friday, one with cinnamon and star anaise and one with cloves. I love cloves!!
Oh and to top it all off I got this cute wee ducky at the south Dunedin market the other day for $2! Bargin!

Nappy project

I have finally finished my nappy project, kinda. I made the mistake of doing the snaps last night when I was obviously too tired, broke some, snapped some the wrong way and ended up with not enough snaps to properly finish the jaffa nappies. They still all do up though, so I am thinking that I will make do for now. I ran out of black snaps so Andrew suggested I use pink (pink?), anyway I dont think they look as good but they will do also. The blue one is my trial nappy and hence has a few flaws, leg elastic being the biggest problem I can see. Of course I could always unpick and fix it, but I decided to add a couple of snaps to the legs and hope they do the job. I dont even know how chubby babies legs are!!!
I am feeling a bit lost now that this project is out of the way. I think I will take a break from sewing for a while though and maybe start on a bib making marathon next week.

Ginger Beer

After talking with Nat the other night I got all inspired to try and make our own refreshing and delicious beverages. Sometimes we splash out and get a raro sachet but this is wayyyy better! I found a recipe for a quick and easy ginger beer and made it last night. Tonight I noticed that the container was 'undentable' (the apparent critera for this recipe to be done) so we cracked into it. It was delicious, a bit to my surprise since when I was making it I -spilled the sugar and kinda estimated some of the amounts-used grapefruit rind instead of lemon- and added an accidentally large amount of cinnamon. Something I didnt know was that all ginger beer is alcoholic (apart from the shop bought stuff I assume, they would have to tell you if it was) so I have only had a wee bit so far. I wonder if you could substitue the ginger for anything else, star anise maybe?? Cloves?? I feel some experimenting coming on............
No signs of the stevia babies yet, but the other seedlings are going mad and I hope I will soon be able to figure out exactly which one is which.

Curtains and seedlings

Today I made replacement 'net' curtains for the baby's bedroom. I had made the pirate ones a while ago and realised today that I had the perfect fabric for making the new inner curtain. I got it at spotlight from the 75% off Christmas fabric table, but I didn't think it looked too Christmassy. It was nice to have a wee break from making nappies, which I will start again this coming week.
Today I also planted 5 wee stevia seeds for my challenge with Murray. Stevia is a natural artificial sweetener, heaps sweeter than sugar, and usually grows in the tropics. They are notoriously difficult to germinate so I will be super excited if they pop up. I am feeling on a bit of a roll with the gardening thing at the moment since all my coriander, basil and oregano have sprouted. The basil I think must have been a random mix because I have one wee purple baby and two green ones. Sarah is going to give us some radish seeds so we can plant some radishes in ice cream pots under the stairs.

Introducing us.....

I am making this blog to share all about how I live and love life as a new Mum with Andrew here in Dunedin. What I find important and fascinating in life and how we prioritise and make do on a student budget.
Currently, Andrew is at summer school doing a paper on human development, which means a pretty flexible timetable and lots of new things to think about in terms of raising a child. He will be starting pharmacy soon. I am 34 weeks pregnant and spending most of my time at home, preparing and relaxing while I have the time.