A Homemade Christmas

In an effort to have a more cost-effective Christmas, I've opted to make many of our presents this year. Extended family members, gift exchanges and friends are receiving these gifts - although I think they are pretty great! I can't exactly say what these projects are because several people reading this blog might be receiving them.

My mom has come over two different days. One day we worked on sewing projects. We each had our own sewing project that we were working on, but it was way easier to do together (plus - she helped me a ton by cutting all mine out, so I could just focus on pinning and sewing!) This is super helpful to me because I don't get as distracted by the boys as I normally would by myself.

I'm have about half of this particular project done.

Today she came over again and we shopped and then assembled the other portion of our gifts. 

Mmmm... looks yummy right? These are about 1/2 done also. Now I have to finish them up and then find a way to wrap up these crazy gifts! Hmm.... 

New Projects

Flannels for some new projects I'm planning....

More Baby Showers

I'm going to another baby shower tomorrow. I spent this evening making up some of my burp cloths (I think I should work on some of these for my OWN baby!) and putting the finishing touches on my knitted baby hat and washcloth.


These are not the greatest pictures because it's a little dark in here now... it's 10pm!

Flannel/Cloth Diaper Burp Cloths

Knitted Butterfly Washcloth

Knitted Newborn Hat

Project Accomplished!

Projects Finished

Seems that I'm surrounded by people having babies lately!

This gift is for a co-worker and his wife who are due any day now.

I've been procrastinating on the burp cloths, and decided I better hurry up

or I was going to miss the BIG DAY!

3 knitted washcloths - made from Shine Sport (KnitPicks.com) 

1 knitted candy corn hat - made from Swish DK (KnitPicks.com)

2 burp cloths - made from two birdseye cloth diapers & leftover flannel

I love these handmade gifts!

Unfinished Project

I was busily sewing along on my latest project

(which can't be named here, because it's for someone who reads this blog!)

when I realized - I was missing something.

Something which is a requirement to continue my project!

Ack!

I looked in my misc project bag (nope),

my sewing basket (nope),

and finally the container of odds and ends (big, fat NO).

Sooo.... now I'll have to wait to finish until tomorrow

when I can make a trip to JoAnn's on the other side of town.

I'm pretty sure I have what I need - but where?

Apparently it is lost - at least until I go buy some more.

(sigh)

I guess I'm going to have to read my book instead!

Catching Up/ New Crafty Projects

I have been so busy this past week, I can't even believe it! 

My husband woke me up this morning with a: "Aren't you going to get up?"

Me: "Why? Do I have somewhere to go?" (desperately praying "no!")

Him: "Yeah, don't you have Toddler Gym this morning?"

Me: "Oh yeah. Ugh."

I literally had to DRAG myself out of bed. Seems like sometimes there are just periods of time when you get so busy - and you don't even realize how it happened! Normally, I would be having 4 days off in a row now, but this is my one day off today - then I work the next three days again.
Sad.
My Little Guy is very cranky and a little clingy (very unlike him) and I know it's because I've been gone a lot this past week. Makes me feel guilty. =(


On to happier stuff!
I've been working on some projects recently!

Candy Corn Newborn Hat
Planning on making a bunch for my shop for Fall!

Baby Washcloths Set (x2)
Duck, Rocking Horse & Stork Designs

Two Burpcloths

One side flannel
One side cloth diaper

Pretty proud - I got my sewing machine going after the Little Guy was messing with it. I even figured out how to change the needle on my own so I could sew through all these layers! Yay for me!

Anyone have any great projects you've been working on lately?

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Christmas Stockings - Finished!

I'm sure all my followers have not had to follow my Christmas Stocking Saga because it's been going on so long. WAY BACK in November of 2009, I decided to make some stockings for our family since we obviously needed to add one for our Little Guy! Our previous stockings were just two I'd bought somewhere, but I really wanted to make some special ones.

First, I searched the Internet for stocking patterns in this post.
Then I picked my pattern and bought my fabric in this post.
Showed off my fabric choices here (and was still super excited at this point).
And lastly, had some issues here.

Sooo... at Christmas last year, I ended up with the Little Guy's totally done except the hanger, my husband's finished up except the binding and hanger and mine wasn't even embroidered yet. We ended up using the Little Guy's and our two old ones. Bummer.

