Hobbes for My Little Boy

Fans of Calvin and Hobbes goes by the saying 'every little boy should have a Hobbes'.  So does mine.  Unfortunately, neither Calvin nor Hobbes are available as a toy.  This is because Bill Waterson, the author, did not want to have these characters commercialised and thus would not licensed them out.  So, the only way to get hold of a Hobbes is to diy.

Made a Hobbes from scratch for my little boy, Ray.  It is a 2 in 1, toy as well as blanket.  Sourced the fleece from Kamdar, Mid Valley.

I was full of excitement when sewing it.  The most tedious part was sewing the stripes as I sewn it using the edge finishing stitch, which took like forever.  Time went by and it seemed like I was not going anywhere.  However, once the stripes were in place, the rest were a breeze as they were sewn using normal straight stitch.

The doll was completed in just 1 afternoon.  The Hobbes is taller than my boy!  The back opens up with a zip to reveal the blanket. 

Hobbes for my little boy

Zip at back revealed the blanket

Hobbes as Blanket

Hobbes as Blanket

Ray loves it or to be more precise, loves biting it.  It must be the striking combition of orange and black color that attracted him so.  This Hobbes would be a perfect companion for him.  The chinese believes that tigers could protect little ones from evil spirits.  That is why chinese kids have many clothings adorned with tigers; i.e. hat, shoes, vests, etc.  Hobbes may be gentle, but he is still a tiger. Thus I believe he will protect my boy.  Having said that, I am not a superstitious person. 

A doll wearing chinese tiger hat

Chinese Tiger Shoes

Pumping Milk Across the Continents

Travelling is always fun and exciting, what more when you get to travel to places that you have been wanting to set your foot to since ages ago.  This was exactly how I felt when I get the opportunity to go on a 2 weeks trip to Europe; London, Brussels and Paris to be exact. Travelling this time is a bit different from usual, as I am still breastfeeding my 10 months old baby boy, Ray. 

Expressing breast milk on the go is not new to me. I had been on a 10 days trip to US in 2010, when I was still breastfeeding my twins.  The experience then were shared in my page here : Travelling with Expressed Breast Milk.  I did not expect any difference this time. Armed with an 8.5L 26.4 L Coleman ice storage box, 2 techni ice sheets, 2 packs industrial strength dried ice, a cool storage bag, breast milk storage bags and my Avent manual pump, I boarded the plane and off I went to London.

The Coleman ice box was checked in along with the industrial dried ice while I carried the cool storage bag, techni ice sheets, some milk storage bags and my pump with me. Since it was a 12 hours + flight, I calculated that I will need to pump at least twice during the journey.  To avoid creating inconvenience to other fellow passengers, I pumped in the toilet when meals was served. Since everyone else was eating, no one bothered that I occupied the toilet for a long time.  The second pumping was done at least 3 hours before the estimated arrival time. Everyone was still sleeping at that time and I get to use the toilet as long as I like.  The 3 hours before arrival was chosen as meals was once again served 2 hours before arrival. 

Once finished pumping, I stored the ebm in the milk storage bag and sealed it well.  Upon passing it to the stewardess to be put in the freezer, I was told that they are not allowed to keep passengers' food. This is indeed a change of policy as I used to kept my ebm in the plane's freezer during my US trip 2 years ago. I was at a loss of what to do as the techni ice sheets will not last for the 12 hours flight, plus the time needed to get to the hotel upon arrival. A kind steward then offered to keep the ice sheets in the freezer (this is allowed since it is not food) and gave me a bag of ice to keep my ebm cooled in the cooler bag. This was the best available option. It kept my ebm cooled although I had to keep replenishing the ice every now and then.

Upon reaching the hotel in London, I immediately passed all the ebm as well as the dried ice and techni ice sheets to the hotel’s staff to be kept in their restaurant’s freezer, after labeling them with my name and my room’s number.  For the entire three days I stayed in the hotel, I did the same, that was, passing the ebm to the hotel’s staff to be kept in the freezer along with the rest.  When the time come for me to leave London for Brussels, I ‘redeemed’ all the ebm half an hour before the taxi that was supposed to bring us to the train station arrived.  All the ebm and the ice were kept in the coleman and strapped with a luggage strap.

The journey from London to Brussels by the Eurostar took only 2.5 hours.  Upon reaching the hotel in Brussels, I did the same as in London.  This went on till I arrived in Paris 6 days later.  Upon passing my ebm to the hotel’s staff in Paris, I was told that the hotel does not have a freezer.  I was shocked as I already e-mailed the hotel weeks and a day before arrival that I will need to put something in the freezer and the hotel replied that they will gladly comply to my request.  After some reasoning with the staff, finally they agreed to take the ebm off my hand and a freezer magically appeared (since they mentioned earlier that they do not have one).  I have anticipated some problems in Paris as I do not speak French and this is rather an unusual request.  Already thought about this and asked a friend who is currently residing in France to help me translate the phrase ‘human breast milk’ and ‘I am a breastfeeding mother.  Can I put my ebm in your freezer?’ in French.  This however, was not necessary as the hotel’s staff speak good English.  However, I feel that having the phrase or sentence in local language will help in places where English is not commonly spoken.

