I really just don't know right now. . .

 I finished the Giant Baby's sunsuit about three weeks ago. I've been waiting for a day warm enough to photograph him in it but I've finally accepted that I finished it just as the weather turned too cold to wear it. Not sure what to do with it now. Give it to someone else for next Summer? Hold onto it in case I ever have another giant baby? I really don't know. Anyway this is the finished product

I ended up faking the buttons. It really does up with press-studs but I thought the buttons looked nice so sewed them over where the press-studs are sewn on.

Two weeks ago was the Giant Baby's first birthday party. I was expecting a simple family lunch but his Dad had other ideas. There ended up being quite a few guests, goody bags, and photo boards, and more food than most families would eat in a week! I would have preferred not to go all out for a baby, not out of meanness but because he's a baby. He too young to enjoy parties, he just got annoyed because his routine had been interrupted and followed me around demanding food and hugs, then got stressed because he was tired but there was too much going on for him to sleep. I think this picture sums up how we were both feeling by the end of the day

 Sadly that's the only photo I have of his cake. I agonised for weeks, scoured pinterest and my Mum's old cook books to learn the theory of using fondant icing. Unfortunately I decided not to bother doing a practice run and while the finished product was ok, I really wasn't satisfied with it.

 Before I move on to my next project I have to make shoes for the Giant Baby. Not because I want to. Because I don't have much choice. He's just started walking and he really needs something to protect his feet. He's not ready for hard soled shoes but pre-walkers and first walkers are all too small for him. We tried buying him a pair of those ultra-fashionable baby moccasins sized for a 2-3 year old. They are lovely, and beautifully made and fit really nicely BUT they're made of extremely fine leather, almost like a chamois, and after a week of crawling around on the sandpapery concrete of our yard, he'd already worn holes in them! I will also say I don't think the shoes were at fault here, they're clearly better suited to sitting in a pram at a cafe than the punishment we subjected them to. Long story short, baby needs a hardy foot covering that isn't going to damage his feet, and it looks like I'm going to have to make them.

 Meanwhile I'm trying to decide what I want to do next. There are so many things that I want to do and narrowing down the options is hard.
 I want to finish my dollhouse. It's mostly done. And given the amount of money and time I've invested in it, it really seems important to finish it. Also there are boxes of dollhouse furniture waiting to go into it, and once it's finished and the furniture is in, that will free up some storage space. But it's hard finding a safe place to use a hot glue gun (you need one to attach the roof tiles) with a ridiculously tall one year old stumbling around the place.
 I have a Dollmore Zihu, that I wanted to make into Claudia from Interview with a vampire. Her face-up is done but I haven't finished her body blushing or made any clothes for her yet. But first I'm going to have to work out how to spray her with Mr Super Clear to fix the colours without doing permanent damage to the baby's lungs.
 I have a Luts doll put away that I wanted to make into the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain, as a child. And this presents the same Mr Super Clear problem.
 My newest Kish doll is only half dressed. I made her a skirt but never made a top to go with it. I really need to fix that.
 I have a Living Dead doll put away who had half of her face paint removed in order to change it and she needs a dress. . . but I'm not actually one hundred per cent sure where she is.
 I have a Wilde Imagination Patience as Glinda who I really want to make clothes for because I really, really do not like the Glinda oufit but I can't decide what to make for her. I keep considering making her a Little Women era outfit, then she could match in with my Patience as Alice, but then just as I decide to do that, I change my mind and think that would make them too matchy-matchy.
 I want to dress up my Kish dolls as characters from Little House on the Prairie. This idea interested me so much about a year and a half ago that I've got sketches of the outfits I was going to make for Mary, Laura and Carrie, and I think I even have fabric put aside for this. But then I always try to start planning something for a Nellie to wear and get a sort of writer's block.
 I want to make a entire Edwardian wardrobe for one of my Kish dolls. Her name is Sugar Plum Wren but I call her Emily because she reminds me of the character in the book "Emily of New Moon." And I can't look at her without thinking what a fantastic Edwardian child she would make.

