Carseat Covers

I have two sister-in-laws having babies this spring, so I made carseat covers for them. The one on the right is supposed to be for a boy. The one on the left is supposed to be unisex, but it was so hard finding fabric that could go either girl or boy! I ended up thinking the mushrooms were a little girly, and the other was a little too boyish, but oh well. I love how they turned out either way.

 I found the pattern on Etsy. I love that it has a button front so you can peek in, but still keep the little ones covered if you want. Her pattern was great, but I made a few changes. She used Grossgrain ribbon everywhere, but I decided to pipe it. I'm getting more confident with my piping skills. For the red one, I made my own bias tape and covered store-bought piping to make it a little more special. (Thanks to my sister for the idea)

 Buttons! Sometimes it's the embellishments that end up costing the most. 

Hope they liked it. This was a relatively simple pattern, so if you're a beginner, this might be a great start.

Quilted Pot Holders

I recently whipped these babies up for a friend's birthday. These would be great for a beginning quilter to practice.

They are kind of addicting. I think I ended up quilting about 20 or so pot holders for my friends for Christmas this year. I used all scraps. Just piece it however you like. I went with a sort of wonky log cabin, but it could be super simple. One piece of fabric even.

After that just use some Thermolam heat resistant batting stuff, and essentially make a mini quilt sandwich. I added little tabs for them to hang.

And striped binding. Of course. 

Three Little Pigs: Story Book Finger Puppets

My daughter loves the story of the three little pigs.

She loves helping me say, "not by the hair of my chinny chin chin"

and

"then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in!"

 

So for Christmas, I made my niece this set of story book finger puppets...

 

The Three Little Pigs

The Big Bad Wolf

The House of Straw

The House of Sticks

The House of Bricks

Sewing Apron

I made this sewing apron for my Grandma.

She is an awesome quilter and gets together with her quilting gals once a week.

 

I'm always misplacing things - scissors, seam rippers - when doing a project,

so I thought of adding lots of pockets to an apron for all the gadgets you might need while working.

 

And if she doesn't use it for sewing, she's also a great cook, so she could wear it while making a pie or something delicious like that.

 

All of it is made from scraps that I've had for a while, so it's a bit of a mish mash of colors.

 

I used this tutorial.

Kindle Case

I made this Kindle case for my mother in law.

I used this great tutorial.

Loopy Squares

I finally made a quilt for my parents. Long overdue. All the fabric was from the same line, so I thought squares would be fun. A few cutting errors later, squares became rectangles. Happy accident I suppose.

My husband says the strip down the back is my "signature." In reality I'm usually scrimping on fabric so I have to add a strip somewhere :)

This was my first go at loopy quilting like this. I originally saw the idea here. It was so fun. I used the seams on the front as my guide. If you're not super confident with stippling yet, I thought these loops would be a great way to ease into free-motion.

Striped binding, of course. I love this Dick and Jane fabric too. I've been holding on to it for years. My mom said it was fun because that what they grew up with. 

 Off to a good home.

Heritage Quilt

This quilt came to me in a very round-about way. Long story short, someone found out I quilted, so I after a first attempt, they asked me to make this "heritage" quilt. It is for a little girl and all the squares are from clothing items of family members. When they asked me to do it, I immediately thought of this pattern I had in an old book. It's called an Autograph Quilt, and I ran with the idea.

 So after interfacing every single block, I came up with this. Her name is on the middle on the bottom row. Her parents are on each side, and it graduates all the way up to her great grandparents on the top row. 

They were originally going to write the names on with fabric marker, but I wanted to sew them in. (Read: add tons of extra work) It ended up being a lot of fun though. I used a dissappearing ink pen to write it in rough, then I sewed over it with my free motion foot. Thank you fourth grade cursive...

Green on the back.

 Stippled around the names. 

Stars on the border.

And a little helper through it all.

So glad to have this baby done for Christmas. It was a job.

Alphabet Pillow

More pillows!

They're easy and make a lot of difference in a room for some reason.

My kids like to throw them at each other, but whatever.

I typed up the alphabet, chose a desired font and size, printed it out, and traced it onto my fabric.

I then googled "embroidery stitches" to learn how to embroider correctly.

 

There are so many tutorials and ways to embroider.

Of course I picked the easiest.

I assembled my pillows using the envelope method.

Tutorial for that found here that Mary posted a while ago.

 

I've got a few other projects to post, but they are gifts, so it will have to wait until after Christmas!

 

Oh, but by the way I will be having a baby a week after Christmas, so yeah. That might take priority.

 

Hope all your Christmas projects are done and wrapped and under a tree!

Quiet Book, Pt. II

Pages 7 & 8:

Gum ball matching colors. I appliqued everything using Wonder Under, then stitched around the edges. This is the part where I share the best quiet book tip of all: clear thread. You must buy it. I started switching threads every two seconds when I first started, but I discovered how easy it was to keep my machine threaded with clear thread.

