Baby's Coming!

Not another one for us, though! One of my good friends is pregnant and due next month. Her baby shower was last weekend, and, of course, I did some crafting for it. I started a crocheted blanket back in January, and had a lot of fun working on it. Believe it or not, in all the time I've been crocheting (which really isn't that long... but still) I'd never done anything with granny squares, so I wanted to try. At the time I started the blanket, we hadn't found out what the baby was going to be yet, so I wanted to do something colorful and neutral.

These are the initial squares, each is a 3 round basic granny square. There are 5 each of 5 different colors.

After completing the initial squares, I added a round of white to each, and used the "join-as-you-go" technique to put them together.

When I finished joining all of the colored squares, the blanket still looked too small, so I decided to do a wide border of white granny squares around the outside. By this time, we found out that the baby is a boy, so I added a blue border to the outside edge. I really enjoyed putting this blanket together because it worked up so quickly, and join-as-you-go saved me a lot of time and energy sewing the squares together.

I also sewed up a couple of my go-to baby gifts. I received several handmade receiving blankets when I had Little Miss, and they quickly became our favorite blankets! From that moment, I determined that I would make at least a couple for every baby shower I go to. This baby has a jungle themed nursery, so I chose monkey fabrics.

finished blankets

The method behind these is really easy -- I buy 1 1/4 yards of flannel, trim it to square ( usually about 42 in square)  and then fold and stitch the hems. They are fantastic blankets for swaddling, laying on for tummy time, nursing cover-ups, giant burp cloths (or burp cloths when nothing else is handy), and my kids still use them when they just need a light blanket, or something that fits easily in the diaper bag!

the finished gift -- who needs tissue paper when you have receiving blankets?!









Yummy, yummy...

Wait, isn't this supposed to be a craft blog? What's up with the food-related title?

Only some of the most fun crochet projects ever :)

Breakfast:

eggs and toast

and some fruit!

I started crocheting food about a year and a half ago, after our kids and one of their friends got the same kitchen set for Christmas. Little Miss and her friend both have April birthdays, so I started stitching, hoping to get sets of food done for birthday gifts. Then when we held the benefit this past fall, I made up a "market basket" with bread, eggs, apples, strawberries, tomatoes, a carrot, pear and orange to put in the silent auction. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the completed basket. The pictures above are just the bits and pieces I've made up since then, and they're just sitting around waiting for a use! I LOVE the eggs ... as there's a pattern for a fried egg, and the shell to put it in, so you can actually "crack" the egg when play-cooking.

whole egg

cracked shell with egg

I love these little projects because it doesn't take much time to see progress, and they're just so cute! They are also fantastic for little ones to play with because they are soft so little throwers can't do too much damage, and they're easy to hold on to. Plus they're washable!

And now that we're all hungry....lets go have a snack :)

My awesome crafty day!!!

Yesterday was awesome!!! My birthday was last Sunday, and several family members gave me gift cards. One of which was an amazon gift card, and I hurried online to my wishlist to decide which items I needed this time. I've been anticipating the release of Ellen Gormley's  (http://gocrochet.blogspot.com/) new book, so that was #1 in my cart! I also bought myself a new sewing book to hopefully use up some of my extra fabric pieces. I placed my order on Thursday night, and with 2 day shipping, expected my items to arrive today. So what a surprise it was to see the Fed Ex truck pull up in front of my house yesterday, and that very kind FedEx man handed me a package with BOTH of my new books! The kids and I ventured outside to enjoy the sun that finally chose to shine, and while little man played, and little miss enjoyed the sun, I read Ellen's book cover to cover, and can't wait to get some yarn and pull out the hooks to start on one of the projects!

Then last night, my kind, loving husband volunteered to be on his own with the kids (we refuse to call it babysitting...they are his kids too!) so that I could go shopping and get a few other things. A few weeks ago I stopped into a small Sears store that is close to our house in search of replacement needles for my sewing machine. It appeared they were actually cleaning out their sewing area, as all of their display machines were marked for sale, and discounted. They had a serger 1/2 price, but I couldn't necessarily justify the cost. Well, for the last few weeks, I've debated whether I should have passed up the deal, and figured someone else snatched it since then, but we decided that if it was still there, I could have it. I stopped in last night expecting to find nothing...but lo and behold, the serger was still there! I looked it over, since it was the display model, but it appeared everything was there and ready to come home with me...so it did! Now I get to figure out how to use it, but I'm so excited! I know once I figure it out, it will make my sewing life so much easier!

I've still been working away at various other projects, and have more pictures taken that just need to escape the camera into a blog post! And I promise, I actually have something crocheted to post about!

Top secret gift #1

I've mentioned that this gift was on my sewing machine, and I told you in my last post that it could be revealed :) My Aunt and Uncle celebrated their 40th anniversary at the beginning of April, and my cousins threw them a very nice party on April 16. A few weeks prior to the party, my mom and I were discussing gift ideas, and learned that the traditional 40th anniversary gift is Ruby. My aunt is a multi-talented crafter, and loves handmade gifts, so my dad had the idea that he and mom could fund supplies and I could turn them into something. My godmother makes beautiful tied quilts that are absolutely wonderful for snuggling with...so we determined that a quilt like that would be an excellent anniversary gift.

We started with the "ruby" idea to select colors, and mom thought she remembered my Aunt and Uncle having an 'Americana" theme in one of their rooms. So we selected a solid ruby, a tan with flags and stars, a ruby/tan gingham print, and a ruby background with stars as our fabrics for the quilt. I give credit for the entire pattern to my godmom, because I totally just copied the idea of the quilt she gave me several years ago.