Then my original plan was to finish them up quick to be put away with the Christmas decorations and then they would be done when we set up this year. Yeah, right. Not motivated to do something like that right after Christmas. Sooooo... finally last night I finished up my last one. Thanks to my mom for coming over and helping me with my machine (yet ag ain) and with the binding.

I'm really happy to have them done and HANGING UP... before Christmas! Whoohoo!



yes, I know this shows all our names, but I'm too proud to blur them out.
I hand embroidered them!



Please excuse my sort of messy house.

Ta Da! I made them purposely out of three different but coordinating fabrics, so that if/when we have another baby I can find another fabric to coordinate. I chose the Christmas Stocking Tutorial by Anna over at Noodlehead.

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Finished project!

Here is my latest finished project.... I have about three of these started and I finally got this one all sewn up and stuffed!

This and That

I can't seem to settle down to anything today. Got up early and took the Little Guy for a haircut at the children's hair salon in town. I have to say... it's worth the $16 bucks to have someone else cut the squirmy kid's hair. I'm sure it would look VERY interesting if I tried it. I was always one of those little girls with the interesting bangs... the kind where you KNOW their mommy cut them. =)

Then we came home and I tackled the stack of dishes in the sink... there were so many that they wouldn't all fit in the dishwasher (ahh... FlyLady... how I've failed in my "shining my sink"...). Then I read my Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for a few minutes and now I'm dinking around online! I have a whole list of thing I could or should be doing, but just can't settle down to any of it.

I'm thinking that when the Little Guy wakes up we might take a walk... here in the Pacific NW it's been horribly wet and soggy for days and days and it looks like the sun has FINALLY decided to arrive, so I better take advantage of it.

Yesterday, I was actually doing something productive and sewing on some new soft baby blocks when the Little Guy whacked the machine with one of his blocks and from then on the thread just jammed up when I tried to sew. SOOO.. frustrating! I tried and tried to get it fixed and could not. Finally I had to have my mom come over and apparently it just needed the needle changed or something. Obviously I'm not a sewing machine whiz... I basically know how to wind my bobbin, thread the machine and change my stich and that's about it. I've never even used the button holer, although that is on my list of things to learn this summer.

I also got a cute new book from the library called One-Yard Wonders that I'm pretty excited about working through some the patterns. I'm a small project sort of girl.

Sooo.... I'm not sure what we're going to do with the rest of our day... do you ever have days like that? So much to do, but you don't feel like doing any of it. I think it's probably because I have to work tomorrow and I'm kinda bummed about it.

Time is getting away from me!

Well, I just read my last post and realized just how long it's been! Not that I haven't been working on any projects since then. I did make my cute little baby hat out of the baby alpaca yarn and it was so cute! I am putting it away in case I ever have a little girl to wear it. I was so pleased with the results that I ordered some more yarn from knitpicks.com. This time I bought a 75% Pima cotton/ 25% acrylic sport weight yarn called Comfy Sport. I bought the brown Fedora color and redish Pomegranate colors. I made up a 6-12 month size in the Fedora for a friend of mine and a 0-3 month size in he Pomegranate for a girl I work with who does professional newborn photos. I am super excited about how both turned out and am hoping I get a couple pictures from both of them to see how they look!

I also have a friend who has been posting a couple things on my etsy site and I'm happy to have her, since I never have enough to put on there. She loves to knit also and so now we are having a sort of joint site going. I think we are mostly hoping to just feed our crafting habits. =) She has inspired me to start working on some new projects for the site though, so I have been working on a few of my soft baby block sets and hopefully I'll have some done to post soon.

FINALLY...a finished project!

So (sew?) excited! I have finally finished a project that I've been wanting to do!

I made the Coffee Cozy tutorial from the House on Hill Road. Didn't turn out exactly perfect, but not bad for a first attempt considering how long it's been since I did much sewing (other than my unfinished Christmas stockings, of course).

Here are my supplies ------>

Luckily I found it all in my house, since I just decided at the spur of the moment to make it up. I had the fabrics and batting (lining and batting leftover from the Christmas stockings) and was really happy to use up a couple scraps.

Then I had to really seach for a hair band. My hair is really thick and I no longer use these thin bands in my hair, so I had thrown them all away. I didn't have any unused ones, but I figured it's just for me anyway, so who cares?

The button comes from some piece of clothing I'd purchased that came with an extra button - cute huh?

Here I am actually sewing. My sewing machine is kinda in the back corner of a room, so it's a dark picture.