After being on the go for 15 days, I was worried that the coleman will not be able to fit in all the ebm.  Although hb and I agreed earlier that we will buy an extra ice storage box if need be, I felt that it was too expensive to do so and decided to discard some if necessary.  On the day of departure, I requested the ebm and ice packs from the hotel’s staff half an hour before checking out.  All the ebm needed some ‘clever’ arranging to fit into the Coleman.  Sure enough, the Coleman couldn’t accommodate all and I had to take out one of the industrial strength dried ice so that all the ebm can go into the coleman.  I then carried the ice pack in my cooler bag along with my pump for pumping in the plane.  The Coleman was then strapped with the luggage strap and labeled with the phrase ‘Lait Maternel’ meaning human breast milk.

What we didn’t take into consideration was the weight of the ebm and we exceeded 8kg of the baggage allowance.  The coleman with all the ebm weighed 18kg in total and we had to pay 500 Euro for the excess weight.  That was RM2000!  The lady at the check in counter advised that we hand carry some heavy stuff to meet the baggage allowance so that we will not have to pay so much.  Hb and I ended up with very heavy hand luggage but at least we did not have to pay for exceeding the check in baggage allowance.  The Coleman was treated as oversized luggage as it is fragile and needed to be handle with care.

During the flight, once again, I pumped twice during the entire journey.  A kind and understanding stewardess directed me to a larger toilet for more comfort.  She mentioned that I can use their praying area, which is covered by curtains for pumping if I want but also advised that the toilet will offer more privacy.

The flight from Paris to KL took almost 12 hours.  All in, from the time we departed the hotel to the time we reached home, it was about 18 hours in total.  After 18 hours, all the ebm was still rock frozen although I have removed one of the industrial strength ice packs earlier.  I guess the frozen ebm also helped in sustaining the coolness in the Coleman.

To sum up everything :

Before the journey :

1) Estimate how much ebm there be and bring along an ice storage box of appropriate size and sufficient amount of milk storage bags (bottles).
2) Pack luggage with the weight of ebm in mind
3) Contact the hotel to ensure they have a freezer and is willing to have the ebm kept there
4) Pack a pump and ice sheets in a cooler bag to be carried on board for pumping during the flight
5) Prepare resquest to put ebm in hotel's freezer in local language

During the flight :
1) Express milk when everyone is eating or sleeping
2) Ask the steward / stewardess for some ice and put the ice sheet in the plane's fridge (if it is a long flight)

The journey home :
1) Line ice storage box with dried ice before putting in the frozen ebm.
2) Cover the top with towel.
3) Label the ice storage box with the phrase 'human breast milk' in English and local language
4) Strap the ice storage box (to prevent accidental opening)

Tutorial - My Melody Pillow cum Blanket

Promised some mummies that I will write a step by step guide on how to sew the pillow cum blanket.  So here's for the My Melody.  Happy sewing!

Materials :

Pink fleece  (1.5m)
White fleece / knit (0.3m) 
Black fleece (small piece)
Orange fleece (small piece)
Jacket zips  ( 2 x 24")
Polyfiber




The above materials should yield :

Head  (2 pieces)
Face (1 piece)
Eyes ( 2 pieces)
Mouth ( 1 piece)
Ear ( 1 piece)



Steps :

1)  Sketch and cut the outline of the head of My Melody on a piece of paper.  (I made mine about 22cm width).  Pin it on the pink fleece and cut accordingly.  (You will need 2 pieces for the head).

2)  Sketch and cut the outline for the face.  Place on top of the head piece and adjust accordingly.  Once you are satisfied with the size and shape, pin on the white fleece and cut accordingly.  (You can still adjust the size and shape while sewing)

Left : Cutting the head piece
Right : Pinning the face piece onto the head

3)  Cut the eyes and mouth using the black fleece and the nose with the orange fleece.

4)  Place the face piece on the head and pin in place.  Arrange the eyes, nose and mouth and pin in place.  Adjust the placement of the facial features according to your desire.  

The face with eyes, nose and mouth in place

5) Set the sewing machine to the edge finishing stitch (Stitch no. 10 for NV50).   Install the right sewing foot (G foot). 

Note :  Stitch no. 10 is usually used for serging when there is no proper serger.  Refer here for how the G foot and stitch look like.





6) Begin sewing the face, followed by the eyes, nose and mouth.  (Use white thread for face, black thread for eyes and mouth, orange / pink thread for nose). 

