Comfort Blanket

This is going to be a bad idea, I can just tell - getting into quilting that is. I wanted to make a little blanket for Alex to cuddle and thought I'd try my hand at quilting one. I had some flannelette that I thought would be cuddly and some cotton that was just sitting around.

After looking at lots of blogs I decided to do an hourglass pattern, though I can't remember where I saw one like it.

I cut out a whole lot of triangles with the 2 even sides measuring 3 inches. Ended up being 12 of each of the flannelette and 24 of the contrasting cotton. This would yield 12 squares.

First let me say that this is my first quilting project and I do not profess to know anything about quilting so sorry if I do something wrong.

I chain stitched into pairs one of the flannelette with one of the cotton triangles

All the seams were pressed in one direction

Then I laid the bigger triangles out to figure out how I wanted the pattern to look.

I decided on the first one and set about chain stitching the triangles together into squares, and then stitching the squares together.

This is what I got:

I don't think it's too bad for a first go. Next step, cut out the baking material and the batting and pin together.

I thought I'd go all out and try my hand at free motion quilting. I spent a lot of time researching this on other blogs and on You Tube. They all suggested doing lots of trial ones but I don't have the time or the money/material to do this. I figured this is for a baby and he isn't going to care what it's like so..... this is my first try!

Clearly there are mistakes (you can see the bunched cotton on the back) and the stitch length is all over the place but I'm rather happy with how it went for a first try.

In order to make this a bit harder for myself I wanted to do the binding with satin to make it nice to touch. I used this blog to do it.

And the finished project looks like this:

After all that it hasn't really worked out to be what I had hoped which was a cuddly blanket. It is a bit small so doesn't scrunch up very well. I'll keep it around and it may be of some use, but for a snuggle blanket I think I'll try something else.

Bandana Bib

Turns out that Alex is quite a dribbler. Rather than try and constantly wipe his chin to keep his clothes dry I thought I'd make a bandana bib to see if that works better.

I found this pattern on Mad Quilter's blog which was great. I shortened it a little bit but afterwards realised that the pattern length would be fine.

I used toweling for the back and flannelette for the front. It works quite well so may have to make another.

Kids Apron

The idea for this came from getting this material in the form of a couple of old pillowcases. It's quite heavy material and I immediately thought 'candy striper apron'

I measured Chloe up and decided that the top bib would be 15cm x 15cm with a 1 stripe seam allowance (about 1cm). The apron is 30cm long x 40cm wide. The neck bands are about 6cm wide in total x 60cm long, and the waistband is 2 pieces each 6cm wide x 75cm long (next time I would make this 1 metre).

* Sew the neck pieces into tubes, turning right way out and top stitching.

* Sandwiched these between the 2 bib pieces and sew around the 2 sides and the top, leaving the bottom open. Turn right way out.

* Fold the sides and bottom of the apron and sew around to hem the edges. (I forgot to do this step though the bottom was already hemmed from the pillowcase)

*Sew the bib to the apron, fold the bib up and press the seam down right along the length of the apron.

* Lay each of the waistband pieces on either side of the apron, approx. 2 com down from top edge. Sew along the length of the waistband and press the band up towards the bib.

* Fold down the top edges of the waistband and sew, catching the bib as you go.

* Finish the ends of the waistband and neck straps as you like - flod in and top stitch, or if you are lazy like me, just zigzag the ends.

Turned out like I had hoped and will be great for working in the kitchen.

Merino Pants

With the arrival of our little boy, Alex, I haven't had much time to do ,well, anything. He has started going to bed at the same time as Chloe so I thought I'd use my evenings to do some sewing. First up were these merino pants as the weather has suddenly got cold and Alex doesn't have any warm clothes. I have a bit of merino left over from making the blanket so I grabbed a pair of cotton pants that are a bit big for him yet and traced around them. They have a nice wide leg, but not too wide, and a bum insert to help fit over a nappy.

I sewed the elastic into the waistband at each seam to stop it twisting, and to keep it even around the pants.

Front and back views

Back view showing insert

They ended up a bit long, which is fine cause they cover his feet too...and it's not like he's going to trip over them. Much easier than trying to keep a blanket on his little kicking legs.

Our little Alex (3mths)

Now to make a black pair as I think these will be used a lot.

Embroidered Baby Outfit

This idea came from my sister who asked me to embroider a onsie for her son. I liked the finished product so much that I wanted to make one for our new one on the way.

I had a good look around to find a onsie that was plain white, and was happy when I found this one. The crossover means that the top bit can be embroidered but that the back of it wouldn't aggravate bubs skin. The one I used was from Cotton On Kids. If you can't find one like this then it's just a matter of covering the back of the embroidery with some soft fusing.

It took a while to get it all positioned, especially with the domes getting in the way, but worth spending the time to get it right. If I did it again I would probably make the lettering a bit smaller as the onsie is so small to start with.

Hopefully this can be worn by other babies from the family, and hopefully my baby is small enough to fit into it! (edited to add: He wasn't!)

Quiet Book - the book so far

I thought I'd add some pics of the book up to now, especially as I finally got the cover done and the rings to hold the pages in place.

And one of my munchkin actually playing with it - yay!

Quiet book - page 6: Apple tree

This was another one that I saw on a different blog, but of course I can't remember which one. This page requires the apples to be taken off the tree and put in the basket.

The apples are made of felt and I have backed them and done a blanket stitch around them before sewing on a snap.

The tree trunk is felt and the tree 'leaves' is cut from cut from cotton and then both have been sewn around and onto the page.

For the basket I started with 2 pieces of white cotton, one rounded a bit at the top for the back of the basket, and the other a bit concave for the front of the basket. I then sewed some gauze to the front piece of white cotton to give the basket a weave look. Then both pieces were sewn to the page. I puckered the front piece a bit so it would pouch out enough to fit the apples in.

Finally I got out my fabric paints to add the hill, some grass and a flower, otherwise the page would have been a bit blank. Then finished as I did with the others with some bias around the edge, and now it is actually in the book. Looks pretty good if I do say so myself.