Hero's Houndstooth!

This blanket has been about a year and a half in the making. I bought the Houndstooth pattern from V and Co in October 2011 (on a side note, V and Co has a bunch of new patterns and they are all awesome!!). The original plan was to make him the quilt for that Christmas, and it didn't happen.

Then I talked about when I bought the fabric, wanting to make it for Hero's birthday in this pre-baby to do list post (April 2012). That didn't happen either...

I finally cut the fabric when Dragon was a few months old, then worked on it stage by stage, whenever I had time. Well, here we are (March 2013), and it's done!!

I was going to do the top in both the blue and orange, but decided it would look too intense and dark. I changed it so that Hero's would be blue and white, with orange binding; then Dragon's would be the opposite.

I machine quilted on the white only with white thread (an idea I picked up here).

I especially love the look that quilting created on the grey backing!

And thanks to my husband for holding it up for me to photograph.

This was my first free motion quilting experience. It was so much fun! I looked up a bunch of how-to videos on YouTube, but don't have a specific one I'd recommend. I just watched some, then decided it was time to dive in! After a small practice scrap piece, I just went for it! Sink or Swim!!!

There is a quick learning curve and while the first few rows have larger uneven stitches, and tiny uneven stitches, I was getting pretty good at the end! It took me a week to quilt it, and that was taking my time, working on it only a row at a time when the kids were sleeping. 

If you are hesitating on trying machine quilting, DON'T! It's not as hard as it seams, and it's SO FUN!!

I had some help getting the binding prepped, and spent a week hand stitching the binding into place.

At every stage of the sewing process, I would ask Hero if he was excited for a new blanket or if he liked it. He would tell me that it was nice and looked good, but that he didn't want it. "I have a blanket," he would say. But now that it's done and on his bed, he has accepted it and told me it was awesome.

I already have Dragon's and Pretty's Houndstooth quilt fabrics cut, it's just a matter of sewing them... maybe in the next few years, I'll get them all done!

Ombre Chevron Crochet Baby Blanket

Wow, I know I keep promising that I will get back to blogging, but can I just say that I am not one of those awesome women who can balance everything! 

 
Adding little Dragon to my family has been incredible, but difficult. I'm figuring out how to be the mother of a stubborn kindergartener, independant "I'll do it by MYSELF" toddler, and a (I'll be honest) ridiculously easy-going baby. He may be easy going, but he is still a baby that demands a lot of time and effort.

With the 3 kids, I've been a bit overwhelmed and while I love blogging, it has taken the back seat for a while. I still make no promises about any regular blogging, but I will pop in to share something as the mood strikes.

The mood has struck! I made this adorable crochet baby blanket for my sister-in-law who is having her first baby in a few months. She's having a girl, but with it being her first, she and her husband requested something gender neutral.

I love the ombre effect that is so popular right now, so to give the gender neutral a bit of style I wandered around the yarn isles in JoAnn with my best friend for far too long, looking for just the right shades.

In case you want to replicate, here are the yarns we found, starting with the darkest yellow:

1: Vanna's Choice Baby in Duckie
2: Lion Brand Baby Soft in Lemonade ( This is a true baby yarn, and I had to double it, holding two strands together. But there is enough yarn in this skein that you still only need one. I spent the time at the beginning to wind a center pull ball starting with both ends.)
3: Bernat Satin in Banana
4: Vanna's Choice Baby in Lamb
5: Vanna's Choice in White
(Not pictured: I used some heather grey from my stash for the single crochet edging.)

I used this free pattern from Lion Brand Yarns. (The reviews are mixed, but I found it easy and liked the texture it created.) I read the pattern and figured that with my 5 skeins, I needed 9 rows of each color. Oddly enough, the three Vanna's were supposed to be the same amount/length/size skein, but I was a few stitches short with Color 1, more than a few stitches short with Color 4, but had plenty of Color 5. Weirdness. But what's awesome about the ombre fade is I was able to just start the next color to finish up the last row and keep going. If you look carefully at the pictures above, you can see close to the front where Color 2 starts in the last several stitches of the first color, but you only notice if you are really inspecting the blanket.

The mommy-to-be loves it, and I can't wait to meet my new little niece and see her wrapped in this yummy blanket.

The Traumatic Fix

My sweet little Pretty has two sleep items, the bunny and the blanket.