7)  Cut a piece of rectangular pink fleece.  Pin it as the left ear.  Sew in place using the same stitch (no. 10).  Before completing the stitching, insert a little polyfiber into the left ear to make it fluffy.  Once the desired fluffiness is achieved, sew to close all opening.

Left :  Sewing the left ear
Top right : Sewing the eye
Bottom right : Inserting the polyfiber into the left ear

8) Cut a piece of pink fleece to the size 1m x 1m.  This will be the blanket.

(Sorry, no picture from here onwards as I met with a little accident and did not manage to take any picture as I sew).

9) Place the sewn head piece on the upper middle of the blanket with the face facing up.  The right side of the blanket should also be facing up.

10) Place the other head piece (without the face) at the bottom middle.

10) Open up the jacket zip.  Pin one side of the jacket zip to the face and blanket piece, starting from the left jaw of the My Melody.  Pin the other side of the jacket zip to the other head piece (without the face).  (The zipper should start at the jaw and ends at the top of the head).  Repeat for the right side of the face.

Tip :  It would be helpful to randomly pin all over both head pieces in place as you may find that you will need to remove some pins while sewing.  The extra pins will ensure that the pieces will not run out of place as fleece is very stretchy.

11)  Install the zipper foot to the sewing machine and sew the zips in place.

12) Cut 2 pieces of orange fleece in the shape of a flower and one round piece of pink fleece for the middle part.  Sew the round pink fleece onto one of the flower piece using the edge finishing stitch (Stitch no. 10).

13) With the right side of both flower pieces facing each other, sew along the edge using normal straight stitch, leaving behind an opening of about 5cm.

14) Turn the flower piece inside out.  Insert a little polyfiber into the flower piece through the opening.  Hand sew to close the opening.  Then, hand sewn the flower piece onto the My Melody.

The end result : as a blanket

Fleece does not fray easily, thus there is no need for finishing at the blanket piece.  However, one can always handsewn some decorative finishing to the edge to make it more appealing.  Yarn would be a good choice for this.

The blanket can be turned into a pillow by zipping up the jacket zips.  First, fold the pillow into half at the chin of the My Melody. Attach the jacket zips together.  As you pull along the zipper, stuff the blanket fabric in between both head pieces.  Once both zippers are fully pulled, all the blanket fabric will be contained inside and it has now turned into a pillow!

Stuffing the blanket in between both head pieces while pulling the zipper up

Blanket turned into pillow

My Melody Pillow cum Blanket

This is the second in my 'pillow cum blanket series'.  Sewn a My Melody design this time.  My elder girl has declared that the doraemon belongs to her while this one belongs to 'mei mei' (younger sister).  It is just as well as 'mei mei' is more feminine and prefers nothing, but anything in pink.

Breastmilk Teething Biscuits

My breastfeeding journey this time round has been smooth sailing so far.  My boy is on breastmilk exclusively, unlike his twin sisters of whom I needed to supplement with formula milk.  My bm supply was low back then, plus, there were 2 mouths to feed.  After ensuring my boy has enough bm for the day plus storage, the expressed breastmilk I have this time is enough for me to turn them into soaps.  Hb's 15 year old niece even requested for my ebm saying she needs all the 'power' to score As in PMR.  However, I suspected that the real reason she wanted it is because she heard that breast milk is able to help teenagers grow taller. 

Today I did something new that utilises bm as well :   breastmilk teething biscuits.

I get the idea of making my own teething biscuits from a post in the MC group.  A mummy was asking about homemade teething biscuits few weeks ago.  My boy is ready to bite anything that he can grab these days thus, teething biscuits would come in timely.

Ingredients :

1 cup    flour

1 cup   organic baby cereals

3tbsp   vegetable oil

4oz      chilled expressed breastmilk (ebm)

Method :

1) Mix flour, cereals and oil together.

2) Add in ebm a little at a time and stir well.

3) Keep adding ebm and mix till the dough just separated from the bowl.

4) Scoop the dough into a piping bag and pipe about 4cm each onto a tray lined with baking sheets.

5) Flatten the piped dough a little and bake in preheated oven at 215 degree celcius for 10 - 12 mins.

6) Let cooled and store in air tight container.

Took a bite myself once the biscuits are done.  They take on the taste of breastmilk.  Come to think of it, this is the first time I consume my own bm.   Having exposed to high temperature, the antibodies in the ebm would have degraded.  However, one can still benefit from other compounds contained in the ebm.  The biscuits are crunchy at the outside and soft at the inside.  Care must be taken when feeding little ones with any type of biscuits, not just homemade teething biscuits.  Never leave a child who has just started solids unattended when they are munching something.

