The Purple Owl

Crochet, Mummy, life and love

[thepurpleowlcrochet]

Clingy baby = no crochet time!!

Ok so I'm a big handmade craft lover and I'm following various lovely pages on Facebook. One thing I've noticed over the last year or 2 is that many of these pages are started by women that are either on maternity leave, or are stay at home mums. As a working mum of 2 school age children I found I have little time to do crafty projects except for in the evenings (the evenings I wasn't working I might add). Now I'm on maternity leave with a 6 week old baby I'm still finding it hard to find time to do my crochet, even in the evenings. You may ask why? Surely a 6week old baby would be sleeping most of day? After all babies sleep approx 20hrs a day.... Not mine!! My little monkey is... Well a monkey. Not only has he been suffering with colic since 2 weeks old he is also very clingy and likes to be held all the time. Some days are better than others. I may get, if I'm lucky, an hour or 2 where he sleeps in his swing chair, other days it's 20 minute cat-naps here and there. Today is one of those cat-naps days. It's now 21.30 and I'm physically and mentally drained. I had a lovely day out all planned out, with my older 2 boys and mum, but a grumpy, sickly baby meant I had to cut things short and leave the fun to mum and the boys whilst I came home. Needless to say some tears were shed on my return home and the little man's 30 minute screaming episode didn't help matters one bit. Yes it's been a difficult day, but I know I am blessed to have my beautiful little rainbow baby in my arms, despite his screaming!! I guess I am lucky in some respects as he is excellent during the night. His Daddy does the 10pm feed, I go to bed at 10.30ish, and then brings him up around midnight. Then he sleeps till approx 6am. Now for a 6week old baby that's damn good going... The only downside is he wants feeding every 3 hrs during the day. Well you can't have everything eh!?

[thepurpleowlcrochet]

Forgotten draft from 2 weeks ago!

So I have ventured out, for only the 2nd time in four weeks, without my new baby (he was with his Daddy btw). Now at first it felt relaxing, not having to worry about a little one, but after a while I started to feel lost and empty inside. I had nipped to the local Tesco to get a birthday cake for my soon to be 9yr old son, and had a walk around the clothes etc… I chose some new vests for the little man and even treated my partner to some new pj bottoms but my heart wasn’t in it. I returned back to car, catching a glance of my reflection in the window along the way. Hair a mess… No make up (I only wear a bit anyway), Mummy tummy and in need of losing in excess of a few stone. Eurgh!! What a sight I looked.

[thepurpleowlcrochet]

So I’ve been a little bit busy of late… Creating, growing and nurturing this little beauty. My 3rd son was born in June after a speedy exit!! 10 minutes to be exact. Now I figured I’d have a quick labour as my previous two were quick. 6 1/2hrs with my first and 1hr 20 with my second. Both were similar labours… Both 3 days overdue and started with waters breaking (no contractions prior to this) but this one was different. 10 days overdue…. In agony with SPD and sciatica, I could barely walk some days and was in constant pain, and had been since I was 25 weeks pregnant…I was booked in to be induced 2 days later. After a false alarm that morning, I thought my waters were trickling, I’d given up hope of a water birth and resigned myself to that fact I would have to be induced. But that night, on trying to sleep after some gentle love making, I felt a pain… A pain that I knew was not a braxton hicks contraction… So I go up and headed to the toilet and had a clear out, as you do!!! 15 mins after the first pain came another. My partner was still downstairs so I text him to say this maybe it and that’s when things became more serious. Contractions coming 5mins apart…. I phoned the hospital and we were on our way! The car journey was awful… Thank god it was in the early hours of the morning… Extremely painful contractions coming every 3, then 2 minutes apart. I don’t remember things being this painful with the other 2. Nearly 5 minutes away and I felt like I would need to push soon… I kept calm, well as calm as I could, I didn’t want to stress out my partner anymore than what my painful moans were already doing to him! On arrival at the hospital my waters broke within 5 minutes of being there…. They were tinged with the green meconium… Panic stared to set it… I knew what this meant… Baby was in distress. The midwifes had just walked into the room at the point when my waters broke, and I remember hearing them say they would need to get me to the delivery ward (as i was in the birthing centre) because of the meconium, and one midwife tried to explain what but meant but I told her I knew and I wasn’t going anywhere because I needed to push.. Now!! 5 mins later he was here… Hand and head first and cord around his neck. Oxygen was needed to start with but he was fine then. Bang goes my water birth!! In fact my whole birth plan went to pot!! But my boy is here and he’s healthy and that is all that matters.

[crochetmelovely]

Yoda Inspired Lovey pattern by Kristen's Kords

Free crochet pattern! :)

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/yoda-inspired-lovey-2

[crochetmelovely]

Mandala Rug | The WHOot

Free crochet pattern! :)

[thepurpleowlcrochet]

I'm totally in love with this Mandala rug. I've never made one before but I definitely think this one is on my long crochet-to-do list! 💜

[thepurpleowlcrochet]

This was taken first thing this morning when it was still frosty. How gorgeous is that blue sky?! Now I’m not a winter person, I live for the summer time, but I do love a cold and frosty morning when the sky is so blue.

[thepurpleowlcrochet]

About The Purple Owl

Hello there and welcome to my blog. My name is Samantha, aka Sam. I've been crocheting for about 4 years now and I'm completely self taught. I've been brought up in a family of crafty ladies. My mum is a knitting artist, her mum was a knitter and her mum was a seamstress. So as you can imagine from a young age I was taught to knit. Growing up in my teens I was far too cool to be seen knitting and didn't really think about taking up the hobby again. Then in my thirties during my work as a carer I came to meet a lovely lady who, despite her learning difficulties and physical disabilities attended a weekly craft club to which I accompanied. It was here that I found my love for all things wooly and I started knitting again. During these weekly craft club sessions I met some lovely ladies with a variety of talents, and it was here that I saw crochet in action. Now don't get me wrong I like knitting but to me crochet seemed so much more exciting. Maybe it's because its quicker and more fluid compared to knitting. Who knows? So I bought some books and watched some YouTube videos and gave it a go. After several attempts, failed ones at that, I decided crochet was not for me so I went back to knitting. But not one to be defeated I gave it another go and it just clicked..... The rest is history.