BBJ's Quilt

We're making progress, y'all! I really hope to get the top of this quilt pieced together this week. I've had the little 9-patch blocks done forever, but I froze after that.
I decided on an unbleached cotton for the sashing, and I'm really excited about how this is coming out.

The original pattern made a lap-sized quilt. I'm stretching it a good two feet longer to make it into a twin-sized quilt for BBJ's bed. Instead of 9 9-patch blocks, I added an extra row to make 12. I've also added an extra inch to the horizontal sashing, plus an extra inch to the external vertical sashing. (I promise that will all make sense when you see the finished quilt!)

The fabric for the blocks are all vintage bed linens. The sashing is unbleached cotton, from IKEA.

I'm just loving how this is turning out!!

A New Pair of Trousers

During the week, I came across a tutorial over at KoJo Designs to make pants for your little one. (If you've never seen their site, by the way...GO. Gorgeous ideas for parties and weddings. So inspiring!) Hers, of course, were hip and eco friendly and awesome - she made a little pair of yoga pants for her dude out of one of her husband's old t-shirts.
Like I said - Awesome.

Here, the weather has turned chilly - we have a high of 56 one day this week. I needed something a bit more substantial than a t-shirt!

I dug through my stash and came up with a cheap fleece blanket I picked up at Goodwill last Spring. I had intended to cut it into strips to use as filling in my fleece baby blocks. Since I hadn't needed it up to this point, I figured the blanket wouldn't mind being a pair of pants before it became stuffing in a block!

I think the trousers came out rather cute! I used a pair of his sweatpants as a pattern.

The drawstring is three long narrow strips of fleece, braided together. (So, so clever!!)

The pants fit great, and kept my little dude warm.

Please ignore the bits of food on the floor. He's playing underneath the kitchen table right after lunch. How can I tell it's right after lunch? The ants hadn't finished carrying away the leftovers yet. Those little dudes are industrious! And fast. Very, very fast. No wonder the grasshopper wanted to free-load off of them!

Unfortunately, my fabric choice could have been a bit better. Crawling babies are rough on the knees of their pants. I'm seeing the wisdom of sweatpants material! (What is that stuff called?) By that evening, the pants were already pilling up. Oh well! They're fabulous around-the-house lounge pants. I'm thinking of making up a pair for me, next!

Pigpen

Do you remember watching Peanuts when you were a kid? The old Snoopy cartoons?

There's a kid on the show called Pigpen. He's a nice enough kid, but people kind of avoid him, or compensate, because he has this CLOUD of dust that follows him. Everywhere.

Why do I bring it up?

Oh, no reason.

(See those size three jeans over on the side there? They're a part of my CLOUD.)

Crafting has been to a minimum lately. With these two tailing my every move, and the smaller one taking two 30 minute naps during the day...pulling out the scissors and thread is a risky proposition, at best!

At night, once they're all down...I'd really rather just lay on the couch with Lo Gung and watch So You Think You Can Dance or Project Runway!

The other day, though, I snapped. I had to create something, or I'd go nuts. I had to make something that they wouldn't eat, lick, destroy or throw on the floor.

So I sat down and made a birthday banner for the lass, and a new pair of trousers for the wee lad.

Aaah. Much better.

Now. Where were we?

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Two of my son's friends turned 1 a few weeks ago, and he was invited to their birthday party! The boys are twins, and adorable. Since this was Siu Jeun's first birthday party to attend, I wanted to make sure he had a present he would be happy to give them.

Aprons, of course!

I made up matching aprons, in different colors, and appliqued the boys' first initials on the front in white fleece. The aprons are re-purposed (upcycled? What's the cool term now?) pillow cases.

The aprons were a snap to make. Getting Siu Jeun to model them?

Not so much.
(Hold him down, BBJ! Don't let him get away!)

BBJ and I took care to make some little cards for the boys.
(The aprons are a new style for me - the pocket is folded up, instead of appliqued on. I'm not sure which style I like better yet.)

Hats!

A while back, during a massive blog hopping event, I won some free patterns from You Can Make This. When I took off for two weeks with my family at a gorgeous lakeside home, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try out one of the patterns!

I made a patchwork bucket hat...minus the patchwork. I was on a deadline, and had to make four hats. Two of the hats had to be altered to have chin straps so that teenies couldn't tear them off.

I got measurements from my sister, and set about making hat for all of the Smalls - three girl hats, and one for my little man.

Unfortunately, something was off in the measurements so that the smallest hat (Siu Jeun's) and the biggest hat (Ernie, my niece) weren't even close to fitting. Siu Jeun's could be crammed onto his head when I took this shot, but by the time we got to our reunion, the hat was way too small. Ernie's was the same way.

Oh, and the other baby figured out how to pull hers off, even with the chin strap tied.

Oh well - at least they're cute!

A Present for BBJ

A few weeks ago, when I was making this baby quilt for a friend, my daughter got jealous...as two year old girls are wont to do.

She first wanted to know if the quilt I was working on was for her. (No.) Who is it for? (Baby Clyde.)

Then the kicker.

"Where's my present?"

(Only, it was way cuter because she has issues with her "s" sound, and they end up just being a sort of a nasal sort of a *snuffle*, and she really said, "Where's my pre'hjnent?" See? Way cuter. Moving on.)

