Baby Blanket

One of my favorite things I made for Tabitha was her flannel baby blanket.  It was the perfect size for nursing under, and it folded up small, because the fabric wasn't too bulky.  And when she fell asleep at church, I could wrap her up in it, or spread it out on the floor for her to play on.

I wasn't planning on making a flannel blanket for the little boy on his way (who will hopefully get here soon, since I am measuring two weeks big, despite not really gaining any weight recently).  I may have mentioned this on my blog, and I know I've told lots of people when I see them, I'm making a quilt and matching sheets for little boy Boling.  Plus, I have a bunch of blankets already, and my mom gave me a really awesome knitted blanket for this baby.  And, well, I don't know how often the baby will actually sleep under a blanket.

Blankets technically being a SIDS risk.

But, I was at a local JoAnn fabrics, which is moving to a new location, and has most or all of its fabric on discount right now.  And I started looking at the flannel.  And I found some blue pirate flannel, and some matching blue plaid.  So I bought it, and I made a blanket for the baby.

I used left over satin from Emily's Cinderella dress for the edges.  I mitered the corners; this was tricky, and next time I might look up directions, since I'm not sure I did it the easiest way, and the edging ended up being just a little smaller than the original dimensions of the blanket.  But not much smaller, so it is still a nice big blanket.  Well, big for one little baby boy.

Blue Star Quilt

Yesterday I finished the queen sized quilt for Dan and me.

Most of the blue fabric is actually from our wedding reception.  We used them as square accent table clothes on top of the white table clothes.  My mom gave me all the fabric afterward, and now it is a quilt.

When I first started the quilt, I realized that I didn't have enough of the blue backing fabric, and when I tried to buy some more, they didn't have the right color.  And I didn't want to buy all new backing, since I was trying to be thrifty, so I mixed the two fabrics and made large stripes on the back.  Dan and Emily both like the back.  When I was half done with the quilting, and the sewn lines were only going one way, I laid it out, and Emily played on it for awhile.  She said it was a bridge over water.

There were a number of things that went wrong during the last few days of working on the quilt, including:

1. I had to use put the layers together twice, because I didn't check beforehand that the back of the quilt was big enough. (It wasn't.)  This meant the second time, the batting was all sticky from the basting spray I had used the first time.  And I don't think basting spray works as well the second time, plus I was trying not to use too much because the bottle was running out.

2. When I took some off the top to make the sides wider, I made it too short the other way.  Which I didn't realized until after I started quilting it.  Which meant I had to add strips to the top and bottom when it was partly quilted.  Later I wondered why I didn't just go look to see if I had some extra fabric that matched (which I did, but I ended up using for the binding).

3. My sewing machine no longer makes bobbins.  It decided to quit making bobbins halfway through quilting.  Luckily my mother-in-law has an old machine that doesn't sew well, but does make bobbins.  But it took me about a day to find this out.  Plus she went out of town before she could show me how to use it.  But I figured it out.

The worst part about the first two problems was that I had just seen somewhere that it was important to allow a couple extra inches on each side of your back, in case the fabric shifts.  Which mine did.  And then I had to fix it.  And I should have just made sure I had those extra inches in the first place.

But now the quilt is all done, which is wonderful.  We slept under it last night.  It isn't heavy, but it is warm enough, and I didn't get hot or cold.  I think that means it is a good quilt.

Lily Pad Quilt

I have a friend from college, Kristi.  We first lived together my sophomore year, when Jeanie and I moved into our first apartment.  Kristi was one of the other girls who randomly moved into that same apartment.  The three of us moved to another apartment together, and lived there for a couple more years.  During that time, Kristi had a couple frog blankets that she'd had since she was a baby; as I remember, someone made them for her mom when she was pregnant with Kristi.

Jeanie and Kristi

So when I found out that Kristi was also going to have a baby, I knew she needed a frog quilt for her little one.  But I wanted to do something interesting for the front, and I came up with lily pads.  Which I thought Kristi would also appreciate, since she likes the fine arts, and lily pads are reminiscent of the famous Monet paintings.

The front is made up of pieced blues, with the lily pads and flowers appliqued on top.  I've collected lots of solid blue fabric over the years, and I thought that this would be a great way to use up that stash.

I cut long strips of the blues, and some squares, and got to work making a few different types of blocks, to give it a rippled pond look.  Two of the different types of blocks are basically a log cabin type of block (only one has a much bigger center than you usually have).

The block on the right needs one more row of strips

Here it is (or one like it) all done

The other type of block is strips sewn together.  Nothing too fancy.

After the top was all sewn and the lily pads and flowers appliqued on to it, I used basting spray to attach it to batting and the batting to the backing.

Basting spray is my newest love for quilting.  It keeps the fabric from shifting while you machine quilt, so you can handle curves without worrying that the bottom layer is getting wonky.  I've pretty much stuck to straight lines when quilting before (and the one time I didn't, on Emily's quilt, it was difficult), but with the basting spray I was able to quilt in curves, making the water look more like water, and less like blocks sewn together.  At least, I hope it does.  Either way, the basting spray kept everything together.  It also makes putting your layers together so much easier, since you do the bottom layer first, and once that is smooth, put on the top layer.  So you don't end up with wrinkles all over the bottom when you try to get the top layer just right.

