Sewing

happy birthday baby

March 9, 2015 by Carly Filed Under: kids on board, Sewing

We celebrated our little man’s first birthday yesterday, it was a quiet affair but that’s just how we like things. The girls got to pick out a cake, balloons and candles. There were a few tears after he burnt his fingers on the candles but after he got a taste of all that sugar things were looking up.

Well we survived his first year. Having a newborn on board was harder than we thought from the noise from living in close quarters to handling the extra laundry. Babies have A LOT of laundry. Our little guy has gone from co-sleeping with us, to the bookshelf, to a home built crib behind our door, to a portable cot in our room, to portable cot squished in a bunk and now finally to a bunk with a full lee cloth with zipper hole. All that moving around I’m not surprised that he’s STILL NOT SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT.

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Mack Pack repairs

June 24, 2014 by Carly Filed Under: Kids, Nova Scotia, projects, sails, Sewing

We needed to do 2 projects before leaving Shelbourne. Carl had to grind and pain the ports and I had to repair the MackPack from Mack Sails. On Carl’s journey up to New England from Florida the lazy jacks chaffed holes in the Mack Pack, next time we’ll take the MackPack down if we plan on doing longer than a few days sailing. The repairs were really simple, I just had 3 issues:

1. The MackPack is for a 65’ sailboat, bloody huge

2. Trying to fit a huge MackPack in our salon to sew

3. 2 mini helpers that love playing with pins and 1 little baby that likes to nurse around the clock

I finally got it finished. I had planned on it taking maybe 4 hours but it took a day and a half. It looks a little funny but it does the job. I put chafe patches where all the lazy jacks come into contact with the MackPack and doubled up on sunbrella fabric.

The Sailrite Sewing machine has been a great investment and has already paid for itself but there are a few flaws with it that I personally don’t like. Why isn’t the bobbin larger? If you work on canvas it’s safe to say that your projects are going to be larger. I’m not making hair scrunchies. My project yesterday was a 3 bobbin job. Also they could have made the arm on it a little wider. It’s bloody hard to jam so much sunbrella through the thing, I’m constantly cursing. All in all it’s a good little machine and has save us money but you do need to prepare to buy a 6 pack of beer or a bottle of wine to settle your temper at the end of the day.

Little man likes to join us for dinner in his bumbo, the kid is all head!

MESSing around

March 1, 2014 by Carly Filed Under: bahamas, boat baby, deck hardware, Kids, nassau, projects, Sewing, windlass

Today was a day of making messes! On my part, not really on anyone else’s. I’ve been looking at a great baby bed for the new bub but found out it was going to be $180 to ship it to Nassau. It’s a Snuggle Me Cushion, check it out the thing looks fabulous and I may still get one when a friends boat comes over next month. So today I though hell I could make one of those puppies. It was one of those bad ideas that made a crazy mess – but entertained the girls.

I sacrificed one of our king sized Ikea pillows, took out the feathers and sewed up the center. Do you realize how many feathers they put into pillows? A lot! I ended up going out on the dock and off loading the last half into the garbage can. The poor restaurant near us was showered in a haze of feathers. But that’s ok, the garbage can hide me and they didn’t see who the culprit was. I’m sure our neighbors thought we were plucking a chicken for dinner.

The pillow worked out ok and will do for now, it created a cozy bed for bub with little bumpers all the way around. I’ll initially use it in the bed with us until my pelvis decides to snap back into place then the baby can sleep on our book shelf. Yesterday I cleaned off our junk collecting area that was meant to be a hanging locker but no doors were ever put on. This has now become the bub changing area.

Carl on the other hand was doing actual work and not messing around. He installed two fans and a power point in the forward cabin for when my mum arrives in a few days. I’m constantly battling him over this cabin, he wants to turn it into a workshop and I fear after my mum leaves he’ll get his way. We really don’t need all these beds but it is nice for guests.

Yesterday Carl installed our second windlass also, now we have two operational bow anchors. It’s great because now we can also use the windlass for docking in strong winds. Extremely handy. He’s also been grinding out all the rust in the anchor locker. It’s almost done.