I cut 7" squares of each fabric and pieced them into diagonal lines:

the finished top

Then, it took some cutting and adjusting, but I was finally able to get the top, batting and back to line up so that I could sew them together. This being my first attempt at making anything resembling a quilt, I learned a lot of valuable lessons. The first being that I can't cut even, straight lines if my life depended on it. My "7 inch" squares varied drastically and there are several mis-matched seams throughout the quilt. The second; when sewing a quilt "sandwich," put the batting side down, because it catches horribly on the presser foot. I finally figured this lesson out and got it to sew together using the "turn and topstitch" method. I turned it right side out, and hand stitched the opening closed. (I will say that I normally hate trying to do the blind stitch, but in this instance, it turned out really well!) Then I topstitched about an inch in to create a nice border. Finally, I used embroidery floss and placed ties at the corners of every other square. (This helped cover up a lot of my uneven seams, too!) Once those were done, the finished product looked pretty good, and was very well received!



Notebook cover!

As is obvious...I've been slacking again! Like I said in my very first post -- I'm awful at remembering to take pictures of my projects....and it turns out I'm even more awful at uploading them to the computer! Today's post is one I've been planning since January...but the poor pictures have been trapped in my phone's memory until just last night.

My mom's birthday was in January, and I was inspired last summer to make her something. I had a fat quarter of fabric that I was going to use just a square of for a quilt (that post will come when I actually make the quilt that I've had pieces cut for for about 9 months :) ) and she caught a glimpse and said she loved the print. Mental note at that point -- make something for mom out of the rest of the fat quarter. Pause for something you should know about me...I'm a list-maker. I have to-do lists, grocery lists, sewing project lists, crochet project lists, lists of finished projects to post about and who knows what else! I also have to write everything down or I forget it. I believe I learned my list-making from my mom...who is the same way. She carries around a steno notepad in her purse, and usually has coupons, magazine articles or other papers that are important to keep. So, I had the brilliant idea to use that fabric and make her a cover for her steno pad that had a pocket for her to tuck her coupons and such. It just slips onto the cover of the notebook, so when the paper is all used up, Mom can move the cover to a new steno pad.

the cover on the notebook

the back pocket

flap to secure on the front

The cover was pretty easy to make, although I did hit a couple bumps in the process. I folded and sewed the white fabric so the raw edges were encased and no "wrong side" showed. The problem with that was I didn't quite have enough width to allow for seam allowances. The back pocket helped make up for that, and I crafted that with elastic to hold it tight to the notebook but still allow room to put things in it. The bottom seam of the pocket features a pleat, again to allow room for expansion. The front flap is where seam allowances became a slight problem...and I wound up just sewing really close to the folded edge. If (when) I make another of these, I will definitely allow more fabric so that I can make that look neater. All in all, though, I'm pretty proud of throwing this together and look forward to improving my "pattern" :)

Up for my next entry....one of my "top secret" projects is finished and has been given...so I can tell  you all about it!!

this and that

It's been a week already without another post?! Time flies, I guess. Last week, the kids and I got to spend some quality time with Mom for a couple days so I was away from both my sewing machine and my computer. It was a welcome break and we had a good time!  I have been busy with a few crafts, 2 of which are top secret :) I know I haven't posted much about my crocheting so far...and that's because one of my projects (I often have several going at once) is big, so I have a long way to go yet on it, and it's a gift so I can't very well publish about it online! I do have a couple smaller projects going so hopefully I can post about those soon.
As for sewing, I finished one project over the weekend -- a wetbag. I use cloth diapers part time, and even when not using cloth diapers, the wetbag will come in handy to hold wet or dirty clothes, or anything else that I don't want "contaminating" the rest of my diaper bag contents. It was my first experience with a zipper and it went ok. The stitching isn't pretty, but the bag is functional. Unfortunately...I don't have any pictures to post of it yet. And my other top secret project is on my sewing machine right now. I've been working hard on it...but no reveals until the gift is given!
So those are the other reasons for the break in posting, but I do still have a couple posts prepared from before I even set up the blog so hopefully I can get those up while I work on my top secret projects :)

Pillowcases take 2

As I mentioned in my last post, we've received several pillowcases from various hospital stays. They're adorable and we love them especially in the hospital...but what does one need 15 extra pillowcases for?! We do use a lot of them on both kids' beds, but still felt like we had too many. Enter another issue -- a couple of Sarah's rounds of chemo have required her to have a catheter inserted for several days...which completely cuts out the use of pants for those days. We started running low on dresses.....so I made some out of the cases we got in the hospital. Again, I made a couple over the summer, and finished a couple more this weekend.


Using tips from this blog and this, I mixed them together and made my dresses!

The picture quality isn't the greatest (I'm still new at this...I promise my pictures will get better!) and you can't see the black straps on the green dress because of the dark background...but you get the idea. I made the red one and the purple/orange one this summer, and the other 2 were my weekend projects :). Sarah wore the green one for chemo yesterday and has the yellow strapped one on today. These dresses are a little bit big for her now, but the adjustability in the ties will allow her to wear them for at least a couple of years, and then probably as a shirt after that. To be perfectly honest, if the bottom hem was just a little wider, I  could wear them as a shirt if I so desired!

My final process once I combined the patterns linked...

I cut the pillowcases down to 26" by cutting off the closed end of the pillow. Then measured in 3 inches and down 5 on each side and cut out a "j" shaped arm opening. I used double fold bias tape to finish the armhole and form the straps -- cut 36" piece for each arm and pinned it evenly around the armhole, letting the extra come up off of each side, then sewed it together. Once both sides are done, so is the dress! You can add any embellishments you desire -- 3 of mine do not, but on the green and pink one, I added a strip of black grosgrain ribbon around where the green and pink meet.

Sarah likes her dresses, too!