Craft plans from my sofa.

One thing you don’t really get to do when you have 3 other children under 6 and a husband who needs to be back at work 6 days after you leave hospital with your low iron levels and your newly soft furnished mind, is babymoon. Life after Josie was born was more an exercise in fast recovery and getting back up out of my armchair and into the saddle. I was packing parcels again within 4 days, quite an achievement (read major stress!) given how ill I’d been having her. I so looked forward to having the joy of time with Freddie and it has been lovely to be able to enjoy doing so with Ben. We are so fortunate now to have a life which means we can take time in our home and just be together as a family and, even though these few days have been bitter-sweet in many days, being able to focus on the girls, on Ben, on each other and our memories of Freddie has been very precious.

It’s the first time I haven’t resented the housebound, non-driving status that comes with caesarean recovery too and when the snow arrived, it felt like an extra reason to cocoon myself inside my house and just exist tucked into the middle floor and do nothing but be, feed the baby and just LOOK at him. I’m lucky that my bedroom and the living room are opposite each other and all I really have to do is move from my bed to one of the super snuggly luxury sofas that we bought with a windfall a few years ago. You’ve probably noticed them making a fairly regular appearance in the photos of the last week.

I do adore them, but I’ve started to see EXACTLY how much wear they’ve suffered in 4 years of daily family life. Now that my brain is expanding to see ahead to some home improvement projects again, I’m thinking it is time to home-make in the lounge a bit. My fabulously chic friend Kate says we need more textures, so I’m planning some scatter cushions, knitted and crocheted from Adriafil variegated wool and cotton and some felted versions in browns and creams. I’m totally in love with multi-coloured yarn and they’ll add a nice something extra to our stripy sofa fabric.

I’m keen to perfect my crocheted storage baskets, though think I might need a different pattern and yarn than so far used.

I think I might try a ripple throw or two from Attic 24 too to protect the sofas, although my dad has promised me some Egyptian throws too. He brought one which is on my easy chair and I love it. Then I think I need a few more pictures up on the walls and some ornaments, so it’s time to get back to Pinterest and get some inspiration. I know we need different curtains and a blind to mute the bright early morning sun – I fancy a trip out for some fabric swatches to match what we already have.

With a bit of luck I’ll have it all done by the time this little man starts drawing on walls and pulling down curtains 😉