The gum balls snap on and off and she can match the colors. I sewed the snaps on using my machine and lowering the feed dogs.

Inspiration here.

I found stiff felt in sheets at JoAnn's. It's cool stuff! I just sewed the frosting to the bottoms of the cupcakes with a tight zig zag, and they seem to hold up great. She used beads, but I had this silly little spangles in my stash, so I hot glued them. You are supposed to count the sprinkles and match it to the number on the cupcake liner. 

Pages 9 &10:

This was one of my first pages. I think decorating a Christmas tree is fun, so that's where I thought of this idea. The snowflakes are actually buttons. I used a cute decorative stitch on the ribbon too. They go on and off with Velcro. 

Inspiration here.

I love this one. The zipper is a cute addition.  Pretty self explanatory I think.

Page 11 & 12:

Hours of entertainment, right? I debated whether or not to add a place to put an extra "O", but I decided against it in the end. Do you see how the Velcro is attached with that cool little circle? That's a stitch on my machine. I'm sure it has a fancier purpose, but it worked for me.

I made mini batting sandwitches for the "X"'s and "O"'s, then just free-handed the letters with a tight zig zag. 

I love this one. It was my own idea to to an "I Spy" page. I think my daughter will love sitting and searching for stuff. I can imagine her doing this with a friend and seeing if they can find what the other sees. Can you find the harmonica?

These scraps were all in my stash. I ironed them on with Wonder Under and stitched around each edge.

I bet you're wondering how I got all the edges to finish like this. No pictures, sorry. Well, it's the basic idea you use for a lot of things. Like when you make a receiving blanket or something. You just put two pages together, right sides together, sew around the edges leaving a space to turn it right side out. Turn it right side out, push out the corners. Then you iron it and top stitch around the edges. 

I did add some thick interfacing to the back of each page to make it heavier. BUT, if you're going to do that, cut the interfacing smaller than your page--close to the finished size. If you try to sew two layers of interfacing together and flip it, the corners will be too bulky. It will be hard to get to lay right. 

I added a tag to show it was our family's, and that's it!

It really was such a fun project. A lot of work, but I think my daughter will really get a lot of good miles out of it.

Quiet Book Pt. I

Phew. Just finished this baby. Making a quiet book like this is a bit like childbirth. A lot of work in the moment, and you're sooo glad when you're done. But so worth it in the end, of course.

I thought it would be great to make something homemade for my daughter for Christmas, and I've had my eye on tons of quiet book ideas for ages. I came up with some of the ideas on my own, but I got most my inspiration from blogs and Etsy. I think the important thing is to just do it how you like it, and tailor it to your kid's needs.

I really wanted to make this so the pages are removable. That way I could divvy them out among a few kids in the future, without fighting over one book. I just bought book rings at Walmart and made button holes in each page. They measure about 9x12" before finishing. Also, if she outgrows a page or ruins it, it's easily replacable. 

Pages 1 & 2:

I originally found the idea for this one here. 

Tying is a little advanced for a 1 1/2 year old, but I thought it was cute. I pretty much winged the shape of the ballet shoe out of felt. I had some leftover black ribbon from my party, so that's what I used for the ties. I added a little decorative stitch on the ribbon for fun.

Button flowers. Inspiration here.

I just used scraps I already had around my sewing room. The blue was actually already pieced like that, so I just cut out my shapes, sewed the blue to the green, and made my stems. The key on this one is to use all the same button sizes so all the flowers are interchangeable. I have an automatic button hole on my machine, so when I figured out the size of the first one, I was able to do all of them after that without adjusting anything. 

Pages 3 & 4:

Originally found the idea a few years ago on Homemade by Jill. Love her. Once again, I just winged it. I could have used ribbon as a border, but I didn't have any so I just zig zagged on some felt I cut into thin strips. The top window pops down and opens too. The finger puppet templates are also on Jill's website.

Mmm. Pie. I originally found this idea on a food-themed quiet book here, which was cute. This is a fun weaving activity. I used my pinking shears to make the zig zag edges on the crust. I love the food fabric underneath.

Pages 5 & 6:

My kid is mildly obsessed with Yo Gabba Gabba. So of course, I had to make DJ Lance's boom box. This page was tricky because I had to rig it so it would open up. I ended up just making a whole separate boom box that was a tiny bit smaller, and attaching it to a base page that was the right size. See the base page? It's that orange/red print you can barely see.

Are those not the cutest finger puppets ever??

I kind of guessed on the sizes after doing the barn animals. I embroidered on the details, like Toodee's mouth and Brobee's stripes. Pretty sure this is my favorite page. 

Original idea here. 

I wanted to do other root vegetables, but I made the pockets too small so I had to stick with all carrots. I did the button holes in the brown first, and sewed pockets after using a piece of fabric on the back of the page. I put a tiny piece of floral wire between the front and back sides of the carrots, so they would be stiff enough to poke down the holes.

And that's it for today.... More quiet book to come.