Baby Gift Craftiness

As soon as I knew that Becky was having a boy I got crafting! (Which is good that I procrastinated because originally they were told they were having a girl!) Since getting my new machine I have been trying to find projects to test out all of the features that my machine has. I knew I wanted to try applique and embroidery for sure and so I got started and this is what in a few weeks time I completed! :)


Let's start with the playmat! It basically is the same design that I did with Mae's. Although I'll be honest, I LOVE this one so much more. :) I learned from a few of my mistakes on the one I made Mae and so this one is a lot more clean and complete. :) I also waited to do this until the very last moment and as a result I started and completed this quilt in one day... because I had to. I started cutting around noon on the Friday before I left for California and I sewed down the final side of the binding around 9pm that night. Pretty good considering I still had kids to manage, eat food, and make my mickey and minnie shirts for the kids!

The burp clothes were super easy just fabric sewn down the middle of a cloth diaper and I love the Sesame Street fabric that I found for them. Becky and I have always had a special bond with our love of Elmo (me) and Grover (her) ...our respective camp names. :) I was excited to find this fabric and to create a little some special to share with her son. :)

I also found some cute 'camp' fabric that focused on Elmo (sadly no Grover) but it was such cute flannel and thought I'd give my 'serger' feature on my machine a try. I don't own the proper foot for it, but it still works mostly and so I made a quick and easy receiving blanket out of that flannel. I wanted to make some personalized onesies for her and I found the cutest design for the tie onesie and then also did a little embroidery and applique work for one with the 'B' on it. :) Simple and inexpensive - $2 onesies from Walmart, some Heat n Seal and thread and wala a super cute personalized gift. :)

I also made a taggy blanket for Ben in the cute monster fabric that I have. Every baby needs a good taggy luvee to chew on in the car seat. :)


My favorite item though and the item that took the most time because of all the stages and care that I took to ensure that it was perfect was the personalized pennant that I made for baby Benjamin. :) It was a lot of steps. Cut the fabric to fit into the hoop for embroidery, embroider each letter, cut each into a triangle, cut the batting, cut the back, sew those pieces together, turn them right side out and top stitch and then finally sew them onto the ribbon and cut and heat seal the ribbon so it won't fray. I took several weeks to do these in various stages, often walking away from the project when I'd start to get sloppy because I was tired of working on it. It paid of and I (and mommy and daddy of Benjamin) are very happy with the results of that effort! It made for nice decor at the party (look for this post soon too!) and it now hangs above Ben's bed, awaiting his arrival. I'm so excited for Becky's newest addition to arrive!

A Playmat

Ok so I have been mildly obsessed with Pinterest as of late and because of this obsession and a lot of free time on my hands (how on earth do I have free time with two kids?? I'm not sure, but I do) I have been enjoying some craftiness. One of my pins was for this quilt pattern. I am a huge fan of the Yellow Brick Road pattern and so anything that is similar is fun too. I decided to give this a try because what I really wanted to try was to make a playmat - which basically is a quilt with little tags sewn into it allowing toys to be attached. I highly doubt this is a novel idea, but I 'came up with it' on my own.


I had some fabric that I had been wanting to use now for sometime, that my friend Stacy had give to me and Mae seemed like the ideal person to use it on and that it would make a fun bright play area for her. The pattern was extremely easy, for the back I used the last of the fat quarters that came with the cherry set and then I used up the remainder of a green fabric that I had that complimented it nicely. I was extremely limited on the green and having almost exactly the right amount without any extra cutting that is why the back has a more 'modern' look to it.


This was the first quilt that I chose to do free motion quilting on. I'm normally a stitch-in-the-ditch kinda gal, because I'm petrified of ruining a quilt top that I spent a long amount of time on, ruining a present, or pretty fabric... and since this was for Mae and I have a new machine that is amazing I figured the chances of ruining my pretty fabric were very slim and so I decided to go for it. And not having a free motion quilting foot on my machine (still need to purchase that), I think it turned out great! It's not perfect there are a few spots of puckering and pulling, but overall it turned out great. We'll see how it does after a wash or two. :)


To finish it up I used a dvd (a netflix one... hehe) to round the corners and then I pinned some double wide bias tape and sewed that onto the mat. I am absolutely horrible at a blind stitch. I don't know if I have the technique wrong, no patience or a combo of the two - but I have never been good at it and I have zero desire to exercise 'practice makes perfect.' I am perfectly content having a top stitch or two on my boarder of my quilts. :) And that's what I did (it's a lot faster that way too!)

And wa la! I was done. It took one afternoon of cutting while the kids played (maybe about an hour worth of work spred over 90 minutes), Ace helped me lay out the pattern before dinner that night, and another hour of sewing the quilt top after they went to bed. A few days later I took another 2 hours to sew the back, quilt, and bind. Mae is certainly happy with the results and I am too. :)

Flashback Friday

This is a baby quilt that I made for my friend Jayme and her pending arrival back in 2008. Her son was born 10 days after Ace. Jayme was very into the red, black, and white color schemes because those are the first colors babies recognize. So that was the inspiration for this quilt.

Avery's Quilt

Yes, as I type my dear friend Carrie is on her way to the hospital to deliver Avery! Hopefully within mere moments... or at least hours and not days! :) Her water broke around 7ish this morning! So I am anxious 'auntie' awaiting her arrival! I was so glad I was able to go down to visit her - although I was a tad disappointed that Avery didn't make her arrival when I was there - it was still great that Carrie was able to go see the movie with us (a post on that to come later!)

8 Weeks and 39 Weeks

I of course had to make a quilt for Avery - but being pregnant and 'enjoying' morning sickness I had put off working on it until last week. So it was a mad dash to complete the quilt. Really 4 days was more than enough time to complete it - it just felt a bit crunched for time! But it turned out cute - in spite of the pattern being horrifically off in measurements - so I basically had to create my own. :) The center square is 16x16 so that was a lot of space to not have any quilting on it - so I decided to make "A"s all over that section and told Carrie they weren't allowed to change her first name ;-)

It turned out cute and Carrie loved it! I love the fabric which I got here on Etsy. Etsy is an awesome place to find adorable unique fabric, and JoAnns is a good place to find some supplemental stuff. The only major issue I had while making this quilt was my iron decided to vomit rust color liquid toward the end... luckily the quilt was spared, but my carpet needed some serious spot-cleaning! That iron went into the trash and a new one will be required before I start on any future quilting endeavors.

Can't wait to hear from Carrie and to see her little girl Avery!!