Baby Girl Patchwork Blanket Top

How fun would Tummy Time had been for my girls had I known how to quilt when they were little?! The pattern for this quilt was one I had seen on a Missouri Star tutorial called Double Slice using a layer cake.  Well the cheapskate in me just can't bring myself to pay for layer cakes. I do love the selection of fabrics and how they all coordinate...but I don't love how much more you pay. Fabric is NOT cheap, and so paying for convenience just seems wrong to me. (Now if we had lots of money...I'd totally pay for it! But we don't...so this is one of those places I draw a line)

Layer cakes are simply 10 inch square fabrics bundled together...and so I went to my stash and found 20 different fabrics, all bright and colorful...and cut them each to 10 inches square. :o) It was a great stash buster, and really didn't take very long. 

The Double Slice pattern is relatively quick, great for a last minute gift. The longest part of the process besides choosing the 20 fabrics to go together...was laying them all out and deciding how they would work in the quilt. I decided that was a perfect job for my 17 year old daughter...I gave her the stack, said have fun, and then she laid them all out and I finished sewing the blocks together. The goal was to get the colors spread out throughout the quilt and try not to have too many like colors next to each other. 

I'm going to line the back of it with fleece...I'm not sure which color yet, I'm leaning towards purple though. I'll be listing it on Etsy as soon as it's finished...although I was also thinking of listing it now and offering it with the option to be personalized with a name. The colors are so bright I think a name in white especially would show up well and look nice. What do you think??

Luv U a Ton Baby Apron

I have been busy busy lately...which isn't anything too new...but our internet has been giving me a fit, so I haven't been able to get here in over a week. Any time we get a little rain, the phone and internet act up. I've spent days of my life on hold with Verizon and tech support. It just is what it is. BUT, the lack of computer time has left me with more sewing time...so maybe not such a bad thing after all ;) And we've got more than four inches of rain soaked into the farmers fields...again...not a bad thing. :)


This is one of the things I whipped together. I have a very special little girl that lives much too far away from me. Her parents are pretty great too..and although we're not "technically" family, I've been made an Auntie. :-D I love the family that God blesses us with...just love them! And so when I went to JoAnns and found this pink elephant fabric that said Luv u a ton...I just knew it had to be made into something for my princess! :-D 

I hit pinterest...my idea gathering place...and found a cute apron called a "Bapron" and all the links said "free pattern"...great! It's like a bib and an apron, it covers, but it also slips over the arms so it can't be whipped around or off. When I got to the link though the person who had designed it no longer offered the pattern for free...she wanted $6 for it. :/ Well I'm cheap, and so I took a look at it, grabbed my box of wax paper...and got to cutting. A few attempts later...and this is what I have. :o) Thankfully I have a very cute neighbor who happens to be just about the same size as my princess...so across the street I went with my tape measurer...and in an hour I had the first prototype stitched up. I had to make a few minor adjustments...but he seemed to like it...so I made another nicer one for him. A modeling fee we called it. lol And then I got to work on this one. 

Because the bib is bound in bias tape, it's reversible...which is great! Here's the back of it...

 

On this one I used a cotton batting to make sure it was more absorbent, and then quilted it with a wandering heart pattern using my hopping foot and some free motion quilting. 

So a box will be going out soon...and hopefully the sweet little princess will like it. :o) 

Patches the Pirate Puppy

 

This weekend is a birthday party for a super sweet little boy who is turning 2 :o) I wanted to make him something special...and something no one else would be bringing to the party. The back story is we had gone to a birthday party and the child opened up toy after toy and half of them seemed to be the same thing...the parents were going to be exchanging quite a few things. So I decided then to try and only give handmade gifts. I know when the kids rip open their presents that they're not going to be quite as excited about what I give...I mean there's never any bells or whistles, nothing beeps or flashes at them...I get that. But I trust that eventually after a lot of the other things have broken or the batteries have died, that then they'll pick up what I give them and enjoy it. :o) 

So this little boy is a big fan of pirates...and I know parrots are the usual pirate pal...but I thought a pirate puppy would be awfully cute too. Hopefully he will too! :o)