"This is your captain calling, you just won free tickts for a cruise" ... I hoping this is nearing an end soon, since the Canadian do not call registry is starting today.
I am so happy!
30 September 2008
28 September 2008
Having fun with colors!
I had fun with Kool-Aid and food coloring again yesterday and dyed two pairs of fingerless gloves. One as a custom order for a friend, the other to stock my store.
I love how they turned out. And the way the dye set in between the stitches. It is hard for me to let go those little cuties!
21 September 2008
Feeling free
Today we went grocery shopping and diapers were on sale.
So the store literally had a display like a gigantic mountain of disposable diapers packs. Really really big stacks. I could not help but seeing all the useless garbage when I looked at this mountain.
And then instead of putting 2-3 cases of diapers in the cart because they were cheap like a lot of parents did, we just walked by the mountain.
It made me feel good. I love passing by the diaper and wipes aisles without needing anything. It makes me feel free!
So the store literally had a display like a gigantic mountain of disposable diapers packs. Really really big stacks. I could not help but seeing all the useless garbage when I looked at this mountain.
And then instead of putting 2-3 cases of diapers in the cart because they were cheap like a lot of parents did, we just walked by the mountain.
It made me feel good. I love passing by the diaper and wipes aisles without needing anything. It makes me feel free!
19 September 2008
Real Diaper Week
September 19-29 2008.
Some member of the Etsy cloth diaper Street is holding an event: Real Diaper Week!
The goal is to help bring real diapers to a baby's bottom near you! Each participating shop has something different to offer, but some of the promotional listings include:
Multi-diaper packs at discounted prices
Easy to use diapers that are 'just like sposies'
Getting started packs (with everything you need to get started!)
Variety packs (so you can try out a little of everything and figure out what you like)
Cloth diapering travel packs with wetbags and wipes
Sew-Them-Yourself kits (with the pattern & instructions to make your own cloth diapers, plus the materials for your first diaper!)
I did not have adequate stock to participate but several other shops have worked really hard on stocking for this promotion. Check out our team blog for shop listing and details.
Come, visit, shop, tell your friends, and most of all, give your baby real diapers!
Some member of the Etsy cloth diaper Street is holding an event: Real Diaper Week!
The goal is to help bring real diapers to a baby's bottom near you! Each participating shop has something different to offer, but some of the promotional listings include:
Multi-diaper packs at discounted prices
Easy to use diapers that are 'just like sposies'
Getting started packs (with everything you need to get started!)
Variety packs (so you can try out a little of everything and figure out what you like)
Cloth diapering travel packs with wetbags and wipes
Sew-Them-Yourself kits (with the pattern & instructions to make your own cloth diapers, plus the materials for your first diaper!)
I did not have adequate stock to participate but several other shops have worked really hard on stocking for this promotion. Check out our team blog for shop listing and details.
Come, visit, shop, tell your friends, and most of all, give your baby real diapers!
18 September 2008
You know there isn't much happening in your life when...
...the most exciting moment of the day is the cool bathroom with a foot flush at the new Cactus Club!
13 September 2008
Diapering your baby through the different stages – Part I
This a re-post of an article I wrote for the Etsy Cloth Diaper Street Team blog.
This is the first blog entry of a series of three - newborn, older baby and toddler.
I will try to go through different diapering systems, and leave you my advice on how they may work as your baby grows. If you are totally new to cloth diapering and all this cloth diaper addict lingo confuses you, I suggest you also read this page on our main site.
Newborn:
I think there are three main considerations when you start your cloth diapering adventure with a newborn.
1. Blow-out containment.
2. Ease of use, since a lot of new parents are new at diapering all together.
3. Frequent changes
The containment factor: Here we go, the very graphic part of the story!Because newborn poop is very runny and can be quite… dare I say… explosive, elastics are really nice. Really, really nice…. I also liked to have the two layers of protection that a fitted or snappied prefold and a separate cover gave me. If the diaper did not contain it all, the cover caught the balance before it made it on the clothing. For the records, we only had to deal with a tiny baby’s major blow-out on clothing while using disposable diapers (and once only in a pocket diaper.) As far as my experience goes, pocket diapers do contain runny poop much better than a disposable, but not as well as a separate diaper and cover do. We had a few pocket dipes on hand and liked to have them in the bag on outings, and also at night since our baby was a daytime-only pooper.
Which bring us to ease of use. Magic word for new parents: Hook and loop (i.e. Velcro!). It is nice, not intimidating and easy for daddy to deal with in the middle of the night. Be warned here, as this series of posts progresses though, you might not like Velcro forever… Other great choices for the ease of use are pockets and all-in-ones. However, for the reasons above, I do not recommend a complete stash of pocket and all-in-one diapers to start, but do try them, a lot of parent just swear by them so they might work out great for your family as well.
The ease of use is also linked to the frequent changes. Newborns seem constantly wet and they poop a lot too. You may have to change a diaper 16 times a day, including night, so you will want to make sure it is easy.
