Folding Cloth Nappies

Theresa and I were chatting on the phone.
She is nearly due to have their first baby. Talking about being in the home/hospital these days and what it was like when she was born - things have changed so much. I was trying to encourage her to stay in for as long as she could, knowing that most mothers go home within the day or next.
We were talking about the things she will need during her stay and how nappies were supplied as long as she knew how to fold them.

These days mothers use disposable nappies or cloth nappies but not what I used as cloth nappies.

There are all sorts of brands and many different textures of the outside of the nappy. Each are like what we used as an over-nappy to keep the dampness away from the outer clothes. Now this is the nappy and it has an added "inner" for more absorption.

Generally speaking no-one uses the cloth nappies like I used.

Theresa was concerned that she didn't know how to fold them so I said with a smile I would do a blog post just for her.


So I found some old nappies, baby safety pins and my doll "Rose" and clicked away.

So this is for you Theresa!

Basically all nappy folds start with the nappy opened right up.

These terry cloth nappies had a slightly fluffy side and so that was lain face down. The terry side was always next to the baby's skin as it allowed a slight breathing space between the dampness and the skin.

1. This first folding design is the typical old fashioned one that most people started with. It was used by all the nurses in the hospitals because of its quick and easy folding.

It is the nappy folded opposite corned to corner to form a large triangle.

This is folded again to form a smaller triangle.

The nappy is positioned with the longest side of the triangle at the baby's waist and the point between the legs.

The first single side is folded over and the point folded up between the legs. Then the oposite side folded over and then the second part on the first side of the nappy folded in.

Holding it all into place the safety pin is pushed through the top three sections (not the part that was first folded) being careful to keep your fingers between the baby's body and the pin so its you who gets stabbed if you push too far!

This seemed to serve its purpose with newborns how ever it wasn't very thick in the areas that it was needed most.

My Plunket nurse showed me another way that was very good for catching all the lovely "no 2's" that breastfeeding baby's produce!





2. Starting with an 'open' nappy you bring the bottom edge up towards the top edge but not all the way in half.

You sort of new how far to bring the folded over time as you went nearly to the edge for small "bottoms" but further away for large ones!

You then fold the side over towards the opposite side but not completely in half. About the same distance away as the first fold. (there will be a single layer of a "square" shape in the corner)

Now bring the thick folded corner up towards the single layer corner. (in a diagonal fold) to form a triangle.

Place the nappy triangle under the baby as per the other triangle shaped nappy above.

Fold the first "thick" point of the triangle up between the legs tightly and then the two sides over. Lastly bring up the single point to pin it all together. Once again holding it all into place pinning through the top three sections (not the part that was first folded) being careful to keep your fingers between the baby's body and the pin so its you who gets stabbed if you push too far!

And then there was the artificial pad nappy fold.  This was good for night time and crawling babies.

3. Starting with the flat nappy it is folded in half.

With the folded edge closest to you, pick up the top layer of one corner and bring it right over to reach the opposite corner forming a triangle on the top layer.You will see that the remaining part of the bottom layer is still the rectangle shape.

Turn the whole nappy over being careful to keep the folded part in place.

The remaining rectangle part will now be on top. (This will form the "pad")

Fold over the side of the "pad" to about a third from the center and then fold it again so it sits as a pad in the middle of the nappy.

Place the nappy as with the others with the long straight edge at the waist and the base of the triangle/pad between the legs.

Bring the bottom part up between the legs and then the two sides over and pin into place.

If this is used on a larger baby it maybe necessary to use an additional pad which was just another nappy folded in half, in half again and then a third time to make a rectangle about the same size as the artificial pad.

All these nappy folds were used by me for my babies and I loved to have them in a pair of fluffies over the top. It was a breathable over nappy or pilcher.

Orange Grape Muffins

If you are a regular at following my blog you will know I don't like to waste anything. This is especially true with food.

Even though Harry and I have been empty-nesters for a year now we are still getting used to how much food is enough for us and at times some things seem to pass their best. One of these was a bunch of grapes last week. It was also more the fact that they weren't as nice as the usual ones I had been buying. So in the heat of our Summer they had started to dry before our eyes on the kitchen side board. In fact they were beginning to look like raisins and as they hadn't actuality turned moldy I thought, well they are like home made raisins so I will make something with them.

We also seem to have a steady supply of juicy oranges on our tree so I made up a muffin recipe combining the two fruit and it turned out quiet nice even if I do say so myself!
Some of the grapes hadn't even dried yet so you could even make this with fresh grapes if you had a plentiful supply.

