Rattle Cube - The Fancy Version

A friend just had a baby girl so it was a great excuse to try something that I had been thinking about recently. This is my way of mixing the cloth book with the rattle cube to make it a bit more interesting. The letters are her initials and the flower on the top has crinkly petals.

The crinkly petals were a bit of a challenge. After trying to sew a petal right sides together then turn right way out (not easy with plastic involved) I ended up drawing around a template onto a piece of felt, then sandwiching my plastic between that and another piece of felt, then sewing inside the lines I had drawn.

After this I cut along the lines and then zig-zaged the edges so that it was tidy and you couldn't see any pen marks.

I trimmed the ends of the petals until they were the length I wanted (I knew they would hang over a bit but I'm happy with that). I then cut a pentagon to fit in the middle so there wasn't a big hole in the middle. I straight stitched then zig-zaged the petals onto the material and once I had put the green centre on that was straight stitched then zig-zaged as well. Those petals aren't going anywhere!

The letters were put on a satin square with Heat 'N Bond then I zig-zaged the edges.

These are the squares ready to be sewn together.

Here's the final cube. I added a loop so it can be attached to things.

I'm actually pretty happy with this and a little sad to give it away, but I'm also excited to be giving it as a pressie for this new precious little bundle.

Pin cushion

I have spent far too many evenings looking at craft blogs!

I found this cute pincushion on one and realised I needed a pin cushion so here is my version:

I folded my circle wrong so ended up with more segments but it still worked out OK. The ribbon you can just see at the top is to hang it from my bobbin winder while sewing.

Bibs

I felt that I needed more bibs and had my nice green microfleece from Greenbeans so I made some.

The first was from a pattern I found on the internet, and of course I can't find it again (sorry!). I really like that it does up at the side which makes it much easier when Alex is lying down or in his car seat. It has microfleece on the front and toweling on the back. Not in the photo is the dome I added to do it up with.

This works really well at catching the food but needed to be a bit bigger so the next one I squared the bottom and widened it a bit. Next time I will make the transition from the neck bit to the square bit a bit less angular. The white bit is microfleece so is nice and soft around his neck. The bottom navy bit is flannelette and again it has toweling on the back. I quite like the look of this one with the contrasting colours.

I have just ordered some more microfleece so will have a think on how I will do the next one.

Soft Baby Book - take 3

I have been having so much fun with these that I thought I'd try one for my nephew. I changed things up a little with different colour pages and couple of different ideas.

Warning: Photo overload :)

The apple has plastic in between 2 pieces of fabric so it crinkles. It's only sewn at the top.

The body of the sheep is microfleece.

Shark with rick-rack waves.

Shapes that can fold down/up/sideways.

Rugby ball that has batting underneath to make it squishy.

Truck with fluffy velcro tipper.

Boat with satin sails.

Starting the quilt

I have finally finished cutting out the fabric for my snuggly squares baby quilt. It took a while as I did a few other projects at the same time but here are the finished piles:

The longest strips are for the binding, and the others are for the sashing.

and this is my bag of nearly 200 little 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" squares.

I decided to cut some more of the little squares as I will do strip across the back of the quilt. I was able to get the backing fabric (plain white) at Spotlight at 40% off (woot!).

Now onto the chain stitching....