Another side consideration is the umbilical stump for the first few days or weeks, depending on when it falls. We really disliked a PUL cover rubbing on our tiny baby’s stump, so for most of the time, we just kept her in a fitted diaper without a cover, laid her to sleep with a lap pad underneath her and changed the clothing with the diaper for the first little bit. We were given gazillions tiny sleepers anyway. Since then though, I have learned to use fleece and wool, and my next baby will most likely be wrapped in wool from the start.
The last thing to keep in mind is that newborn diapers won’t fit for long. Buy good quality diapers but please do not spend too much on newborn/small size. A lot of parents who do fancier diapers in bigger sizes prefer to do cheaper options for the newborn.
Some parents use cloth in the hospital, some don’t. A huge benefit of using cloth from the get go is that you can feel those wet diapers right away rather than guessing if a disposable is wet. These first wet diapers are quite an important indicator if baby is getting milk and believe me, it is not fun to take a disposable apart to figure if it was actually wet! And yes, worried first time parents do silly things like that! A downside of dealing with cloth in the hospital is to bring them back home for a wash, but really you can see it as a first experience in traveling with cloth diapers. If you like cloth diapering you will probably end up doing several overnight travels with them anyway so one more or less won’t make a big difference in the end. You will also have to wash the meconium, which is not as bad as you might think. It does wash fine; no special pre-treatment is needed and doesn’t stain any more than other bowel movements. If you are really worried about it, you can just put a disposable liner in the diaper.
My personal recommendation for a newborn is to get fitted diapers and PUL or wool/fleece covers as a main system for those first months, a few pocket/AIO diapers to see if you like them too, as well as a dozen or two of good quality infant size prefolds as a back up in between wash days while you figure out how to use them and see if you actually like to use them as a main diaper. Prefolds are cheap and versatile, so having some on hand from the start is just great. They will be useful in the future as inserts/doublers in bigger diapers or to wipe the slide at the park, wash the car, and one of our team member can even turn them into training pants for you.
I also recommend a big stack of cloth wipes. They will be a lifesaver and some of them can even be folded in a tiny diaper as a doubler.
On this note I will congratulate you on your new baby - you are not reading this just for fun, are you? :-)
Happy babymoon!
- To be continued with the older baby/crawler part soon…
This is the first blog entry of a series of three - newborn, older baby and toddler.
I will try to go through different diapering systems, and leave you my advice on how they may work as your baby grows. If you are totally new to cloth diapering and all this cloth diaper addict lingo confuses you, I suggest you also read this page on our main site.
Newborn:
I think there are three main considerations when you start your cloth diapering adventure with a newborn.
1. Blow-out containment.
2. Ease of use, since a lot of new parents are new at diapering all together.
3. Frequent changes
The containment factor: Here we go, the very graphic part of the story!Because newborn poop is very runny and can be quite… dare I say… explosive, elastics are really nice. Really, really nice…. I also liked to have the two layers of protection that a fitted or snappied prefold and a separate cover gave me. If the diaper did not contain it all, the cover caught the balance before it made it on the clothing. For the records, we only had to deal with a tiny baby’s major blow-out on clothing while using disposable diapers (and once only in a pocket diaper.) As far as my experience goes, pocket diapers do contain runny poop much better than a disposable, but not as well as a separate diaper and cover do. We had a few pocket dipes on hand and liked to have them in the bag on outings, and also at night since our baby was a daytime-only pooper.
Which bring us to ease of use. Magic word for new parents: Hook and loop (i.e. Velcro!). It is nice, not intimidating and easy for daddy to deal with in the middle of the night. Be warned here, as this series of posts progresses though, you might not like Velcro forever… Other great choices for the ease of use are pockets and all-in-ones. However, for the reasons above, I do not recommend a complete stash of pocket and all-in-one diapers to start, but do try them, a lot of parent just swear by them so they might work out great for your family as well.
The ease of use is also linked to the frequent changes. Newborns seem constantly wet and they poop a lot too. You may have to change a diaper 16 times a day, including night, so you will want to make sure it is easy.
Another side consideration is the umbilical stump for the first few days or weeks, depending on when it falls. We really disliked a PUL cover rubbing on our tiny baby’s stump, so for most of the time, we just kept her in a fitted diaper without a cover, laid her to sleep with a lap pad underneath her and changed the clothing with the diaper for the first little bit. We were given gazillions tiny sleepers anyway. Since then though, I have learned to use fleece and wool, and my next baby will most likely be wrapped in wool from the start.
The last thing to keep in mind is that newborn diapers won’t fit for long. Buy good quality diapers but please do not spend too much on newborn/small size. A lot of parents who do fancier diapers in bigger sizes prefer to do cheaper options for the newborn.
Some parents use cloth in the hospital, some don’t. A huge benefit of using cloth from the get go is that you can feel those wet diapers right away rather than guessing if a disposable is wet. These first wet diapers are quite an important indicator if baby is getting milk and believe me, it is not fun to take a disposable apart to figure if it was actually wet! And yes, worried first time parents do silly things like that! A downside of dealing with cloth in the hospital is to bring them back home for a wash, but really you can see it as a first experience in traveling with cloth diapers. If you like cloth diapering you will probably end up doing several overnight travels with them anyway so one more or less won’t make a big difference in the end. You will also have to wash the meconium, which is not as bad as you might think. It does wash fine; no special pre-treatment is needed and doesn’t stain any more than other bowel movements. If you are really worried about it, you can just put a disposable liner in the diaper.