Above: the bookshelf bed

Above: baby change station / unfinished hanging locker in the aft cabin

Above: this is the before picture.

Above: our new windlass

getting excited

June 26, 2013 by Carly Filed Under: Kids, Sewing

I have been working hard on the girls’ mattress covers. They turned out better than expected – I’m a crappy sewer. They have even passed the test of being jumped on for hours. Next is the sheets. Got some good deals at Tuesday Morning for sheets. I checked in our closet and it looks like I haven’t bought new sheets in about 5 years.

We are super excited our neighbors next to our non existed business has agreed to lift us out with their crane. This is fabulous news, now we don’t have to motor to Louisiana or Biloxi. We are going to take off both masts for maintenance and haul her out. Hope her bottom isn’t scary looking.

North Sails in Metairie LA is giving our sails some much needed love. We have decided to replace the track on the main and mizzen with Tides Marine track and slide system. We also raised the mizzen about 6 inches for better clearance of the bimini. North Sails is shortening the mizzen and putting full battens in the main. They are also replacing the sun covers on both roller furlings. I failed royally at this, I guess my sailrite sewing machine wasn’t’ up for the task.

All is moving forward. We have 2 months to get out of our house and move onto the boat. Home inspection tomorrow, eek. Lots and lots to do, I may end up putting the girls back in full time daycare (sad face) to help Carl with the boat and moving out of the house.

Big C is going to swim lessons twice a week and I’m going to start lil C as soon as she gets that horrible cast off.

The girls are getting so big. They are going to LOVE our upcoming adventure!

Carly

dorade heaven

June 21, 2013 by Carly Filed Under: deck hardware, Kids, Refit, Sewing, watermaker

We really didn’t want dorades on the boat because they just take up deck space but we see now how hot the boat can get without them. I guess new boats have better ventilation or something because you never see dorades on them. Any-ho our dorades are shit hot!

Installed the new boom vang from forespar.

Took off the old mast boot. Who doesn’t like a new pair of boots???

Getting the interior all prepped for painting next week – extremely excited! And finally the batteries have found their home. They got moved around a bit but under the girls’ beds is where they’ll stay.

Carl has been busy wiring up the engine room. Need to have a lot of gadgets working soon. We’ll have to move the boat to either Biloxi or New Orleans to get the boat hauled out to paint the hull.

The girls enjoy coming to the boat every few days. Cali is making it up and down the stairs/ladder better, even with a cast. Now that there’s less fiberglass work being done they can actually sit without getting an itchy bum. I bought a couple of foam mattress’ on overstock.com and have cut them down to fit into the two aft berths. With my electric knife it was like cutting butter. Hancock Fabric had a half off sale so I bought some 100% cotton fabric to cover them. I’ve almost completed the port birth and I must say it doesn’t look too bad, unlike my windlass cover which is embarrassing. I’ll just tell everyone that Carl made that one. I’ll post some pictures of the mattress’s when my girls stop using it as a rock wall.

Carly

busy bees

May 9, 2013 by Carly Filed Under: Kids, Refit, Sewing

It has been a busy couple of weeks for all of us. My mum has come into town for 5 weeks from Maroochydore Australia. We filled the car us with all sorts of snacks and clothes and headed for Washington DC for the girls Australian passports. NOTE TO SELF: never go on a road trip with toddlers ever again.

While away Carl has been working long hours on the boat. I’ll nip down there today with the fam to get an update on the progress and take some pics of course. I’ll also have an eye out for a daycare. The girls were in full time daycare when I was working but have been out for about a month or so. I have a load of sewing to do and we hope to sail down to Biloxi in a couple of weeks to put her up on the hard. Wish Carl had a good wife that had mended the sails already!!! At this point we’ll be motoring all the way. Looks like some long nights for me with Mr. LZ1. But not this weekend. Off to New Orleans with mum (kid free).

sails

February 16, 2013 by Carly Filed Under: Sewing

Still working on replacing the sun cover on our sails. Taking me a lot longer than expected. The person who did it previously didn’t remove the old cover so I’m having to take of 2,3 and sometimes 4 layers of sunbrella fabric.