Spring brings many things!

It's been a while since I posted here, due to lack of time in the past few weeks mostly, but time is coming back on my side! Spring has finally made itself felt in my cold corner of Québec and snow is actually melting!

What are the things Springs brings my way?

Connor and Deirdre just started a new daycare together.

Lee is starting a new client search campaign for his business he thought he was going to quit

I queued and downloaded at least a dozen knitting patterns on Ravelry

I am looking for a transfer from my department to another one

I feel the need to clean the house top to bottom...and get rid of A LOT of junk

I am about to have much more time to sew cloth diapers

I put the first load of freshly laundered diapers on the drying rack Outside to dry!

Connor is become a nicer and more polite little boy every day, helping his baby sister do all sorts of things!

Deirdre is almost walking already!

And with Spring, a new fresh start to this blog is about to begin!

Don't worry, I know I promised a picture of Daddy's hat...it will come!

She is now Everywhere!

I am amazed at how fast Deirdre grew! I thought this amount of time passed really fast with Connor, but I realize that time went even faster with Deirdre.

She is crawling now!

And she is in everything!

And she keeps loosing her socks

And her knees are all dry and red

As I find something annoying on an every day basis, I search creatively for a stylish way to make it better...often to find out that someone already did and it's on the market somewhere. So I did find a product called SocksOn and I will be trying it shortly.

My mind has been as busy as my body this week (yes, I DID some cleaning, and the main floor now looks presentable to visitors!) and I have been planning out many projects. One thing I am most happy about is the purchase of TWO new Mini Kiwi diapers so I am on the way to disposable-free diapering.

With Deirdre being more independant (and Connor socialising with other toddlers at daycare), I was able to finish something close to my heart!

It is a Vintage Style Baby Bonnet and you can find the free pattern here. I worked on it for over a month, a few evenings at a time. I made some modification to the pattern, as you see, I put cord instead of a button. I used a baby yarn from Bernat but I can't remember which one. I think the gauge was not perfect, so it turned out a little to big for Deirdre, but I am working at adjusting it. 

Since I am still a beginner at knitting, I am pretty proud of the end result. And she will be so sweet with it this spring!

How about a cloth diaper review?

Mini Kiwi One Size Pocket Diaper

Deirdre warring a Mini Kiwi

inside the Mini Kiwi diaper

This morning, I thought I could give my two cents about my super favourite Cloth Diaper! If you ane not from Québec, you may not have heard of it, but it really is a great diaper. I uploaded a review of it on my YouTube Channel . The company is called Mini Kiwi , and their website is unfortunately only in French. It doesn't change that I love this diaper. It is essentially a bamboo diaper. It comes in Snaps and Velcro. It's one size, 6 to 35 lbs adjustable with 3 rows of snaps. The inside is made of Bamboo fleece and no matter how wet the insert is, it will remain fairly dry to the touch. Deirdre went for a 3 hours nap with one and it was very wet when she got up, but it still felt dry. The inserts that come with it are a combo of Bamboo knit and Micro Terry Cotton. The big insert is meant to grow with your child with 2 rows of snaps to adjust. That one is a good overnight insert, it has a 3 layer system combining bamboo and Terry and let me tell you, that one absorbs!!A LOT! The other insert is thin and made of Bambo knit and it does the job too, without the bulkiness. What I really like about that diaper is the double gussets. I never had leaks of any kind with that diaper, and it makes a better fit around the legs.

Mini Kiwi also works together with the Pissenlit et Coccinelle company to sell a cloth diaper safe diaper change cream. I use it and LOVE it. It is called Patatras. You really don't need much. And it smells great too. 

For the diaper, I paid roughly 26$ CAD in a local store, and for Patatras, 14$ CAD for a 60 ml container. 

Creative inspiration!

Ever woke up in the middle of the night with a great idea to make something and was unable to fall back asleep since elaborating on that idea was haunting your mind all of a sudden? Or have you went to bed at night with a great idea and couldn't get a good rest as you couldn't stop thinking about it. Or even worst, spent a night putting your idea into action instead of going to bed! Well, all of the above have happened to me. Recently, I have been obsessed with my flat diaper conversion and ideas to make pocket diapers...but also a few creative ideas to organize my house stylishly.

 For all of you still using disposable diapers, or like me, alternating between both, you might love this idea. Since we have a toddler not yet potty trained, and an infant, we accumulate quite the amount of diaper boxes. And since our house is a two story house, with bedrooms on the second level...it's not always convenient to have all the kids clothing and mostly used items in their rooms.

So we set up a change table in the dining room and a change area in the living room. But having everything just "put" on the shelves of a change table is not really "organized" and a bit annoying. You'd say: " what about baskets?"  We don't have any, and since all those diaper boxes we just sitting there, waiting for Recycling day, I thought they were the perfect size to become drawers for my daughters mostly used items under the change table.

