hot water bottle...

a few months ago, my sister had her third child...

an adorable, smushy, chunk-a-licious, little girl named serene.

i met her for the first time a couple of weeks ago.  she's quite yummy.

prior to her arrival, i made my sister a hot water bottle cover.  i can't, for the life of me, remember what the reasoning behind it was... but i think it was something to help with her pregnancy.  aches and pains?  i don't know.  seems like my pregnancy brain just won't let me remember.

i do remember, though, when leo was just a few months old... he would have such tummy pain... and would be so sad about it.  brian or i would hold him, with a hot water bottle in between us so it would press against his little belly... and he would be asleep in minutes.

so, even if i can't recall why the cover was made... it can be helpful now that baby serene is here :)

i started by tracing the shape of the hot water bottle onto a piece of paper.  i then scrapped together some random pieces of old sweaters.  most of them had been felted in the wash, so they were pretty sturdy.  and used a nice, big chunk of cashmere i had for one side...  so it's nice and soft.

i then used some more scraps to make a design on the front.  i serged it all togeher, without doing any sewing.  i used a sleeve cuff for the opening to give it some extra give when putting the water bottle inside.

and that was that!  a cute little hot water bottle for the mama to be of three :)