 In particular I want to make this dress. I have loved this dress since I first found it in one of my father's books, when I was nine. But I'm not sure that I'm technically up to the construction, also as the Kish dolls are more or less waistless, I'm not sure I could get it to look right. I've got some ideas on how to put it together but I'm definitely not confident.

 So, at the end of the day, I have too many ideas (at least ten times as man as I've put down here) and so far whenever I try to settle on any individual project my brain suddenly becomes completely unwilling to come up with ideas for that project, but is happy to concoct three or four new ones. So, I'm going back to making these horrible baby shoes, because I have to, and to think about what my next project will be.

Progress Report: Plagues, Beautiful babies and Video editing

  So, how much progress have I made on the sunsuit? None at all. The Giant Baby and I have both been sick. Nobody ever told me how terrifying a baby can be coughing up snot. I've been up half the night for over a week just in case he chokes to death. The practical part of my brain tells me that's super unlikely, but it's hard to listen to the practical part of your brain when you're holding a baby that's coughing and gagging like he's intent on dying.

  Meanwhile the Bonds Baby Search has started for this year.  What's that? Bonds make underwear and basic baby clothes. I love their baby onesies. Why? Because I'm a little OCD. Bonds is more expensive than say Kmart brand but there's one big difference. If you have two onesies, both striped, one a six dollar one from Kmart, one a twenty five dollar one by Bonds, what's the biggest difference?  If any of the stripes match at the seams on the Kmart one, it's purely accidental. With the Bonds onesie all of the stripes will match up on the separate pattern pieces at the seams. I love that! Of course, that's not enough for the Giant Husband to be willing to spend the extra money on Bonds but at the moment almost all of the Giant Baby's onesies are Bonds because almost nobody else makes onesies larger than a size 0 and he's a size 1 now.

 Every year Bonds holds an Australia wide "Baby search", where people submit photos of their babies and the winners get the chance to be in Bonds advertisements for the next year. It's not something to be taken seriously, it's a bit of fun and free models and publicity for Bonds. And if you have a kid under three, you enter them, because that's just what you do. But you don't expect them to win. Mainly because there are roughly 60,000 kids entered so the odds are not stacked in your favour.

  The Baby Search has come under some criticism over the last few years. People complain that the "People's choice" section, which is based on Facebook votes, is just a popularity contest. I'm not arguing with that. It is. Anything that involves Facebook is a popularity contest. But I don't think it's something to complain about. And more realistically, from the point of view of the company, it's a way of making the general public feel like they're involved without actually giving them any real control.

  The far bigger complaint is that it's "a beauty contest for babies." I'm definitely not going to argue with that. But I also don't have a problem with it. They're babies. What else can you judge them on? Their knowledge of Cold War era Eastern European politics? I have no problem with the concept that kids should be judged on achievement rather than looks. But these are babies. They shouldn't know that they're entered in the competition at all, much less whether they win or not. Quite frankly if someone has told their toddler that they're in this competition, whether or not they've won and explained it often enough that the child understands and feels inadequate because they haven't won . . . that sounds like a messed up situation but to me that sounds more like some pretty messed up parenting than an evil contest. And even the concept of rewarding achievement is weird to me. As a kid, I won a lot of certificates at school, but from the age of eight or nine, I was aware that I wasn't trying anywhere near as hard as the other kids. So, is that fair? Giving awards based on who did it best rather than who tried the hardest? Also, at the end of the day, if I was going to not win something, I would much rather a looks based contest "Sorry, you weren't the prettiest." to a personality based contest "Sorry, we all think you're a jerk."

