Ad Astrid Per Aspera

As I think many expectant parents do, I had a lot of ideas about how things would be with my baby, the birth, the blissful first few days and weeks at home, my speedy recovery and all the fun outings we'd go on. I did a lot of nesting in the run up to my due date, decorating the nursery corner of our room, as seen below:

We put up two picture ledges and I arranged and re-arranged the pictures on them. I hung up little dresses (including the two I made) and put all the neatly folded receiving blankets underneath. I arranged her toys and books on her little white shelf. I bought a kit and started trying to teach myself to knit from a pamphlet.

Then the due date came. And went. And then two more weeks went by with no sign of baby. The natural water birth at the birthing centre was abandoned for an induced birth in the labour ward. Then that turned into a forceps delivery in an operating theatre. But in the end, we got our baby. I also got stitches in a tender area, but that's not the point.

The point is that Astrid is here. She is lovely and sweet and very pretty and somehow contains all the love, hope, passion, faith, integrity and goodness that can be found in me, in Matthew, and in our families going back into the mists of time. She contains all these things and yet somehow magnifies them back to us. She is small and pink. Her mouth is a perfect rosebud and her head smells like heaven. She is a flower and a star and I love her very much.

Nesting

I've heard a lot about the nesting instinct and, from my own experience, I'd say it's real. In our case, it's taken the form of actual baby preparations like acquiring all the equipment (crib, pushchair, bouncer, carrier, etc), clothes, packing the hospital bag, etc, but also making some home improvements. It's sort of like how having a party can be the impetus for a good house cleaning and, I find sometimes, doing little decorating jobs you haven't got around to, but much more intensive. We have a new front garden gate, which is very similar to the old one but is better because it has a latch, swings open and closed, and isn't made of disintegrating rotten wood that breaks off whenever you touch it. Matthew and his friend Steve painted the shed, which was flaking pretty badly and looked grey, even though closer inspection showed that it was actually painted green. It's now a beautiful sage green that looks so pretty and fresh amid all the plants that I think we're going to have to start calling it the summer house - it just looks too good to be a shed!

Inside, we've rearranged and redecorated the bedroom, which used to be turquoise with red accents. Now it's a colour called "Whisper of Dramatic" - which you can be forgiven for not guessing is actually pale grey with a touch of lavender. Very calm and pretty. To go with the new walls, we've also got new bedding. This set is from Designer's Guild:

(That's not our bedroom - it's the photo from the packaging. Our front garden is looking good, but not that leafy and green.)

Then I went to Ikea the other day to get meatballs and a bedside table. I completely forgot the meatballs, but came back with two new sets of bedding. The first is sort of a Swedish toile and is so light and soft it's like sleeping on a cloud:
The second is a bit more colourful, but still manages to be restful enough to sleep on. Also very soft and luxurious:

We got rid of (i.e. donated to the charity shop down the road, who are probably getting tired of seeing us at this point in our nesting mania) all our other mis-matched or unloved bedding besides these new ones and a paisley duvet set from Monsoon Home. We also got a little chest that sits at the foot of the bed for storing the bedding. Every set has the right number of matching pillow cases and sheets - it's so grown up!

Spree vs Steal: Baby Edition

One of the websites I've been compusively surfing, alongside BabyCenter.com and BabyCentre.co.uk (and yes, there is just enough difference to justify bookmarking both), is online boutique Smallable which features almost unutterably beautiful thing. It arouses the same sort of feelings I get about Graham & Green catalogues, i.e., that I'd like to live in that world. Sadly, the Smallable universe is apparently only for small, French-speaking people, but oh, the outfits. So tiny, so lovely. Please see below:

And so, so expensive. Like, the above outfit (not counting the shoes) costs £124. 27. So I concocted this alternative version:

It isn't exactly the same. My blouse has little flutter sleeves rather than long sleeves like the original and obviously the trousers are different (though I do have a cute pair of grey trousers, in case we decide to go that way). The "inspiration" cardigan seems to be sweatshirt material, while mine is soft cotton knit. Mine was also originally white, but I spent most of an evening dyeing it grey and am very happy with the results. I'm actually really happy with the entire outfit.