Finished product! Yay! So proud... didn't have a to-go cup to try it out on though. I think my button is a little off, so I may end up taking it off and using it on another cozy. Definitely going to make some more.

Stocking issues!

Well, I've not been very motivated to finish our Christmas stockings... I don't know why. I'm really excited about them being done, but I think I'm nervous about the process. Sooo... I actually sat down to work on them today and I can't get my sewing machine to work right! It's probably user error and I think my mom is going to come over tonight to help me figure it out, but it's so irritating! Anyway... I have them all cute out so far and I think they are going to be really cute!

Also made a cute little blue beanie last night at work. I went back to the tried and true after my last knit hat project that didn't turn out so well. =)

Some recent projects...

Some of my recent projects....

Gray Rag Newborn Hat

Pumpkin Onesie for my baby boy

Cute soft baby blocks for my litte guy!

Playing with them =)

Cupcake Onesie for... I don't know. Currently selling it!

Sock Monkey soft blocks... also currently selling. Isn't this the cutest fabrics?

I'm loving the soft blocks! My baby loves them. They are not too full, so he can grab onto them and chew on them. The ones I'm keeping have cotton prints for four sides and cotton terry cloth for two. I like the terry cloth because it gives a little different texture to the blocks. The Sock Monkey print is out of flannel, which I also think is really nice and cuddly for baby and then also has some terry cloth. Love!

Here was my basic pattern - Baby Blocks from a great site! I kept the pattern basically the same except I think in the future I may iron on a fuseable interfacing to the inside so that the fabric just stays a tiny bit stiffer when stuffed.

Applique

One thing I've discovered on my own (still, my mom is proud) is applique! I saw some cute little onesies that someone was selling with cute little appliques on the front (for like $14 or so each! For a scrap of fabric and and a onesie!) and thought... "hey, I could do that". So.... I researched on the web how I might do that and low and behold! it's so simple.

I had a 50% off coupon to JoAnn's and used it on my Heat-and-Bond. I think I will be set for life... 5 3/4 yards of the stuff. Then I looked up some simple coloring pages on the web to use as patterns. I discovered that most of the "free applique patterns" on the web are very "country" style and meant for quilting. That wasn't exactly what I was looking for when it came to my baby wearing it and I wanted something simple - not something I had to add a bunch of embrordiary too. Somewhere I saw a suggestion to use coloring book pages, so I looked them up on the web and they work great.

I bought some fat quarters at the craft store and went to town! Cute, cute!

Here's how I do mine:
Wash onesie and fabrics to minimize weird shrinkage
Heat and bond to fabric
Then cut out the shape I want
Arrange my shapes to make sure they all fit right
Iron the applique onto my onesie or bodysuit
Then I hand-stitch around the edges of each piece. You could machine stitch it, but I like the look of the hand-stitching.

TaDa! Super easy!

Sewing projects

Well! I have started on a journey that I know my mom is probably very proud of. For years she has tried to get me into every kind of craft imaginable - I think I've about tried it all. Knitting, crocheting, quilting, painting, drawing, sewing, card-making, scrapbooking, soap-making - I've even done quilling! Now... the only thing that's kind of stuck over the years is knitting. From time to time I go back to something like scrapbooking or card-making when I need it, but for the most part, I've left most of it behind me. I have a half-made queen size quilt left at her house somewhere.

Recently, since the birth of my son, I've randomly gotten inspired to start sewing! I thought maybe it was because I've been home more days a week, but that's not it because I was home part-time the whole year I was pregnant and didn't get inspired. (Although I did knit two baby blankets and multiple hats during that time - which is a little more than my usual scarf)

I suppose it is probably from having a baby... also from seeing the price of everything for baby! It's amazing what people charge for simple items that can be made yourself. Anyway... I've been sewing up a storm and all those skills my mom tried to teach me are coming back. Of course, I've had to put in a few phone calls to her for tips and questions, but for the most part I think she can be proud. I can read a simple pattern, sew it up and have it turn out fairly decent.

I have been on a crafty jag and don't quite know what to think about it. I have started selling some things on Etsy.com because I honestly don't think I can give everything away (planning on some good baby shower gifs in the future). I have no idea how long this will last, but I'm having fun with it. I'm planning on posting some links to different free patterns on the web. I've taken these and others and combined what I like (or deleted what I don't) out of each and made my own things. Maybe one day I'll post my own free instructions! =)