  Anyway, rant over, the point was that the Giant Baby needed a photo to enter the contest. I planned on taking one specially. Except by the time I found out about it, he was sick. At the moment, it's not easy to photograph the baby. He doesn't sit still any more and now if I put up a backdrop he just rips it down. I tried for a week to take a decent photo of him, but it just wasn't working. In the end I gave up and used a photo I had taken just before the competition started. I was about to enter him when the Giant Husband reminded me there was a video section this year and said he'd like me to enter the baby in that too.

  I've never filmed anything before but I kind of assumed it would be the same as taking photos. No. Only needed a few seconds of footage but getting the baby to face the camera for more than a heartbeat was difficult. For photos I hold a digi-bird where I want him to look. That didn't work. It's ok for a still shot but with video, it meant I had a lot of footage of the baby smiling, then screeching because he wanted me to give him the digi-bird. Tried putting the digi-bird away, and got a lot of footage of the baby throwing himself at the poor dog, with my voice in the background saying "Let go of the dog!"
 
  In the end I got some ok footage by putting the tablet on the floor with the forward facing camera on and a digi-bird on the floor in front of it. Then came the nightmare of editing the footage down to fifteen seconds so I could put it on Instagram. I didn't think that would be a problem. My copy of Photoshop Elements came with Premiere Elements which is video editing software. Which I have never used before, have no idea how to use and nearly had a nervous breakdown using. Firstly it rotated all my videos ninety degrees and I couldn't work out how to rotate them back and then I don't know the file formats for videos so it took me ten thousand years by trial and error to find a format to save it in that both my tablet and then Instagram would recognise! I am definitely sticking to still photos from now on.

  So, the Giant Baby is entered. I have possibly taken putting his entry together a little too seriously but that was more because I didn't want people thinking I had done a half-arsed job of it than actually expecting him to win. As there are already ten thousand kids entered just in his section (boys in his age group) I think I would actually fall off my chair and probably need a doctor, if he was even shortlisted.

  And now that that's all done and we're both nearly better, it's time for me to get back to work and finish this sunsuit.

Project One : Sunsuit for a Giant Baby

Giant Baby in a Giant Sunsuit

This came about for a couple of reasons. I'm not the sort of person that makes clothes for humans, simply because buying fabric is more expensive by far than buying clothes. This may not be true in other countries but in Australia it is definitely the case.

 I got a shock when the baby started needing a size one. All the places that I shop for the baby have babywear up to a size two and kidswear that starts at size one, so I was looking forward to size one, I thought I would have a lot more choice. But it doesn't work that way. Because, of the places I shop for the baby, there is almost no babywear larger than a size 0 and almost no kidswear smaller than a size 3! For every five racks of clothing there will be maybe one individual item in a size 1 or 2! Which means instead of going "Oooo! That's cute! I'll buy that!" or "That's cheap! I'll buy that!", shopping for the baby is now a case of "Well, that exists, I guess I have to get it." And even still, two months later he only has about a quarter of the amount of clothes he had in every other size. (And about half of that is a size too small)

 But when I was eight months pregnant I went insane. I looked through the things we had prepared for the baby and got ridiculously upset because I had only bought fitted sheets for his cot. In real life I had done that on purpose, all the advice at the moment seems to be to put babies to bed with just a fitted sheet and a sleep bag. (We use Gro-bags and I love them.) But pregnant me forgot this and promptly went out and bought three matching manchester sets for the cot. Fitted sheet, flat sheet and pillowcase, one even has a matching blanket. So, I decided to make sunsuits out of the flat sheets.

Sunsuit pattern

 The pattern I used is from an Enid Gilchrist pattern book. These were released in Australia, first by the Argus newspaper (which no longer exists) and later by New Idea (a woman's magazine), from the late 1940s through to the 1980s. Although the clothes in the 1980s ones look funny because the patterns are all designed for woven fabric but for some reason the samples they've photographed all seem to be made from t-shirt material. I haven't said which book it's from because of the ones I have, this pattern is in most of them.

 These patterns all include seam allowances but since our baby is a Giant Baby, I pretended they didn't and cut the leg holes a little bit bigger. Also I ignored the suggested trimming and cut the appliques off the sheets I was using and used those to trim the front. 

