Unhampered Progress

The spider went over very well last week at work, and the little guy really loved the Halloween party!  He tried very hard to chase every single child dressed up as a dinosaur.  I guess he likes dinosaurs!  AND he was the cutest ewok I’ve ever seen.  Just look at this gif!  I guess they even liked my Endor Leia costume because I won second prize in the costume contest (I lost to a guy riding a dinosaur, let’s face it that is pretty hard to beat – Julius would agree).

Julius has been working on clapping his hands during the “If You’re Happy and you Know it” song this past month at daycare.  He’s gotten so good at it that he now associates clapping with happiness.  Every time he’s happy he claps!  For instance today during his bath, I started singing Baby Beluga and he clapped!  This morning for breakfast he ate some hard boiled eggs and he clapped!  Dany paid attention to him this afternoon and he clapped!  It’s pretty great seeing what is going to make him clap.  (Plus it really feels great being applauded for our efforts.)

What makes me clap lately is a clean house… for a while there I was so overwhelmed I let the house get a bit messy but I’m trying to get back on track.  The first thing I’ve been tackling is laundry!  There is SO MUCH laundry to do all the time (partially because of the cloth diapers but also because babies generate so much laundry).  We let mountains of clean laundry pile up on the laundry table which is exceedingly frustrating.  I’ve been trying to take my laundry and Julius’ laundry up once a week.  On top of that, since we don’t have a laundry shoot we tend to just chuck dirty bibs down the stairs until one of us walks downstairs and can deliver them to the sorted laundry bins.  We joke about this being a trip hazard, but it really is a trip hazard.  I finally made a laundry bin to go on the back of the basement door to throw dirty bibs and cloth napkins in.  The hamper was super easy to make and takes up very little space.  After I installed it, I asked Will if he had noticed it and he responded that he had but immediately after he saw it he had accidentally chucked a bib down the stairs instead of using it.

DIY Hanging Laundry Hamper

What you’ll need:

• 2/3 yard of duck canvas material (59/60″ width)
• 41″ of lightweight boning or spring steel wire and 2 inches of nylon joiner tubing

(1/2″ seam allowance included)

1. Cut canvas into a 51″ x 21″ rectangle.
2. Fold rectangle in half lengthwise to form a 21″x25.5″ rectangle.
3. Pin opened sides of the rectangle together and stitch to form a bag.
4. Fold unfinished top of bag under 1/2″ and then under 3/4″ again.  Pin.
5. Insert boning or spring steel wire into flap you just created.
6. Pull bag taunt around the boning/wire and overlap the edges of the boning/wire so they fit exactly to the opening of the bag.  Zig zag stitch boning to hold together or insert ends of spring steel wire in nylon joiner tube and shrink to hold together.
7. Stitch around the flap you created, sealing the boning/wire inside.  Be careful not to stitch through the boning or wire as your needle could break suddenly and dangerously.
8. Finally, cut two pieces of canvas, 2″x6″ each.
9. Fold in half, then fold under 1/2″ on each end unfinished edge to form a long strip.  Pin and sew.
10. Mark the center of the back of the bag.  Measure 6″ on either side of the marking to mark where your loops should go.  Fold each strip from step 9 above in half to form a loop.
11. Stitch rip at each loop marking 1/2″.  Insert unfinished ends of loop into the gap you created, and stitch, backtacking at either end to reinforce.
12. Turn inside out and hang!