I wanted to make a pillow for tummy time because I had all the materials and it seemed a bit bonkers to pay a lot of money for one! So I had a look online and found this Poppy pillow pattern from Made by Marzipan. It is actually for a much larger pillow for feeding support, but a friend had already bought me one of those. So I reduced the patterns by 50% to make a more suitable baby-sized one. There is a pattern to make the cover for this pillow form, which you can find here (at full size they will fit a Boppy pillow).

The pattern is super easy to follow, and even with a huge baby bump which meant I could hardly reach my machine, I was able to make the cushion and a cover in a morning. Pretty good going considering how long it had been since I had made anything! I did make one other change in addition to the size – the original pattern says to insert a zip fastening. But to be honest, I really couldn’t be bothered with that at the time! So I decided to use Velcro instead, leaving a large opening on the top side to be able to attach it. It’s a baby friendly Velcro, so she won’t scratch herself on it!

I made a couple of spare covers with some other fabric from my stash. Having a large stash comes in handy sometimes! I love the zebras, and the little people are on the back of the quilt that I made (see more here).

I’m really pleased with how this pillow turned out – if you’re wanting to make something for your own baby it’s an easy project, or it would make a lovely gift. Little One seems to be enjoying it too!

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I spent a lot of my working at home days during my pregnancy sleeping – that was one thing I hadn’t really anticipated! I’m not going to lie, I lost a bit of enthusiasm for crafting and my blog which was a bit disheartening after all the effort I had been putting in to it. But in the last few weeks I regained my crafting mojo and was able to complete a few projects for Little One. The fabric buying ban was still in place (and still is, actually!) so I raided my stash for all the plain colours I have. So these are a mixture of mainly Kona cottons, Moda solids and a few other random ones I had. There are 21 colours altogether, and I used 3 squares of each – Tom helped me to work out how to lay them out so they were ‘random’, and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. It reminds me of Elmer the Patchwork Elephant! The backing fabric (pictured above) is ‘Mother Goose’ by Windham fabrics and it’s just gorgeous – I got it from Fabric Rehab with a birthday voucher (which certainly does not break the fabric buying ban haha!). As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to get it for this quilt.

I ended up with extra backing fabric and my Mum suggested making a cushion for tummy time – I found a tutorial online and it has turned out really well. I made some spare covers for it, which is why you’re probably thinking ‘but the one in the photo has cats on it!’ I’m going to do a separate review post about that pattern, so look out for that at some unspecified point in the future…!

I also managed to make some curtains for the nursery, using fabric from the duvet covers I had when I was younger. I loved them so much that I couldn’t part with them! It’s really nice to have been able to use them to make something for Little One.

Our nursery is quite small, so we kept everything white and decided to add lots of colour. My Dad very kindly came to re-wallpaper the room, and Tom did the painting. I think he’s all DIY-ed out now! Here are a few more pictures:

The piano stool has been useful in the nursery (added storage = bonus!), but I didn’t get the chance to paint it before Little One arrived. Something to add to the list of things I’d like to get around to at some point…

We are big fans of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Dr. Seuss My Mum picked up these cute bookends in the charity shop she works in. They’re fab!

This mini wooden seaside was a gift from Grandma H and Grandad K – we call it Maryport in a tin (that’s what it came in). We spent quite a bit of time there as a family, so it’s lovely to have this in the nursery. Little One likes to look at it now that she can focus in on things a bit more. It’s a good job that crabs and seagulls aren’t this big in real life – not to scale here!

The lovely prints on the wall are from Miri Studio. We wanted to have some pictures in the nursery, and had a couple of these frames from Ikea already. Katy from Miri Studio makes them to fit these frames, so they were perfect! And it’s good to support artists from the UK. I love them all, but the cheeky squirrel is my favourite!

I can’t tell you how long it has taken me to put this post together! A big thank you to Tom for the gift of time to be able to do it I’ll be returning the favour so he can do some composing! He has taken some extended leave thanks to shared parental leave, and it has just been wonderful having him around. Time is going so fast and it’s brilliant that he can be around to be with us. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if he had gone back to work after only two weeks – I have a lot of respect for everyone who does that. We’ve been able to muddle through the fog of the first few weeks together, and it’s so nice to be emerging from it and to be able to do a few more normal things. I’ve been getting back in to Instagram too, as well as posting a few things on my Facebook page, so you can pop over there to see more in between my blog posts if you like. It feels good to be back!

(I love this picture! It took a while to get it, but I got it! )

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