Long Break

Wow, I didn't realize I had been away from this blog for so long. It isn't that the summer has been outrageously busy, but it has been busy. The blog just didn't have priority. But that doesn't mean I haven't been creating and doing things, on the contrary, I have lots of things to share. One of the many things that I "discovered" was doll making. I have been an avid reader of Wee Wonderfuls for a while. I have been wanting her book ever since it came out. I had never made any kind of doll before, but hers made me want to try so bad. So on a whim one day I finally bought her book. I have already made 2 dolls with a third in progress.
 "Katie Kitty" was my first. I learned a lot with that one, but I do think it turned out well. I didn't give it any clothes because I didn't think my husband would appreciate our son playing with a cat in a dress, haha. LJ of course isn't really interested in it, yet (hopefully).

Pixie was fun to make. I think it turned out quite cute.
 Again, LJ isn't interested. Hopefully when he gets a little older (he is only 11 months old right now) he'll actually take notice of  the things that I have made for him. As for right now, all I can do is hope, and of course keep making things I think are cute and hope he will like later.

Bear Hat

So, before LJ was born I made him a whole bunch of hats, including this one. I just love hats that have ears on them, I think that they are super cute. (Plus it doesn't hurt to have a super cute baby to wear them.) But now that he is here and wearing them, I realize that the ears are too small. So I am planning on cutting these ones off, and replacing them with bigger ears. Hopefully I can figure it out, and actually do it.
One of the best ways that I learn is by messing up and making mistakes. Because if everything that you make is perfect then you will never learn. (Although after frogging a project for the 4th time, I really wish I was perfect.) So, I look at my imperfect projects as learning experiences and hopefully never make that same mistake again. I figure that eventually I will have done every mistake possible and then have perfect projects, haha. Well, time to go figure out how to make bigger circles for ears.

Time

So, I knew that having a baby would be time consuming. I just didn't realize how much. Hence my blog being neglected. Perhaps I shouldn't have created it just a couple of days before I was due, haha. But even though my little one takes up much of my time I wouldn't trade him for anything.

One thing that I have made sure to make time for though is some sewing. Even though LJ was born in the middle of Oct. I still decided to make many of the Christmas gifts that we gave this year. Now in retrospect I realize that was a little crazy of me, especially considering that I didn't finish several of them until the day before Christmas. But I did get them done, and all of the recipients loved their gifts. For that, I do think it was worth it overall. I just wish that I had taken pictures of all of them.

I made this photo album cover for my mother-in-law. My husband's little brother is on a mission for the LDS church in Colombia right now. The only source of communication he has with us is through letters. My mother-in-law had all of his letters scattered throughout her house, so I decided that she needed a nice place to keep all of them together. So I bought just a plain photo album and three ring binder and made slip covers for them. I think that they turned out very nice, and she loved them.

Car Seat Canopy

Another project that I have done in anticipation for this soon to be here baby was to make a car seat canopy.  I love the idea of it. Blankets can fall off of the car seat, leaving baby exposed and cold.  But with this, it can't fall off considering that it is buttoned to the handle.  It was actually very easy to make. 

Materials I used: Two 1 yard pieces of fabric (1 print, 1 plain), ribbon, and buttons or Velcro

·         The first thing I did was to wash my material. Then I cut the 2 pieces so that they were the same size. Mine ended up being about 35”x45”.

·         Next I sewed right sides together leaving about 10” on 1 side so that I could turn the material right side out. I highly recommend pinning the sides so that they don’t stretch when sewed together.  

·         I turned the material, and pressed all of the edges. Then just to give it a nice finished look I sewed around the edges with my ¼” foot, which also sewed close the open part.

·         Then I cut two 8” ribbons. If I do this again, I think that I would make them a little shorter. To make the ends not fray on the ribbon I melted the edges a tiny bit with a lighter.

·         I measured the halfway point the long way on my material, which was approximately 23”. On this middle “line” I measured in 13” both sides so that the ribbons would have about 7” between them.  I sewed each ribbon down in a square with an x in it to make them secure. 

·         I made button holes and sewed buttons (before I sewed the ribbon on the material) on my ribbons as a way to attach it to the car seat, but Velcro would work too. Or just leaving the ribbon long enough to tie would work great too.

The hardest part about this was putting on the ribbon handles, but once I was actually doing it, it wasn't that hard, it just sounds tricky.  So now I have a lovely cover to protect my baby when he finally decides to show up.

-Update: Now that I am actually using it, I realize that the ribbon handles need to fit snuggly on the handle of the car seat because they just slip and slide all over the place. So I will be shortening them to fit better. Otherwise, it works great.

Baby Shower Blanket

One of the things that we did at my baby shower last month was to tie a quilt that I had sewn a top for. I just went through my stash and cut random widths of fabric 60" long and then sewed all of the strips together. It is not a complicated pattern, but I really like how it turned out.  And having a bunch of ladies to help me quickly tie it was pretty nice too.  After we tied it I sewed the binding to finish it off. It is only 60"x45" so making it was rather quick, it was just the getting around to finishing it bit that took a little time.