Doraemon Pillow cum Blanket

It always fascinate me how things tend to be 2 in 1 or 3 in 1 or even multiples in 1 these days.  For instance, we have thumb drive cum pen, lighter cum torchlight, tablets cum phone, etc.  Something my sis owns caught my eyes the other day when she came for a visit, a 2 in 1 thingy : pillow cum blanket.  It seems to be very functional and space saving. Plus, it is nice too.  I imagine my girls will go wild if I sew them something like this in characters that they like.

The first character that came to my mind when I decided to sew this pillow cum blanket is the doraemon.  My sisters and I have always been a fan of doraemon.  This robotic cat is just so cute and  I wouldn't mind having it as a friend or companion.  I can always benefit something from that magical pocket of his. 

The first challenge in sewing this pillow cum blanket is on getting the right material.  Fleece would be nice, just that it is very difficult to find fleece here in Malaysia.  Flannel is too hard while cottons and linens are just as hard.  When someone pointed out that there is fleece in Kamdar, I found myself sprinted to the Mid Valley branch right away to check it out.  Sure enough there are some materials there that are quite similar to fleece, but not quite.  The uncles there told me that those are synthetic fleece and that they are sold till while stock last only and will not be restocked.  I reckoned that I shouldn't waste the opportunity and bought 1.5m each in pink, black, orange and blue as I already had in mind what other characters I am going to sew next after the doraemon.

The pillow cum blanket is very easy to sew.  The challenge in on getting a perfect round after stitching the zippers, which I used jacket zips.   The end result is not bad, although far from perfect. 

The girls adore the doraemon.  It created quite some hoo hah in the MC group too.   Almost immediately after I posted the pictures in Facebook, both my sisters demanded that I sew one for each of them.   Some mummies even sent me messages to ask for quotes and to place order.  Just too bad that I won't be taking orders, at least for now.     The most I can do is to put up a tutorial on how to make it.  Will do so one of these days, so, stay tuned!

DIY Lantern for Mid Autumn Festival

The mid autumn festival, also known as the mooncake festival, falls on the 15th day of the eight month of the lunar calendar.  It is on this night that the moon is said to be brightest and of a perfect round.  I cannot say for sure that it is indeed a perfect round, but generally I think the chinese like round or circle a lot as it symbolises the union or 'being together'. 

As a child, I used to play lanterns with my siblings.  Those were the days where the lanterns were made of glass papers and candles are used to light them up.  As the years passed, the candles are ditched.  Small battery operated light bulbs are used instead of candles and the lantern itself is being made of plastics. This went on for years and the traditional lanterns are missing from the shops.  However, the traditional lanterns seemed to be making a big come back this year.  It brings back a lot of memories just to look at those lanterns that we used to play when we were young.   There is one particular design that I don't seem to see it anywhere though, that is the 'flower basket' or in cantonese 'far lam'.   I have thus, decided to make one on my own.

Materials :

Glass paper (colors of your choice)
Crepe paper (colors of your choice)
Wire
Thread
Glue
Colors (for painting)

Method :

1) Wrap a piece of wire over a round tin to make a circle.  Twist the end of the wire to hold the circle in place.  Make 6 of such circles. (Note : Remember to trim the end of the wires so that they won't punch a hole at the glass paper later.)

2) Align 2 of the circles and tape the point where they touch to hold them in place.  Repeat so that you get 4 circles touching each other, side by side.

3) Align 1 circle on top and at the bottom of (2).  Hold them in place with tapes.

4) Cut 4 pieces of glass paper in circles, slightly larger than the circles of the wires. 

5) Glue the glass paper over the body of the lantern.  (Tip :  the glass paper tears easily. However, once it is wet with glue, it doesn't tear as easy).  Repeat so that all four sides of the lantern are covered with the glass paper.  Let the glue dry before painting with motifs of your own preference.

6)  Cut the crepe paper in 8 x 8xm sizes.  Align into a stack of at least 15 layers.  Wrap a piece of wire at the middle of the crepe paper and secure in place.  Bring the layers up one by one and trim into a flower shape.  Attach the flower at the top of the lantern.  Repeat  for all 4 corners of the lantern.

7) Wrap the bottom of a candle with a piece of wire and secure it at the bottom of the lantern.  (Note : wrapping the candle is just to gauge the size of candle holder.  The candle can be replaced easily when it burns out)

8) Cut a piece of 30 x 50cm crepe paper vertically to make the 'tail' of the lantern.  Be careful to leave a 3cm space uncut.  Glue the uncut end of the 'tail' to the bottom of the lantern.

9)  Attach all 4 corners of the top of the lantern with thread and tie a knot once you find that the lantern is balanced.  Attach the end to a piece of stick for you to hold the lantern.  The lantern is now done!

My girls are delighted with the lantern.  Probably because they have never played with one before.   But it does look nice with the candle lighted although a lot of caution needs to be exercised when little kids play with it as it is after all, fire.  Hopefully in the years to come, my girls will remember that mummy made them a lantern.