 I made one right away and he's gotten a fair amount of use out of it, but I started making a second one and it's still sitting on my desk half finished. Why? Because I ran out of hammer on press studs and couldn't find anywhere that sold them so I could buy more. Because I think sew on press studs look messy on human clothes. (I have no issue with using them on doll clothes.) And I still haven't learnt how to make button holes.

 I've decided finishing the second sunsuit will be my first project. Otherwise by the time I finish it it will be too cold to wear it and the baby will have grown out of it anyway. At the moment, as I see it, I have two choices - I can learn to make buttonholes (they can't be that hard, my sewing machine does them automatically, and I really should know how to do this by now.) OR I can cheat by using sew on press studs and just sew buttons on the outside over where the press studs are sewn on to cover the stitches. I'm not sure which I am going to do yet.

The Jolly Green Giant and Me

 I have a giant baby. Nobody quite understands what that means. He doesn't have any kind of medically diagnosed gigantisism (if that's even a word) or anything, but he's a gigantic. And nobody understands what that means. When I say that he's a giant baby, people assume he's overweight and say helpful things like "Don't worry, once he learns to walk, the weight will fall right off him." Except he's not fat. He's just enormous. He's only nine months old, but he has less than five centimetres (two inches) to go before he will be half my height! And I'm not particularly short. I'm on the shorter side of average but I'm not short enough for it to even be interesting. The baby isn't the only giant here either. My brother and my partner both live here and they're both over six feet tall. So I'm outnumbered on two counts by boys and by tall people. Even the cat's a boy and since the baby is already over two and a half feet tall, it won't be long until I'm the shortest person in the house again.

Giant Baby!

 Meanwhile having a giant baby also means I'm trapped at home most of the time. I'm only working one day a week because my partner thinks it's still 1953, and one of the problems of only having one income is that unless it's a good one (and it really is not) there's never any money. And I am bored. Don't get me wrong the giant baby is great. I love the giant baby more than anything, anywhere, ever but I'm not a stay at home with a baby kind of person. I need to be doing something all the time. I, quite frankly, am a workaholic - although don't confuse that with ambition. I will forever be a disappointment to my parents because the only ambitions I have ever had are for peace and quiet and being left alone as much as possible. Being a workaholic that loves routine is hard when you're at home with a baby most of the time. Firstly, I've found that having a baby seems to mean you're rushing all the time to get stuff done. But when you sit down at the end of the day and think about it, it really feels like you haven't achieved anything. And while babies as a general rule like routine too, they also take a demonic delight in destroying the routine sometimes. But worse yet, just as I settle into a new routine and start to make it work for me, he outgrows it!

 Which brings me to the point of this blog. Which is partially to give me somewhere to ramble or rant if I need to (I always think you're better off having a bit of a rant if something's annoying you, than hiding it and eventually snapping and putting rat poison in the family dinner) but also it's a place where I plan to keep track of my projects. I used to always have a thousand projects on the go. But the last year or two, through illness and working and baby I haven't really had time for that stuff. And now I've decided I need to get back to that. Partly because my projects were usually fairly girly - hopefully an antidote to all the boy in this house and also just as something I'm doing for me. Because I want to. Because since the baby was born I really haven't done anything just for me.

 Like with everything else I'm being pretty unambitious with this. I plan on choosing a project (a lot of them will be things I've started ages ago but never got around to finishing) and giving myself a month to complete it. Hopefully I can work faster than that but if not, no pressure. I have a half-built dollhouse that needs finishing, dolls that need clothes and other things done to them, a baby that constantly needs new clothes, I want to learn to make doll's shoes, there's some cooking stuff I want to try (mostly baking and lollies) and about a thousand other things I want to do. If the giant baby will let me.

I'm pretty sure he's laughing at the idea of me being allowed to do

anything that doesn't directly involve him.