Of course, I feel particularly smug about the cost: blouse and trouser set, £5; cardigan, £4; dye, £3.75. That totals £12.75, or roughly 1/10th of the original outfit. Oh, yes, I am very clever.

Food that Tastes and Looks Good, too

Being a pregnant lady for the past nine months or so, I've had to deal with lots of food that I can't eat (sushi, pate, stinky cheese), but also some food that I should eat. I've tried to keep my caffeine intake as low as possible for years now, so drinking decaf tea and coffee isn't a big deal for me - I try to "save" my caffeine allowance for Cokes and chocolate. And while oily fish is a very big deal as a source of Omega-3 (which is pronounced "omeega" here) fatty acids, I'm supposed to stay away from larger oily fish like shark and swordfish and limit salmon and tuna because of mercury. Little fish, like sardines, are okay.

So, at some point a while back, when Matthew was working an overnight shift, I asked him to pick up some decaf tea and sardines when he went to the supermarket for his dinner (I've been very bad about cooking practically the whole pregnancy). This is what I found on the counter when I got up in the morning:

I found it very sweet and also quite visually arresting. I'm always really impressed when Matthew does stuff like this, arranging something in a pretty pattern, and I'm not sure why - he's not a Neanderthal and he quite likes music and art, etc. But this was super-cute and made me start thinking about food packaging and how it makes something that tastes good just a little bit nicer when it comes in a pretty package.

Porridge is my staple winter breakfast, made with skim milk and with a couple of squares of chocolate or a squirt of honey. Probably the best thing ever was a bowl of porridge with an egg cracked in it. That sounds disgusting until you know that it was a Cadbury's Creme Egg.

I generally like canned fish, but it turns out that I don't love pilchards. But the can sure looks nice, doesn't it? Note, though, that they are high in Omega 3.
This is the coconut milk I use in my curry recipe, which comes from the grocery shop across the road. You'd think things would be more expensive in what is essentially a convenience store, but this costs about half what coconut milk costs at the big store up the road. Plus, the three different languages on the label makes me think it's somehow more authentic. I made a curry yesterday and, while I can't vouch for the quality before it was improved, I can say that it's quite good now.

And this isn't yummy food that comes in a pretty wrapper, but it is quite yummy. It's the jam that I made from figs that I picked in our back garden last year. The figs themselves aren't particularly delicious - Rocco tells me that the climate in England is no good for figs, but he says that about everything except spinach - but I found that boiling them for ages with an enormous amount of sugar really improved their flavour.

Good Work News, New Book, and a New Design Crush

I've had some exciting developments at work lately. It seems that someone finally remembered that I'd done a planning degree and I'm suddenly assisting with preparation for three projects that are going to planning appeal. I'm helping the project architects draft their proofs of evidence, the legal documents they submit to the Planning Inspector, like a written version of their testimony. I've been to three meetings this week! And we got sandwiches at one of them! I felt so grown up which is quite nice, though it was a hassle trying to dress like a grown up three days in a row. I'm at a stage where I don't have that many wardrobe options...

Anyway, I'm still finishing up my interiors project and am still looking at lots of pictures of pretty, unfeasibly expensive things. I'm pretty crazy about these gorgeous cushions designed by Alexander Caldwell, who also did those wacky wooden dolls.

I am particularly taken with the moon cushion on the lower right. I think it's begging for a reinterpretation, maybe as a reverse applique. And it turns out I'm not the only person producing "homages" to Mr Girard. These crocheted dolls, inspired by Girard's wooden ones, were made by Sian Keegan. Pretty neat, huh?

I've been running into references to this book for a while now and finally decided I needed a copy for myself. Unfortunately, it is out of print and when I first looked it up on Amazon, the lazy booklover's first stop on a quest, a copy cost almost £200. So I forgot about it for a while and then next time I checked, there was a copy for £30. And that copy, once the property of Dunstable College's College of Further Education Library, is now on my coffee table. It's pretty great; the textiles especially are amazing, all geometric and organic at the same time.

Also in the course of my research, I ran across this photo of Eero Saarinen curled up in his Womb chair. Isn't he adorable?