Orange Grape Muffins

2 cups of self-raising flour
¾ cup sugar
75 grs butter
1 cup milk
1 egg
Grated rind of 1 large Orange
1 cup or dried grapes (raisins would do)

¼ cup orange juice
¼ cup sugar

Well grease a 12 muffin tray.
Mix the flour and sugar together in a large bowl and add the grated orange rind.
Toss grapes in the dry ingredients. (make sure when you remove them from the stork of the grape "bunch" that you don't allow any of the woody part to come off with the grapes)
Melt the butter until warm and add the milk.
Beat in the egg.
Fold liquids into the dry ingredients about 14 times until just mixed.
Some little bits of flour can still be seen.
Fill a 12 tin muffin tray and bake at 200ºC for 10 mins.
Mix the orange juice and second measure of sugar to dissolve.
Brush over all the muffins while they are still hot and in the tins.
Allow to cool for a few minutes and for the juice to soak in and then tip out.
If you leave it longer they will stick to the tins.
Use a large spoon carefully around the edges if the syrup hardens and they won’t tip out.

This Is An Orange

At the beginning of the citrus season I found a rather misshaped or is it misshapen orange on our tree.
I wish I had taken a pic of it when I first noticed it had lumps and bumps in the wrong places!

As you can see it has grown into something quite odd.













The rest of the fruit on the tree were fine. Sweet and juicy.

I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, I mean its hardly the shape to juice on a juicer.

In the end I needed some orange peel for a recipe and so I decided to grate as much of the peel I could and then cut it open to see what it was like inside.






It was interesting as it still had segments as an orange is supposed to but they seemed to have developed in the wrong way.

It was like each segment wanted to have its own outside skin.

There was still juicy in side the segments but very awkward to extract.

Not sure how it had happened and none of the other fruit have had this problem.
I would suspect it had something to do with the flower before the fruit was formed and maybe it was eaten by a bug.

Plunket Singlet

When my children were babies I knitted a few of the Plunket singlet patterns both the fancy one and the thicker rib one.
I also sewed their nighties from a pattern set I still have. In fact I even used the pajama pattern. I really love a wrap around nighty.






One day at church I saw one of our young babies wearing a coloured knitted top as a tank top over a skivvy.

I thought I know that pattern and sure enough it was the singlet pattern. It does have a very pretty delicate lace yolk neck design so I thought what a great idea, I'll make one too.

I have lots of balls of wool, as left overs from other garments and as baby items don't use much or take much time I enjoyed knitting it.

So here it is, a little top for our youngest granddaughter at the moment.

Post script:

I have tried scanning the pattern but it came out too dark so I have photographed it and posted it here so you can either print the photo off or just save this post for future use.

Oaty Kiwifruit Bar

One of the things I don't like is having food go to waste.
Sometimes in this house food is left and past its freshest to eat raw especially with fruit.
As I see throwing it out a waste of money, I will make a recipe even if it means inventing it myself to use the food up.

This is a recipe like a microwave one I have made in the past but changed to suit cooking in the oven.

Ingredients
450g firm Kiwifruit
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoon cornflour
2 cups Flour
1 cup rolled oats
4 tablespoon ground almonds
1/2 cup brown Sugar
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
170g butter

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Grease a 9 x 9 baking tray.
Peel the kiwifruit and cut into small chunks. (or scoop flesh out and cut into quarters)
Combine kiwifruit, 1st brown sugar and cornflour in a bowl and mix.
Let stand while you prepare the rest of the bar.
In another big bowl, mix together flour, oats, almonds, brown sugar and baking powder.
Heat butter until just melted and add to dry ingredients mixing until it resembles coarse crumbs. Spread 3/4 of the mixture into the pan and press lightly with the back of a spoon to pack it a little tight.
Spread kiwifruit mixture carefully and evenly on top.
Sprinkle the  rest of the oat mixture over the top and pat lightly again.
Bake until light golden brown on top, about 30 to 40 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let it cool before cutting into squares.

Four Generations

During the Christmas and Summer Holidays my parents called in for a few days while they were up this way.
While they were here we arranged some times together with children, grand children and great grandchildren. These are special times as we know they are 'numbered'.

Part of this was the four generation photo of females.

Here we have me, my mum (Phyllis), my second daughter (Jennifer) and her daughter (Natalie)

              In other words Nana, Great-Granny, Mum and Natalie

There were also other precious moments in the day...




                                                 A special look

Great Granny and Natalie

"I do like that shiny watch strap"

              Jacob is not shy to join in the family photos

And not to miss out on all this...

Great Grandpa will have a little chat over his glasses holder.

I love the look of admiration on my fathers face

More Knitting - Newborn Layette

With grand-baby number six arriving soon I have had my knitting needles out again.

Theresa and Steven are expecting their first baby in March, the beginning of the Southern Hemisphere Autumn so I am doing a couple of first size jacket/cardigans.

The pattern book I used was one I have knitted a lot from and find them easy to do.

It specifically has premature and small baby sizes and as our family tend to make them small they are ideal fits for those first few weeks.

If this baby is a girl Theresa has said it is not allowed to be dressed in pink!

So...

It is a set I have done before in yellow and the hat and bootees in white however Theresa and I chose white for this one.

It's baby's first hand-knitted outfit she had received for it. I haven't done mittens but I may if it gets colder closer to the time.