But as much as she loves that bunny, it's really the blanket that is important. Whenever I check on her in the middle of the night, the blanket is being snuggled, while the bunny is tossed to the side.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that the blanket had a hole. I put it on the mental list to fix, but didn't worry too much about it until I saw Pretty playing with the hole. So I decided to fix it right then. Pretty wasn't too happy with me taking her blanket.

Here she is throwing a fit on the floor.

And here she is pulling on the end to get it back.

I decided to do a cute circle patch using Heat 'N' Bond. I traced two circles onto the paper side of the Heat 'N' Bond.

Then I cut loosely around them and ironed them onto the back of the fabric. I picked a scrap piece that had similar colors and tones as the blanket.

Then I ironed one circle on each side, centered over the hole, matching them up as close as possible.

I should have sewed the hole together first, but a bit of a distraction that kept me from thinking clearly. Here's Pretty, tugging on the blanket and crying.

The last step I took was to sew around the circles by hand to add a bit of security. I decided on sewing by hand, rather than machine, to purposefully give it that home-fixed look. And, of course, I had to do it quickly and deal with Pretty tugging and crying the whole time.

So it turned out a bit more home-fixed looking than I wanted, but I still think it is cute.

She was so happy to get her blanket back, she went right into playing with it.

I have mixed feelings about needed to repair it again. I kind of hope I need to so there's more than one lone spot, but I don't want to go through that again. This is much better:

And that's just awesome.

Birthday Card Quilt

Wow, it's been a good while since I posted anything. I have excuses, but the most relevant one is that I'm busy enjoying the summer with my kids. But I did want to post about this project.

At the beginning of the month I mentioned that I was machine quilting my first quilt. Well, it was this big "Birthday Card Quilt" for my mom. 

As you can see, my mom just turned 50. Our family always has a pot luck breakfast to celebrate the 4th of July. This year, we turned it into a surprise birthday party for Mom! 

Everyone ate, played and of course, signed the quilt.

It was my mom who taught me how to sew and to piece quilt. I knew she would appreciate the work it took to make. It was a fun project for me because I was able to take ideas from blogs I love and sketch out a one-of-a-kind blanket just for Mom.

Don't you love the crazy scribbles of sketching? Ignore the math...

After I figured out just how I wanted to do it, I made the back first. I kind of based it off of this beautiful quilt over at Noodlehead. (I actually took a lot of advice from this post by Anna, about her quilt.)

And the front was based off of this adorable baby quilt by V and Co.

I used picnik.com to print out the letters. There were large enough, and enough of them, that I needed two pages. The first one, I printed normal and had to trace on the back of them to get the backwards on my Heat 'n' Bond. But then I remembered that picnik has a feature where you can reverse the images. So I did that for the second page. It just makes it less likely to mess up if they are already backward for you.

Anyway, I traced the letters backward on the Heat 'n' Bond, then ironed them onto the wrong side of my fabric.

 Then I cut them out, peeled the back, pinned and then ironed them into place.

Because Heat 'n' Bond will eventually dissolve, I stitched the letters down with the blanket stitch function on my machine.

I used the sandwich tutorial from Oh Fransson! to make this:

So many safety pins! I used regular safety pins, instead of "quilting pins".

I then used this tutorial for straight-line machine quilting. I used masking tape, and spaced them 2 inches apart, because it was easy with my 2-inch-wide ruler.

I sewed along the edge like I was told...

When it came to the words, I taped right across them, and then just back stitched at the beginning and end, just skipping over them.

For the binding I used this tutorial by Crazy Mom Quilts. The tutorial was easy to follow, and I chose to hand quilt it for a nice clean look.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you!

Quilt Anxiety

I've got the front and back pieced together.

I've made my quilt sandwich (using this awesome tutorial that I was directed to by Noodlehead).

And now it's just sitting there. Waiting.

I'm nervous about this first machine quilting experience. It's a smaller quilt, and I'm doing a simple straight line design. I eventually want to do free motion quilting, but I need to work up to it.

Deep breath and GO! Wish me luck!!

Straight-Jacket Swaddler Tutorial repost

Just reposting this from where it was originally posted last week on Craftaholics Anonymous.

Have you ever experienced the frustration of trying to swaddle your baby with a blanket, just to have them break out of it as they wiggle while trying to fall asleep? And then, of course, they don't fall asleep... 

Or, have you bought the swaddle wrap with the blanket bottom and have them kick out of the bottom of it?And then they wiggle through the bottom and you find your baby with the wrap around the screaming baby's face? I've experienced both of these. 