I must say, Saarinen is definitely my new favourite 20th century architect. To be honest, I didn't have a designated favourite 20th century architect before; the post was created with him in mind. But he is great. He designed an amazing array of buildings and furniture, not to mention the St Louis Arch, which I have never seen in person but Matthew has and he assures me it is very, very tall.

In other, more baby-related news, everything is still going well. Apparently, my payback for having not had any morning sickness is that my feet and legs are still (and increasingly) swollen. I've only got two pairs of shoes that fit - and one of those only intermittently. Like I said, not many options. The only advice I've gotten from my GP and midwife is to keep my feet elevated as much as possible, which is why I'm writing this from the sofa, on my brand new laptop. It's taking me a while to get used to the little mousepad thingy, but I do love it. (And, actually, the GP told me today that I should start wearing flight socks - sexy!)

Current Obsessions

...which obviously do not include keeping blogs up to date, am I right?!?

Actually, I've had a lot on lately, mostly in the form of this little person, who spends most of his/her time kicking my bladder and, somehow, causing my ankles to swell to elephantine proportions. This photo is from before Christmas; we have another scan next Monday, when we're supposed to find out the sex. I'm quite excited about that, not least because it should help us decide on a name. I've been interested in baby names since at the age of 12 and have always had favourites picked out - fortunately these have changed over the years, or we'd be preparing for the arrival of little Shade or Summer or Panda or Arlo. (Yes, I realise some of those are words, not actual names.)

The problem is that when it comes to naming an actual child, I've choked. I mean, it's got to be perfect, right? We're looking for something that is unusual, creative and interesting, without being outlandish or invented. It should also be something that we both like. And I've got to take into consideration naming trends in the US and the UK. We also have to consider the class connotations that come loaded into almost every activity in England so that we don't end up with a name that's too "chavvy" or too "poncey". I thought we were on the right track until the other day when - shock horror! - I found our one and only boy's name on a list of wannabe hipster names on a website I like and trust. But all that aside, we're doing pretty well and are looking forward to meeting the little stranger, whatever we end up calling it.

At work lately I've been doing research on and writing biographical blurbs about famous designers, mostly of furniture, lighting and other interiors products. It's been really interesting and has given me lots of opportunity to get lost in pretty pictures. Last week, I got really into Ray Eames's fabric designs. We've bought a rocking chair with black cushions for nursing the baby and I thought this would look gorgeous in it:

And it really would look great. However, it is the tiniest bit out of my price range - the cushion costs about 150 euros and I haven't been able to find the fabric for less than $112 a yard. I'm now thinking that I will produce my own "homage" by embroidering a similar design in white on black linen. I've recently done some sewing for work (embroidering and making up some linen cushions for a hotel room mock-up) and got very excited about working with linen, especially since I found a place that sells it very cheaply.

Another thing I've stumbled upon is this series of wooden dolls by Alexander Girard. He was heavily influenced by folk art from around the world, especially Mexico, and his collection formed the basis for the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Apparently he made these for his own home, just because he wanted to and thought they'd be nice to look at. That's why I do a lot of the things I do, much to Matthew's consternation, I fear, so I think that's nice. However, it does not really justify them being "re-issued" by a high-end furniture manufacturer and being sold for about £80 each, simply as decorative items.

That said (in a disapproving tone), I am really intrigued by these little guys. I imagine that making some would be quite satisfying and I'm already thinking about how to do it. They're mostly flat shapes cut out of wood; a person could probably reasonably approximate the shape with a jigsaw. I don't have a jigsaw, so now I'm wondering about painting a set of Russian nesting dolls in imitation. Or, rather, homage.

But one thing about which I am unreservedly excited is the quilt exhibition that's opening at the V&A in March. The V&A has probably the greatest museum shop in the world anyway and they always have themed items to go with their special exhibitions. In this case, they are reproducing textile prints from quilts dating from the 18th and 19th centuries and selling them in fat quarters, by the metre and cut to measure. And they're not insanely expensive - only £11.50 per metre.

Now I just have to wait until next week to find out if I'm going to be making a precious little dress for Yoyo (the working title for our sprog) or if I'll be crafting a lovely present for my niece. Either way, my sewing fingers are itching...