Keeping warm outside during Winter

Last year I posted several articles about keeping my baby warm in Winter, well this year I will not have that much to do but here is something needed: a hand-warmer for both Mummy and little N. on the pushchair.

It has been on my to-do list for a little while but I was not in a hurry. Being end of October I thought I had time! How wrong was I, for today - Saturday the 27th of October (still supposedly in Summer time) - the temperatures dropped dramatically and it started snowing. The weather forecast does not predict snow in the next days, but the temperatures should now remain pretty low. So I decided it was high time I got on with making these hand-warmers!

Little N.' is extremely simple and I did not even attempt making it look too nice or too elaborate. It is just a piece of fleece with a long velcroband to put around the handle in front of her in the pushchair. The handle is covered with a sort of plastic which will feel very cold in Winter, hence the need for a bit of fleece over it.

Mine is more elaborate. I have looked on the internet for a tutorial but did not find much and buying one is quite expensive. Eventually I found this blog with tutorial and pattern. Before cutting any fabric I had a quick look at my pushchair and decided that I needed to make the pattern a little bigger. Well, I wish now that I'd had a bigger piece of water-proof fabric to make it even bigger than what I did (it feels a bit tight) but nevermind.

If anyone is interested I can make a scan of the larger pattern, just ask by email or comment (leaving an email address).

If you look at my photos, there is one thing I did not do as explained in the tutorial: the lady just put all the layers in the right order and then biais-tape all around to hide the seam. I decided to sew from the inside, leaving an opening to turn it out afterwards, then did a nice seam all around to flatten properly the whole thing and close the opened part. I also chose not to use black thread so as to have just a tiny hint of colour outside :)

I am very much looking forward to use it now and see how it works out (and mainly if it does keep my hands warm!)

What is extraordinary though is that I did manage this whole project within a few hours! It probably never happened to me before!! (Can you feel how proud of myself I am?)

In the meantime my husband baked us some delicious mini-muffins: Apple and Carambar - we got loads of apples from my parents-in-law and we had some caramel Carambars that needed eating/using. If you don't know what Carambars are, just check out the link! 

 I am off to taste them now. Have a good afternoon everybody!