The back of the quilt is a fun frog flannel.  Very cheerful for Kristi's little baby girl.

A blanket for Baby

When I was expecting Emily, I made her a crocheted blanket.  It was one of the first things I posted on this blog, way back in July of 2008.  I spent lots of time, and I agonized over it, and counted stitches and rows.  And I made it gender neutral, because when I started it, I still hadn't had my ultrasound.  It's white with yellow around the edges, and Emily loves yellow, and loves it.

So, when I found out I was pregnant again, I wanted to make another blanket, one for the new baby.  I had a huge skein of pink yarn, and decided to use that (since, with this one, I didn't get started until after the ultrasound).  I searched for patterns, but never found a crochet pattern I liked.  I decided to switch to knitting, and found a pattern.  I started the blanket.  I got about 2 inches and pulled out the whole thing, and tried to find another pattern.

And I kept thinking, I really like to sew.  I enjoy sewing.  I don't really knit or crochet anymore.  Sewing is quick.  If I sew the blanket, I could get it done right away, and not spend weeks working on it.  And since I was getting close to my due date, I knew that if I did start knitting, I would quite possibly not finish before the baby came.  And I wanted it done to welcome the baby.

And I wanted something neutral.  Because, ultrasounds are sometimes wrong.  I kept putting off working on the blanket until after my ultrasound up here, which was about 33 weeks (about 7 weeks before I was due).  But they couldn't see the baby's gender.

And then, near the end of March, Jo-Ann's had a sale.  I bought fabric, and satin binding tape, and I brought it home.  Ignoring the fact that the fabric itself probably cost more than a store bought blanket.

The front is flannel, with birds and trees.  I figured, that way, if the baby is really a boy, it won't be too girly.  Maybe.  The pattern is very pretty.  The back is soft and fuzzy, with raised dots.

  Emily enjoyed the new blanket.

And so did the moose (who was very carefully placed by Emily).

 

So . . . I had to hide the blanket to get it away from Emily.  Hopefully the baby will love it just as much.

Emily's quilt

Emily is bright and cheerful.  She loves to have fun (recently she got away from me at the eye doctor's, and hide behind a chair in the back and giggled).  And she is drawn to bright, happy colors.

I have been meaning to make her a quilt for a while.  Something bigger than her baby quilts, suitable for a growing toddler.  Her quilt is about 40 by 54 inches, big enough to curl up underneath.  She loves to make a tent out of her blankets when she snuggles next to me, covering up her head.

I quilted a diamond pattern across the patchwork section.  I like the look of the diamonds a lot better than just stitching along the seams.  For the applique section (which was inspired by this quilt) I quilted "trails" for the butterflies, and then around the butterflies.

And because I could, I also made her a baby doll quilt to match.  Okay, so this was inspired by a picture I saw.  I thought it was the cutest thing ever.

 Or maybe this is the cutest thing ever.

Baby Doll Blankets

Every little girl needs a stack of these for her baby dolls.

Emily has been taking care of her babies since she was less than 18 months old.  So I've made her a bunch of baby doll blankets (which also saves my hand towels from disappearing constantly).

Here baby doll blankets are made of a variety of materials and are all different sizes (mostly because I used scrap material to make them).

Her favorites are the bigger ones--the largest is 18"x17", and is flannel on one side and satin on the other.  Her other favorites are made from fleece, and are just a little smaller.  The great thing about fleece is that you can just cut a square of it, and the edges won't fray.  Emily also has a couple place mats to use as blankets, and they also work very well.

The place mat makes a great mattress pad for her baby doll cradle.

 Emily also likes to make beds for her babies all over the house.

Crocheting for Baby

Dan and I are expecting our first baby in January. The whole being pregnant and someday being a mother thing is still settling in, but I've gotten a bunch of pregnancy clothes now, which I am mostly wearing, even though at 3 months, I'm not showing too much. But I have gotten big enough that pregnancy pants are alot better (even if I still fit into my other pants), and I think my regular shirts mostly look funny. Since I'd rather be pregnant than "fat" I converted to pregnancy clothes early. I've also gotten some baby clothes already (courtesy of my Mama, who likes to buy things for me). Also, I've made a few things for my baby.


One of the things I made was this baby blanket. It has lots of bunnies. I found the pattern by going to Crochet Pattern Central. They have lots of links to free patterns, as well as instructions and a tip and encouragement page. Here is a close up of one of the bunnies:


I've also made some yellow booties out of the yarn I used to line the blanket. If you too want to make cute booties, here is a link to the pattern I used (also found through Crochet Pattern Central). I also used the same basic pattern to make some mittens that match the booties (adding a drawstring so they will stay on even teeny tiny hands). They turned out cute as well. The pattern isn't too hard, and the instructions are pretty easy to follow. I got the idea of how to do the mittens by looking through the different patterns for baby mittens at Crochet Pattern Central.

I've also got a blanket I'm crocheting for Dan for Christmas I put on hold to do baby stuff. It is about 3/4 finished. Besides crocheting, I'm also working on learning to hand quilt. And I've got a quilt I'm supposed to make for my sister in the works as well (although that one I started before I got married, and its been a while since I've worked on it). So I keep pretty busy.