Thinking quickly, because I rock like that, I assured her that she had a "pre'hjnent" in the works, and I would get to work on it just as soon as she left me in peace long enough to finish Baby Clyde's "pre'hjnent."

Score one for mommy!

Wanna see what I was talking about?

Click over here.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

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Isn't it gorgeous?! A friend and I are following the tutorial and making twin-sized girlie quilts. (We modified the original pattern, which was a 3x3, to make it 3x4. We'll modify the sashing a bit, too, to make the quilts long/wide enough to cover a twin sized bed.)

Funny story - as we started gathering the vintage sheets we wanted to use, we scoured several thrift shops in the area. My friend even found a few gems when she went home to Ohio to see her folks. We were still short a few prints, but we started prepping what we had anyhow. As we went through our fabrics, my friend noticed that one of our fabrics (a green affair, with little pink and white flowers) was identical to one of the fabrics that the author of the tutorial had used. Weird, right?

It gets better.

I put out a call on our local Freecycle network to see if anyone had any old floral sheets languishing in their linen closets. Lo and behold, someone answered my call. When I went to pick up the sheets, guess what I found mixed into the bag.

The same green sheet.

Are there any linens experts out there that could tell me why every search for vintage bed linens seems to turn up this particular sheet??!

(Note - I'm so proud of myself because, today, I finished sewing up all those scraps in the shoebox below into 9-patch blocks. Woot!)

Do you see that lovely print, on the left hand side of the second row? That's the crazy sheet that everyone seems to have in their closets!

So, here's where I beg for y'all's input. If you clicked over to see the quilt tutorial, you would have noticed that her quilt has white sashing (the stripes between the little 9-patch blocks). I had intended to do white, but looking at the block in the picture above...there's already a lot of white going on. What color do you recommend?

Fabric Covered Notebooks (a tutorial)

Greetings and salutations! Are y'all ready for a really quick, easy back to school project?

You are? Really??!

Then let's get started!

These are super simple...and oh, so fun.
If you're going to make them, now is a GREAT time - composition notebooks are on sale at Target, $.50 a piece! (They're usually only $1.09, though...so, either way - not an expensive project.)
I based them off of a tutorial online...but, of course, now I can't find it!! (If anyone knows where the tute is, let me know, and I'll link up? Thanks!)

The original tute had you use Wonder Under, or a similar fusible web, and you ironed the fabric on. I improvised, taking into account my composition notebooks (as opposed to the more expensive moleskine notebooks from the tute) and the different adhesive. Ready?

Gather your materials. You'll need:
1 tapebound notebook (spiral just won't work for this project)
spray adhesive (I use the Scotch stuff with the purple lid)
Fabric (I like home dec weight, but anything will do)
Scissors

Lay your fabric out on the table, wrong side up. Open up your notebook and lay it on the fabric. Measure the notebook, open, and cut out a rectangle of fabric that is 1" larger than the notebook, all the way around. (For example, my notebook's dimensions are 9 3/4" x 7 1/2". That means, my notebook, open, is 9 3/4" x15". So, I rounded up: I needed a rectangle of fabric that was 12" x 17". Make sense?)

At this point, lay your fabric over the cover of your book and look carefully - can you see the pattern of the cover through your fabric? If you can, then you might want to stop and cut some solid-color paper the same size as your notebook covers. Glue those down with a glue stick, and then proceed to cover the notebook. Make sure your faux-covers cover the cardboard section, only, and don't go over onto the black binding tape.

Lay out some newsprint or something else that will protect your work surface - you want it to be MUCH larger than the piece of fabric you're spraying. (Unless, of course, you LIKE to have your sewing table sticky for the next two weeks?) (Alternately, just lay your fabric on your porch, spray it and run inside to finish the rest of the project. Your call. Even WITH precautionary measures...my work station always gets really sticky after this project.)

Now, lay your fabric out, wrong side up. Spray it with your spray adhesive, making sure to get it all the way to the edges.
Grab your closed notebook and press the spine to the center of your piece of fabric.

Now, carefully open up the front cover of your book and press it to the fabric, leaving the back cover vertical.

Now, close the book towards the front cover, then flip the book onto its back cover and press to adhere the fabric to that side. Make sure you smooth out any air bubbles and that the book can be opened and closed - that's why you stick one side and then the other.

Open the book back up, and cut a slit above and below the spine of the book. Next, cut out squares at each corner of the cover.

Open one cover of the book and fold down the extra fabric. First, the top, then the bottom, then the side.

Repeat with the back cover, and you're done!

There. Wasn't that quick and painless?! Once you've got your materials laid out, you can whip these out in just a few minutes each.

Let me know if you do this project - I'd love to see pics!

*Shopping notes - I bought my spray adhesive at JoAnn's, my notebooks at Target (on sale, currently, for $.50 a piece, usually $1.09) and my fabric is from IKEA. Our IKEA here seems to have a sale each May where one line of their fabric is on sale for $.99 a yard. This year, it was several gorgeous canvas prints, the Katarina line. If you've never checked out the fabric at IKEA, please do so! It's really lovely, and quite high quality. You'll find it in the drapery and rug section, not in the showroom.