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.

Fitted Crib Sheet

I followed a tutorial I found here to make a fitted crib sheet.  We have some friends that gave us some boy baby bedding that is going to go great with Toby's new room.  But I knew that 1 fitted crib sheet was not going to be enough.  So I browsed my thrift stores for a sheet that I could use as fabric and found one for $2.  Then I got some elastic at the fabric store for $1.49.  So that, plus a little bit of my time, I now have an extra crib sheet for only $3.49.  Not bad if you ask me.  

I wanted to take a photo of the underside to show you that yes, it actually does fit and fit well.  When I attached the elastic to the first corner of the sheet I was seriously doubting if the tutorial was going to give me the results I wanted.  So the second corner I came up with my own system and made a casing out of bias tape and threaded the elastic through the casing.  When I compared the 2 corners, I realized the first one was just as good and stretchy.  So I stuck with the fast way that is shown in the tutorial for the remaining 2 corners.  So if you doubt like I did, continue on and trust in the system :)

 And just for fun, here is a shot of Toby's room so far.  It is still basically the office/guest room.  But I do have the rocking chair in there along with the new toy box/attoman and thick chair pad.  I'm hoping the new pad will make it more comfortable to nurse in.  Otherwise, I think the chair is finally going to be donated.

  In the past we have set up the crib and all the baby stuff before our helpers come to the house after baby's arrival, and I hate that I am always going into the guest room to get out the baby clothes and I'm sure they hate that between the crib and the airmatress they are sleeping on, there is no floor space left in the room.  So this time I'm going to make setting up the nursery part of my helper's job.  I hope my dad doesn't mind that little item on the to-do list for the last day of his visit :)

But I figured the baby stays in our room for the first 3 months anyway, so what's the point of setting the room up months ahead of time when it would be so much more comfortable for our guest without the crib.

Camo Diaper Bag

We had a very busy week, so today was a lay around the house kind of morning.  The girls were behaving better than usual and entertaining themselves, so I got something on my "getting ready for the baby" to-do list checked off my list.

I made a diaper bag by following this tutorial.  It was fairly good, but I was glad there were photos along with the words so I could try to interpret some of the steps that were a little confusing to me.

It ended up begin much smaller than I thought it would be, but I was able to make it completely out of scraps that I had laying around in my craft area :)  I think it will be a great bag for Daddy to use because it is actually made out of the official dessert Camouflage uniform fabric that they use on Daddy's uniform.  I had picked it up at Wallmart several years ago for $3 a yard.  (Don't ask me how Walmart got the same material as the military.) I think I might even make my way over to the Navy exchange the next time I'm on base and see if they have any Sea Bee patches that I could put on the front pocket.  

In my excitement I forgot to wash it before I took the photos, so there are a few red lines on it from when I was putting it together, but I will wash it and it will look great.  

When I was in my hooter hider making frenzy a few years ago I made a camo hooter hider out of this same fabric, so now I will have a matching set :)

A few years ago I made a bunch of flower hair clips for the girls.  Slowly they have been getting lost and broken, so I thought I might make some more and looked back at my notes and links. One that was missing was for Kanzashi Flowers.
I had found this book, Kanzashi in Bloom, at the Library where we had been living at the time.  It had several very cool patterns and directions for folding fabric into flowers and project ideas for applying the finished flowers to.  I mostly just made them and used them for hair clips though.  The book was well written and easy to follow. Just wanted to document it so I didn't have to search for it again.

I made my first neck tie onesie today:)  I think it is so cute, but there are a lot of puckers.  I obviously need to work on sewing with knits/stretchy fabric.

I a fusible webbing on the back of the tie, but I think if I make another one I need to use a double back fusible webbing so that I can iron it onto the shirts before I sew it into place and that might solve my problem.  If not, I might just sew it by hand instead of on the machine.

I used this tutorial and pattern found here, but I had to reduce the pattern to 70% it's original size to make it fit on to my tiny onesie.

I can't wait for this little guy to come, but something I've noticed it that there are not a lot of projects for boys.  Does anyone have any favorite baby boy projects?
-Bri

Some of our Navy friends out here had a baby shower for Me and another spouse who is excepting a baby soon.  I knew it was coming, but thought that they were going to do a group gift since that is what has been done for us in the past.  But as the shower got closer I realized that I needed to come up with a gift on my own.  I didn't have a ton of time (1 1/2 days to be exact) but I wanted to do something that would be special.  So I went back to a pattern that I had made before and knew would work up quickly.

This is what I came up with

I loved it on paper, and in the store when I picked out the fabric, and when I wrapped it...  But when she opened it and right now looking at the picture, I think the pink looks strange, Most of the flowers have pink on them, but I think I should have used a pink trim instead of yellow.  Also, the back is a plain lavender and when I was done quilting it I thought it would have been nicer with a subtle print to the purple.

Since I was on a time crunch I quilted it by machine.  I outlined all the blocks and the borders.  Then I quilted a few inches inside of the flower wreath.  I didn't have enough time to tie some yellow ribbon or yarn in the center of each flower like I wanted to, but I'm still happy with it overall.  And it went together a lot faster than the first time I did this pattern.  Probably because I didn't go exclusively by the pattern, I made it my own with the material I had and then took it to the fabric store to find a backing and border fabric.  And that is what a scrappy quilt is meant to be I think.

Anyway.  The pattern is one of Eleanor Burns Free patterns on her Quilt in a Day website.  It is the Rainbow wreath pattern that can be downloaded there.