Teething giraffes and more

Wow how time flies, the Llama is seven months, is crawling like crazy, pulling himself up and standing whenever he can, and has two teeth coming in already. At lunch time the Llama Papa will take the little chomping terror for about an hour or two while he naps (the boy won't nap on his own) and I will either make baby food to freeze or craft.

Pictures of baby food are pretty boring, but I have a lot of crafty stuff too.



Newest first are some teething giraffes, (did I mention that the Llama is chewing on EVERYTHING right now?)
I originally heard about teething giraffes from a baby forum I'm on and immediately went looking for a pattern. I found this one but wasn't very happy with my results (it didn't even get stuffed) so I fiddled around and came up with a slightly better model, but I found the body too square and its legs too spindly to be stable, also my first attempt at head gust to give it more umph for chewing was a lopsided failure. But the boy loved it. The plain boring, muslin, lopsided, spindly giraffe hung around for a while, and I got more and more annoyed with it, I knew I could do better. I widened the legs, sloped the back and tried to make a better head gusset. Along the way I discovered starbright baby on etsy. Well huh. After a bit of brooding I tried my third giraffe (the white one) and it was much better, but the head gusset was even worse than before! A little more fiddling, and a crappy attempt at ears and I had the best giraffe of them all, (the blue one). the Llama loves them all



Obviously since there is already somebody out there selling teething giraffes (at a very reasonable price, I might add) I'm not going to post my pattern. Go buy one of her's, and support a crafty work at home mom.




More of my babywearing madness, I made a narrow bodied wrap strapped Podaegi (Pod for short). It's kinda like if a mei tai and a wrap had a baby.
I really like it, the fabric is a light/med weight denim with bugs, lizards and frogs embroidered al over it that I found in the red tag bin at Jo-Anns. It went together really quickly and easy using this pattern and this pattern (which seems to have disappeared, hmph - still posting link for future reference) as inspiration.



I forgot to use my walking foot, so the fabric puckered a bit, but I reinforced the heck out of the straps, so while not aesthetically perfect, it's quite secure. There are tons of different ways to wear a Pod, a few can be seen here on you tube.



And we love it.


I made another baby block using fabric leftover from a crappy dress to awesome skirt project for a while back. the Llama loves the bright colours. And it gets manhandled and chewed often.



You can see it on my Grandmother's lap while she plays with the best baby ever.

Gumbo

last night I made gumbo for dinner. I haven't made gumbo in ages, but the Llama Papa and I were talking about okra, (he loves it with Indian spices and tomatoes, the Llama loves it plain, but it's so slimy the only way I can eat it is in gumbo) and I really started craving gumbo.

I looked up a bunch of recipes online, mashed them around a bit and came up with this:



Super yummy

Vegie Gumbo

1/2 C Canola Oil
3/4 C Flour

1 Lg onion
4 cloves garlic
3 celery stalks
1 gr. pepper
1 red pepper

1 (28 oz) can fire roasted tomatoes
1 lb bag frozen sliced okra
1 pkg (soy boy brand) smoked tofu - sm dice or one package of extra firm tofu, frozen and then thawed and drained.
1 sweet potato - sm dice
2 (16 oz) cans kidney beans

2 qt veggie broth

2 bay leaves
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp file powder
1 tsp each thyme, oregano, basil
1/2 tsp jalapeno powder (or 1/4 tsp cayenne)
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

*****

Heat the oil in a non stick stock pot, add the flour and stir well, continue stirring and cooking over med heat until roux is slightly lighter than a penny. (this page: http://www.southerngumbotrail.com/roux.shtml calls it a mahogany roux)

Add the onions and sauté for a few minutes; add peppers, celery and garlic and sauté until onions are translucent.

Add stock, spices and the rest of the ingredients. Cook at a low simmer for two hours.

Serve over rice.