Baby Things

I've been having such fun making baby things for Emily's baby, and other kids and babies-to-be. These are two "bath buddies" I made from leftover terry cloth (see project #2 below). The pattern was in an issue of Stitch. They have such cute things in there. There are a couple other animal faces to use on these, but since I had blue fabrics, I opted for the bear. I think I'll give one of these to Alex.

These are some hooded towels (and matching washcloth) I made for Emily. I had these two orange prints that I love, but I only had 1/2 yard of each. I started out to make the hooded towel from the pattern on the Purl Bee blog, but that one has the whole towel backed with fabric. I didn't think that made a lot of sense for a baby towel and I didn't have enough fabric for that anyway, so I just got a nice thick, double-sided terry cloth and used the fabric for the hood and the binding.

And this is my version of the baby counting book that Emily made, too - it's also from a pattern in Stitch. I agree with Emily that the pattern for this was really poor. But I just improvised and I love it - I would definitely make it again and just use fusible webbing for all the numbers and shapes.

For the cover, the pattern says to use rubber stamps to stamp the numbers. I couldn't find any stamp ink for fabric, so I used fabric paint. But I didn't trust myself to get it right the first time, so I stamped the numbers on a separate piece of fabric. Then when I had a pretty good set, I sewed that strip to the front and used the rick-rack to cover the seams.

Stay tuned...I'm still working on a quilt and a knit sweater!

Liar!

I like how Diane tries to pretend she's not crafty
http://just-humor-me.blogspot.com/2010/11/homemade-for-holidays.html

Emily's Redwork

Quite a few years ago, when Emily was learning to sew and embroider, she and I worked together on some redwork embroidery squares.

I think we ordered the patterns from Better Homes and Gardens. Emily was probably around 12, and we completed some blocks then they got tucked away with all our other unfinished projects. Recently I ran across them, washed and ironed them, and cleaned up a few stray threads - they looked great! So I decided to put them together into a quilt for her and/or the baby. They're a bit girly for a baby boy, so I picked a neutral sashing fabric that isn't too childish-looking. I had 16 blocks that were completed and I used those for the quilt top.

There was one extra block that was bit messy - it was probably our practice one! But I used it for the quilt label. I didn't even know what year to put on the label (!) so I just put that it was quilted this year.

And one good thing about Emily being stranded in CA this past week is that I was able to finish it while she was here!