Toby's Blanket

I am done with Toby's Baby Quilt!  I know I said this about the last boy quilt I made, but I think this is my favorite quilt ever.  I love how the blocks sort of play tricks with your eyes so it looks like 1/2 the blocks have a red frame and the other 1/2 of the blocks don't.  

I think that it is perfect for a baby who is due to be born between Memorial Day and the 4th of July.  And I think it will go with a wide variety of bedroom themes like: cowboys, military, all American...

He will get lots of use out of it as a play mat while he's little.  (I never keep my floors clean enough for a baby, so I like to have big blankets to sit my babes on to play with toys before they are mobile.)  And then when he is a little older it will be a perfect bedspread for his toddler bed.  

Another thing that I LOVE about the quilt is that it will always remind me of my baby shower.  The ladies at church wanted to give me a baby shower and I told them that I really didn't need a lot of stuff.  So we tried to come up with an idea of how we could still celebrate the baby's arrival, without people bringing me a bunch of gifts that I would have appreciated but honestly didn't need.  So I figured we could have a quilting circle for the shower.  It was great, especially because actually quilting the quilt is my most hated part of making a quilt.

I made sure to bring the binding I was going to use for the edge of the quilt and passed it around with a washable marker and had everyone sign their name on it.  Then when I went home I embroidered over the names so I can always remember who helped me make the quilt.  I even let my daughters sign their names to it and had them help me with a few stitches.

I got the quilt pattern here and found all my plaid fabric for my star squares at the thrift store.  A boy's long sleeve shirt gave me just enough fabric to make about 6-8 squares from each plaid.  I don't know if I'd go any smaller than a size 5T, but the size 6-12's had enough and they were less expensive than the men's shirts.  So I just searched the racks for red or blue plaids that were cheap and felt like strong fabric.

I'd love to make one of these again.  Who's going to give me an excuse to make one?

Bookmark Gift for Teachers

Today is Gwen's Kindergarten teacher's last day of school because she has surgery on Monday.  So we made up a special gift for her.  We made a bookmark for all the reading she will be doing this summer while she recuperates.  On one side I made some lines on the paper to help Gwen write straight and she wrote 

"Thank You for teaching me to read and write.  Love, Gwen"

Then on the other side I had her color a picture and I printed out a photo of her from the computer.  (The one on the right)  I glued the written page and the picture page to a red piece of paper that I cut to be about bookmark size.  I laminated it and punched a hole in the top.  Then ran a ribbon through the hole.  We will give it to her today with a homemade treat :)

While I was putting it together I realized that it was difficult to erase the lines I made without erasing her letters.  So I found THIS bookmark template online.  It had some extra stuff on the top that I didn't like, so I put a white text box over the stuff I didn't like and then copy and pasted the photo of Gwen into the text box.  (The bookmark on the left)  I will print up a bunch of the lined ones for her to give out to her gym teacher, music teacher, art teacher... and we will hand them out on the last day of school.