Yeah, the Pampers and Huggies logos and desings are not really "stylish"! But with a few materials and a bit of imagination, they can become everything BUT diaper boxes!

I have been using those boxes for a few months without alteration, but now, I am ready to give them a face lift. I have plans of covering them with fabric, adding ribbons all around and making handles with rope...Tutorial and instructions to come.

The end of my Flat Diapers

Well, I didn't have that much to write about today, so I decided to share my current project. I have been using cloth diapers on and off for the past 2 years and really found out the hard way what doesn't work and what not to do. The first thing I learned was that the All-in-ones I was using were not so great, the second was that flat diapers are complicated.

That last thing is the reason I decided to convert all my flat diapers into contour diapers. My first diaper was a bit of a mess, but it still works great, looks much more comfortable than a folded flat diaper and doesn't leak, so far.

Here is what I did; I took a flannel flat diaper from my stash and a piece of jersey knit cotton I found in a bag of old fabric in the basement. I thought I'd add the jersey knit as the shell so I could attach the diaper with a Snappi. I didn't want to add more velcro since my covers already work with it. And Snappies don't work with flannel.

Left leg elastic

 I recycled an old paper grocery bag to make my pattern. Based on a Pampers diaper and my Kushies diaper cover, I created my very own pattern. Then I cut the pattern in the flat diaper and the jersey knit (see tutorial coming up on my YouTube Channel). With the left over flannel, I cut out three rectangles to be used to make my soaker. I sewed the rectangles together in a three layer soaker, then I sewed the soaker to the middle of the flannel part of the diaper. I then sewed the jersey knit and the flannel together, but here is where I made a bit of a mistake...putting on the leg elastics.

Right leg elastic

I started sewing the flannel and jersey around the edges but forgot about the elastics. Oops! so when I go to the left leg area, I sewed the end of the elastic where my mark was, stretched it, sewed it at the second mark and tried to pull the flannel over and back on the other side of the diaper, and sew that like a pocket . That allowed the elastic to be loose inside and free to move.

After I was done the left side, I was not happy with the tightness of the leg so I thought I could try something different with the other side. I cut my elastic shorter and sewed the front and back together at the edges, then sewed them again about a cm away from the edge, making sure the elastic stayed in between. Sure it was tighter, but I that it was more stiff than the other side.

The end product is pretty thin and absorbent, but I find it takes a while to dry...making me think maybe it needs another stripping.

Well, I still have 9 flat diapers waiting for a transformation...more experimentation to come!

Wow! a lot of work ahead!

Well, blogging away as my youngest is sleeping...I realize I have a LOT of work to do if I want to put up every topic I have in mind. See, one of my biggest flaw is organization. How can you have two kids and have zero organisation? You just follow my example....and your house will look like mine too! LOL

Well, first I want to start by getting a truck load of motivation. Yeah, I've heard it before, just apply at home what your employer's motivational speaker talked about....it sounds great in an office setting, in theory, but back home with the little ones, when you barely sleep...not so motivational if you ask me!

So here came my existential questioning; how do other moms manage having a spotless house, knitting, sewing, crafting, pureeing baby food, cooking healthy meals for the family....all that, while looking after one, two, three children, at least one of them under 1 year old? And still have time to take a warm bath, read a book, watch TV and spend quality time with their husband, without getting burned out? All that still baffles me, I must be so off that motherhood thing cause that really isn't what is happening in my house. So where did I miss the memo about the instructions to be the mom described above?

Well, that is what I am planning to figure out, by myself and with some research...but mostly, by trying to get more organized. That would help I suppose....

And energy would help too. I have heard that before as well; the more energy you spend, the more you will get. True, but here comes motivation again...gee, I keep missing out on that one when the motivational train passes by. Hope I won't miss that train next time, cause my house sure needs it, my back too, and that little big extra fat comfortably sleeping on my hips...did you see a train with some motivation passing by?

Hello world, here is my blog!

Well, this is my first post! I thought I could share with the world! I have been obsessing with making cloth diapers for a little while and finally started making something out of it. My first fitted diaper!

I had started another blog, bilingual...as I speak French, but it's too much work to constantly translate my posts...so this one, English only, désolée for the Frenchies, but I had to choose!

I was inspired to start blogging about life with my little ones after reading another blog, by a mom of 5! Wow, how does she do it, I can barely survive my own 2 kids! But it really opened my eyes on a lot of possibilities to my life easier when you have very little time for your self, let alone to keep up with the house and the kids, and the budget....What is it going to be when I go back to work in April? Well, time will tell.

First I had already discussed at the beginning of this post that I started making my own cloth diapers. I will post about that in details in later posts, but I want to say that it will save us a lot of money! I already had 2 dozens of flannel flat diapers that I bought 2 years ago for my son. For 30$ at Walmart I had 12 diapers, add 2 diaper covers for 10$ each and good to go! But I didn't like having to fold them, and baby wasn't comfy, so I decided to convert them all into contour diapers.