Because he's worth it!

After 18 months of car-free living in La Suisse, the eminent arrival of Baby Suisse has convinced us that it was time to get a car again in order to be able to travel around a bit more easily at the weekends and, more importantly, to be able to look for nurseries slightly further afield from Brugg. As Alf is part of most of the trips we take at the weekends, we need to equip the car with a suitable crate for him to go in the boot. I thought that Alf could also do with a bit of comfort and his own travel blanket to snooze on during his travels in the car.

All that was needed was some spare fabric, some batting left-over from when I made the cot-bumper , 30 minutes and a willing Alf to model the new blanket.

I roughly measured my dog, estimated the length the travel blanket should be, cut 2 pieces of fabric and 1 of batting. Put the 2 pieces of fabric right sides together and put the batting on top. Sew all around it leaving a suitable gap to turn the blanket inside out.

Turn the blanket inside out and sew the gap shut

You should now have a blanket!

To hold the batting in place, I tied some knots throughout the quilt with some wool. An alternative would be to machine-quilt the blanket but I do not have a quilting foot and these knots should do the trick.

As they say, the proof is in the pudding...

Because Alf is quite partial to bandanas and I had some fabric left, I decided to sew him a matching bandana! Here's some more posing:

Why do I have to sit still?

This photoshoot is taking far too long!

I've had enough now!

Let's go and see if anyone else over at Handmade Harbour has been spoiling their pets this week!

My favourite shop in Brugg :-)

Some of you have been asking about the shop where I've spent quite a bit of my "pocket money" since moving to Brugg in November. You may remember the rocking chair

the little table

the lamps

the cake stands

and other bits and bobs I haven't blogged about ;-)

Anyhow, for those of you in Zürich, a trip to Brugg is a must to have a browse in Lori's shop. For all the others, a look at her website will make you want to come to Brugg!

http://www.shabby-treasures.ch/Website/Vintage_Boutique.html

How much would you love to have a house that looks like hers??

http://www.shabby-treasures.ch/Website/Shabby_Chic.html



Although it is quite clear from these pictures that she does not have a full-time boarder like this one below that sheds hair like Hansel & Gretel lay a trail of white pebbles and that insists on sleeping on every bit of furniture we own (including the dinning room table...I still have not figured out 1) how he gets onto it and 2) why???)

Disgressing... Anyway, now that I am off work for the last 4 weeks of my pregnancy (yes, Baby Suisse is supposed to hatch mid-August!!) I have had more time to do some crafting and catch up with blogging. One project which had been on my to do list for weeks was a peg bag and I can't believe I have been postponing it for some long when it only took me 5 minutes to make!

If only every project was that easy...

The long-awaited toy bag

If you were following me in March, you may remember seeing the jungle-themed  cot bumper I made for Baby Suisse's room. If you don't, here's a little reminder of the fabric used.

Thanks to some severe miscalculations on my behalf of how much fabric was needed for this project, I ended up with a LOT of extra fabric which wasn't a bad thing in the end as it allowed me to make some matching accessories for his bedroom. My first idea was to make a small matching toy bag to store Baby Suisse's growing collection of soft toys.

The bag itself is like a big, lined cube open on top with 4 pockets around the sides to put away some more toys.

A layer of wadding was added between the bag and its lining to make it sturdier. The fabric used for the lining is the same as for the pockets.

As you can see from this picture, the resulting bag is not huge but big enough for Baby Suisse's current collection of rattles, soft books and other cuddlies.

Only 4 weeks until the big day, things are starting to look ready :-)

Come and join me in Handmade Harbour to see what other craft magic has been happening on blogland.

A new favourite...

Migros (our local supermarket chain) had marked down by 50% crates of apricots that were coming to their sell by date (but still looked fantastic)...Mr T had to carry 4kg of apricots home on top of our usual shopping but I made the most fantastic jam at the weekend.

1.5 kg of fruits for 1.2 kg of sugar and 3 table spoons of lemon juice... leave simmering for a long time et voilà! Perfect on toast for breakfast or with plain yogurt for a healthy pudding!

A present for Alf

I love my dog, I really do, but God is he messy! Not only is every single bit of floor covered in dog hair (I have lost count of the number of times I have found a dog hair in my food half way through dinner and wondered how the heck it ended up there...), but half the kitchen ends up flooded everytime he decides to have a drink. Just like you can follow a snail or a slug by its trail, you can usually track Alf half way round the flat after he has had a drink.

I have been trying to find an appropriate plastic placemat for him to place under his bowls in the kitchen but could never find the right design. So when I saw this in a shop in Morzine when we were on holidays in June, I knew what I wanted to do:

Routing through my photobox, I found these and personalised this placemat:

Et voilà!

If only it was this simple to sort out the dog hair problem...

Come and join me in checking out what others have been doing this past week on Handmade Monday here at Wendy's.

Silent Sunday

"Levitating" ducks, Hallwillersee

Another unexpected event in 2012...

Thanks to the imminent arrival of Baby Suisse, 2012 has been a year rich in emotions and unexpected happenings! Because unmarried parents have very different rights in la Suisse than anywhere else in the civilised world in that the father has to adopt his own child to have any legal rights to his flesh and blood, Mr T and I organised a small private wedding ceremony in Brugg on June 29th in an attempt to cut down on the subsequent amount of paperwork we'd have to go through with Baby Suisse's arrival (but 2 weeks on it appears that we were disillusioned on that point...).

Alf not impressed with having to wear a bow on the day!

Because I was 7 and 1/2 months pregnant, had 5 weeks to organise the wedding and a limited budget (we really hadn't planned getting married in Switzerland, the most expensive country in the world), we only had 8 people with us on the day and kept the whole event very relaxed (yes, yes mostly!). We had 6 people staying at home with us in Brugg for a few days and the place where we got married was literally a 5 minutes walk from the house. Annoyingly on the big day, the buidling where we got married was covered in scaffolding as the town was installing some sort of stage in front of it so I had to steal these pictures from the internet.

http://www.heiraten.ch/trauungslokale/marketimages/1312890905_Heimatmuseum_2_a.jpg

Inside was beautiful though and the room was just the right size for our small wedding party and made it feel special.

Although an unconventional wedding in many ways, I did stick to the tradition of something old...

Summer sandals bought in Morzine last year,
this is summer and I was 32 weeks pregnant: this is the best I could manage!

...something new...

Handmade hair accessory by http://www.flutterbyweddings.co.uk/
to match the belt on my dress

...something borrowed...

My late grandmother's pearl necklace

...something blue...

Bracelet and earring also handmade to match my dress
by a Glaswegian friend with a blue tartan ribbon!

I was lucky to have not one...

Why spend 150CHF at the florist for the smallest wedding bouquet
when 15CHF in Migros can get you these?

...but two wedding bouquets, including this lovely one made out of vintage buttons by two Glaswegian friends! How beautiful and unique!

The last of the "accessories" came straight out of the Tiffany's store in Zürich...now THAT was exciting!

The dress was a summer cocktail dress which accomodated nicely for the ever-expanding bump!

The evening was spent eating some truly delicious food in Zürich old town near Fraumunster

Although we dearly missed not having more of our families and friends with us to celebrate with us this big day, we had a lovely time and are glad that at least both our sets of parents could travel to attend the wedding. We hope to have post-wedding parties in England and France next year so that we get to celebrate the wedding and the arrival of Baby Suisse with everyone (and I get to drink more than half of glass of champagne!). But life is full of surprises so until then...