August | 2020 | Had we but world enough and time…

During lockdown I started on a new creative project to cheer myself up and help me keep busy, and five months later I have finally finished it! An appliqué quilt, but as I already have a winter quilt for my bed, I wanted to make it into a really bright, colourful, summer duvet cover instead.

I spent ages deciding on the pattern I wanted to use, and finally discovered this gorgeous pattern by Laura Heine.

It’s a paper-piecing technique where you cut out the shapes using the template provided (its the same template for every square) and then use double-sided sticky paper (fusible web as it’s often known) to iron it into place on the fabric. Then I sewed around all the edges to hold them in place and stop any fraying. Continue reading →

Lately there have been a lot of bad nights.

She’s been waking up almost every 2 hours and screaming at the top of her lungs for me to come and sit with her. Which is exhausting.

Now, she definitely has slept through the night in the past, at least until 5am or so, so I know that she can do it. And there are about a million reasons why she might be waking so often.

It could be the changes and transitions from lockdown to nursery to potty training. It could be that because she is learning bladder control she is waking herself up when she wees in her sleep (she’s too little for night training so still in a nappy at night). It could be night terrors or nightmares waking her up. It could be just that her natural sleep cycle from deep sleep to light sleep wakes her every two hours and she isn’t self-soothing. It could be because she’s been growing lately and maybe has growing pains or just finds it’s hard work making more bones and muscles and stuff. It could be because she’s too hot, too cold, hungry, thirsty, frankly, god only knows. Continue reading →