My personal recommendation for a newborn is to get fitted diapers and PUL or wool/fleece covers as a main system for those first months, a few pocket/AIO diapers to see if you like them too, as well as a dozen or two of good quality infant size prefolds as a back up in between wash days while you figure out how to use them and see if you actually like to use them as a main diaper. Prefolds are cheap and versatile, so having some on hand from the start is just great. They will be useful in the future as inserts/doublers in bigger diapers or to wipe the slide at the park, wash the car, and one of our team member can even turn them into training pants for you.
I also recommend a big stack of cloth wipes. They will be a lifesaver and some of them can even be folded in a tiny diaper as a doubler.
On this note I will congratulate you on your new baby - you are not reading this just for fun, are you? :-)
Happy babymoon!
- To be continued with the older baby/crawler part soon…
27 August 2008
Something done!
I have finished the winter alpaca skirtie. Check it out!
And this is the progress on the BFL soaker.
25 August 2008
Fingerless gloves and other progress
The skirtie on longies is coming... It should be in my store by the end of the week.
I finished some fingerless gloves. I stocked the store with adult/youth size ones, and I made a pair for my daughter. Seeing how much she likes hers, I am in the process of making some toddler size ones for sale as well. I will try to make some boyish ones too.
The first batch of BFL yarns are being dyed as I type. The house smells like Kool-Aid. A BFL soaker will be on the hook soon.
I finished some fingerless gloves. I stocked the store with adult/youth size ones, and I made a pair for my daughter. Seeing how much she likes hers, I am in the process of making some toddler size ones for sale as well. I will try to make some boyish ones too.The first batch of BFL yarns are being dyed as I type. The house smells like Kool-Aid. A BFL soaker will be on the hook soon.
20 August 2008
Here are my current projects:
A wool/alpaca skirtie over long pants. It is coming, slowly, but it is going to be so cute!
Fingerless gloves. Although it seems that this is getting interrupted by my daughter's request for me to make her some too.
And I received more yarn today... A nice big box of fluffy skeins... I have received BFL wool as well as other peruvian highland wool. And some llama blend for more gloves and felted coffee cozys.
Keep watching the store for the finished projects.
A wool/alpaca skirtie over long pants. It is coming, slowly, but it is going to be so cute!
Fingerless gloves. Although it seems that this is getting interrupted by my daughter's request for me to make her some too.
And I received more yarn today... A nice big box of fluffy skeins... I have received BFL wool as well as other peruvian highland wool. And some llama blend for more gloves and felted coffee cozys.
Keep watching the store for the finished projects.
18 August 2008
My first post
This blog has been created to talk about my crochet addiction, show off my items in progress either for my family or for others, the stocking of my Etsy store and the reasons why I am not crocheting at other times.
I have started using wool covers on my daughter a few months ago. First I made a few covers with recycled sweaters, but I was not crazy about them (in retrospect, I think I did not have quite the right sweaters) anyhow, they worked fine over training pants since we practice EC and this is mainly what we use around the house during daytime.
Then I wanted to make soakers, so I started working a licensed pattern from Ladybugz Farm. It turns out that I love the shape of the basic pattern.
I have made a few for missy (made the bum area slightly smaller, again, we are not using thick diapers during daytime around the house) and, since this was around the time our pocket diapers were not working at night for us anymore, decided to take the night plunge. Took a couple trial and error to find the "right" diaper to wear under, but we got it. A snappied premium prefold and a hemp doubler work like a charm for us under a pair of "full bum" shorties.
Somewhere in between of all this I have started a store on Etsy to try and get rich! Seriously, I am making almost nothing, but it keeps me happy.
http://petitmouton.etsy.com
I am planning of mainly blogging in English here, but don't be surprised if it end up with French posts too, that is just what I do!
I have started using wool covers on my daughter a few months ago. First I made a few covers with recycled sweaters, but I was not crazy about them (in retrospect, I think I did not have quite the right sweaters) anyhow, they worked fine over training pants since we practice EC and this is mainly what we use around the house during daytime.
Then I wanted to make soakers, so I started working a licensed pattern from Ladybugz Farm. It turns out that I love the shape of the basic pattern.
I have made a few for missy (made the bum area slightly smaller, again, we are not using thick diapers during daytime around the house) and, since this was around the time our pocket diapers were not working at night for us anymore, decided to take the night plunge. Took a couple trial and error to find the "right" diaper to wear under, but we got it. A snappied premium prefold and a hemp doubler work like a charm for us under a pair of "full bum" shorties.
Somewhere in between of all this I have started a store on Etsy to try and get rich! Seriously, I am making almost nothing, but it keeps me happy.
http://petitmouton.etsy.com
I am planning of mainly blogging in English here, but don't be surprised if it end up with French posts too, that is just what I do!
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