That is why I made up my own version of a swaddle wrap, the Straight-Jacket Swaddler. 

I don't currently have a baby, so I traded my sister this Straight-Jacket Swaddler in exchange for pictures of my nephew using it!

It's nice and tight, holding in the baby with secure Velcro; with a strap between the legs to keep it from ending up around your baby's face. And not to worry, my daughter used one I made and was secure at night, but still able to wiggle her arms out the top in the morning when she was really awake and trying.

So let's make one!


Supplies:

• 1 light weight receiving blanket or 1/2 yd of lightweight flannel - washed, dried and ironed
• 1/2 yd (18") of 2" wide Velcro
• washable marking pen
• basic sewing supplies.
• Optional:
• double fold biased tape for edging (I did not use this, but will show you where you can if you want to.)

First, lay out your fabric. I used this old receiving blanket.

 Cut a rectangle that is 27 1/2" wide,

and 12" tall.

Round the corners. I just folded mine in half and followed the existing curve that starts about 2" from the square corner.

The next step is to create a spot for the neck of your baby with four darts using your marking pen. To mark the darts, lay your rectangle wrong side up and measure 6" from the center of the top right rounded corner (or 7" from the right edge) along the top long side and make the first mark. Your markings will be spaced like the following picture shows; you should have 8 marks.
(Spaces from the first mark right to left: 1" - 3/4" - 1" - 1 1/2" - 1" - 3/4" - 1")

In the center of  each 1" space you just marked, measure down 2" and make a dot.

Connect the 1" marks to the dots to make 4 triangle darts.

 Fold the fabric to match up the lines and sew along the lines, backstitching at start and stop on all for darts.

Press the darts out from the center space, then serge around the entire piece to finish the edge. 

*I used colored thread for looks. Here is where you can use the optional double fold biased tape to edge it. You can also fold over the edge and hem to finish the edge. Or use a zig-zag stitch, what ever you choose, finish the edge now.

Now, let's make the straps. Cut one piece 18" x 3" and two pieces 5 1/4" x 3".

Fold all three pieces over, matching the 3" sides, right sides together. Pin and sew on edge of pressure foot down the long sides.

Turn and press. Serge/zig-zag unfinished edge.

Cut three 2" long pieces of the rough side of the Velcro.

Sew one 2" square onto the folded end of each strap, backstitching at start and stop. *At first I was using this narrower black Velcro, but switched to the wider stuff. It's better... but the pictures were taken, so bear with me...

With the wrong side facing up, find the center of the right short side. Measure 1" up and down from there and place the small straps (2" gap between the straps).

The straps will overlap with the edge of the large piece by 3/4".

 Pin and sew on securely by sewing a square following the edges of the strap that overlaps. (Other side view)

For the long strap, line it up with the center of the darts and pin on the bottom edge. Overlap the edges by 3/4", just like the short straps. Pin and sew on securely with a square, just like the short straps.

You should now have a piece that looks like this:

Next, cut the fuzzy side of your Velcro into two 7" pieces and that will leave you with one 4" piece. Round two corners on the long side on each of the 7" pieces, so that when placed together with long sides touching, the 4 outer corners are rounded. Round all the corners of the 4" piece.

Turn the fabric right side face up and place the two 7" Velcro pieces side by side, overlapping in the center, to create a large piece. Measure 2 1/2" from the top and 8" from the right edge.

Use a satin stitch (close zig-zag) all the way around the Velcro, and down the overlapped center, to secure the Velcro. Backstitch at start and stop.

Place the 4" piece of Velcro on the left side, next to the lower short strap. Measure 1" from the side edge.

I measured 1/2" from the top of the lower strap to the top of the Velcro, but when we put my cute nephew into it, I could see that it needed to be a bit higher. So I suggest moving it up so it measures 1 or 1 1/2" from the top of the strap to the Velcro piece. 

Sew on using the same satin stitch as with the larger pieces.

 Add a label between the neck darts, if you wish.

And you are done!!

The last step is to add an adorable baby. I suggest placing the baby's shoulders just a bit above the top edge, like this:

And watch him fall asleep! Which is exactly what we did to get these pictures.

This is how securely wrapped he still is after wiggling while falling asleep.

  Don't you love watching a baby sleep?

**Please remember to use this only while your child is sleeping on his/her back. Also, you should not use this after your child has learned to roll over.**

Thanks, Linda for having me! Have confidence and get sewing!!