Recently in 9. making Category
Some quick shots of the nursery I took before Sven was born. There are a few more things there now but it is still not finished. I bought some wooden letters I want to cover with fabric (inspired by Magnetic Letters project from Purl Bee) and place on the wall around the crib and the changing area. All I have to do is find some time, pick fabrics, cut out and glue... I wander how long that will take considering current circumstances?
By the way - as I mentioned earlier - we were supposed to paint the room, but then ran out of time. The room is still yellow, as it was for Luka, except that I changed the accent color from blue to red. Red shelves, red chair, red crib linens. I made the crib skirt in white/red stripes; outside of the bumper is in red/brown dots, the inside is white and it is bound in the same striped fabric as the skirt (close up). When my husband saw it, he said it is girly (it does look pink from far, but it is red!) so if we have a boy, we would have to replace it. We did have a boy, but he agreed it could stay. I like it, and I don't care - he is going to be a metrosexual, or uber sexual, or whatever the current trend is... :-)
This is a Round Tote storage bag that I made custom for a little girl for her first Easter. It will ship out tomorrow. The etsy listing is here...
On another note, I mentioned earlier my Mom and I went fabric shopping last week and here are some of the fabrics we got. First some reds on white - these are canvas weight:
Next some deep reds - the first one is canvas weight, the second one is thick but silky:
And finally some green and orange fabrics - the middle one is thick and silky, the other two are canvas weight.
And now on to some final baby sewing - swaddling blankets. And a pajama for Luka. And I have had this bag in mind that I want to make before going to the hospital...
As mentioned last week, I did some organizing of the projects that are floating around my craft room and my head and here are three that floated up to the top of the list. (By the way, I have had another big project going on for a while now - reorganizing former Office room to Craft/Guest room. I have been close to finishing it for a couple of weeks now, and I am determined it is going to be this week.) The pink fabrics are a pillow I had in mind ever since I saw a quilt made of strips in one of Kaffee Fasset's book (I believe it was the Museum Quilts?). It was actually a back of a quilt and it was made of long strips of coordinating fabrics with large floral print.
The brown fabrics is for another pillow - the bottom fabrics has a large print of off-white leaves on brown background. The top fabric is for the binding.
And finally the light green pile is flannel squares I cut up almost a year ago for a puffy quilt. I cut up 35 squares for the top out of coordinating green flannel, and 35 squares for the bottom - for the bottom I used cotton because I was afraid that the seams would be too thick. The bottom squares are 7x7 in, the top squares are 71/2x71/2 in.
I found two different ways of constructing a puffy quilt. In the first method, you sew rows of squares together, closing them on three sides, leaving one side open for stuffing. Then you stuff them, close the sides, and sew the rows together. In the other method, you simply sew all the squares together and then tear a small opening on the back, stuff them, and whip stitch the tear. In both cases, once the squares are connected and stuffed, you put the backing and binding and you are done.
I opted for the second method - I thought it would be easier to stuff the squares after they are all sewn together, then to sew strips of stuffed squares together. The first picture above shows what the quilt looked like before stuffing. And the second is a closeup of the back (before I added the flannel backing) - you can see I made a little hole in the middle of the square, stuffed it and stitched it all back together. It did not take that much time (not more than when you are aligning layers of fabric when doing a "regular" quilt.
This is the finished quilt (actually almost finished - there is no binding in this picture). It is quite heavy - maybe I stuffed the squares a bit too much, but I figured the stuffing will settle over time. When I showed it to Luka, he was excited and wanted to take it with him Saturday when we went sledding, but then the next day he did not want to put it in his tent - he opted for many pillows. He said that this "blanket" would be for the baby. OK then!
This is the finished quilt (actually almost finished - there is no binding in this picture). It is quite heavy - maybe I stuffed the squares a bit too much, but I figured the stuffing will settle over time. When I showed it to Luka, he was excited and wanted to take it with him Saturday when we went sledding, but then the next day he did not want to put it in his tent - he opted for many pillows. He said that this "blanket" would be for the baby. OK then!
This is what I have been playing with today. My Christmas present - White Serger 2500. I was using the threads it came with - I will be attempting to thread the thing some other time. But I tried the basic overlock stitch with 4 threads as well as adding elastic to the fabric. You can see what the edges look like below. Perfect.
This is sooo much easier than with a sewing machine! Now, don't get me wrong - the sewing machine is not going anywhere, but for knit fabrics (like the one in these images), adding elastic, picot edges... I will be using this puppy. I have a great Singer, but it just does not handle knit or stretchy fabrics well. It is supposed to be able to do a double needle, and it has another single needle stitch for stretchy fabrics - but whatever I tried it stretches the fabric too much while sewing and the end result is not pretty. This will work very well.
So what I made? Two changing pad covers - I cannot really model them because the old changing pad is in the trash, but, apart from cutting the fabric, it takes maybe 15 minutes to serge the four corners and add elastic around. And the edges are all finished nicely. Can't beat that!
I have had my shop on Etsy since November, and this weekend I had my first sale. And then a second one came only a day later. Feels great. A big THANK YOU to the buyers. I hope you enjoy the items for a long time. These were the items sold: 
This is the ltest addition to my shop. It is a baby blanket and a pillow set. The back of the blanket is a very soft and lightweight fleece, which makes this blanket very light and very soft and also easy to fold and put almost anywhere. All my recent blankets are like that - cotton on one side, and fleece on the other. I do not put any batting in the middle because it is really unneccesary, it would only make the blanket heavy and bulky.
I love this fabric, it is a Kaufman print I have had for a while. I never really liked any other fabric for a border, so I just waited for the perfect one. And then, one day I found a matching fabric, I guess from the same set, only with small flowers (you can almost see it on the pillow border) - and here is the pillow and the blanket set. The pillow case is removable - I have some pillows that are not removable and it takes forever to dry them - it is an envelope pillow so no buttons or ties or zippers to close it. Very simple but functional.
On another note, it has been a week since I finally cut the squares for the puff quilt.
I love this fabric, it is a Kaufman print I have had for a while. I never really liked any other fabric for a border, so I just waited for the perfect one. And then, one day I found a matching fabric, I guess from the same set, only with small flowers (you can almost see it on the pillow border) - and here is the pillow and the blanket set. The pillow case is removable - I have some pillows that are not removable and it takes forever to dry them - it is an envelope pillow so no buttons or ties or zippers to close it. Very simple but functional.
On another note, it has been a week since I finally cut the squares for the puff quilt.
I decided on a toddler quilt size with a 5x7 grid of 7"x7" squares (finished size). I am using the same fabric I used for my niece's bed set (except for the one with little pink flowers) - I just had enough for this quilt. I decided to use thin cotton (from an old sheet) for the back of these squares because flannel is rather thick, and with the little folds (for the puffs), it would make the seams too thick. At this point I am not sure what I will use for backing. I have not started to sew these, but I am thinking it will not take much longer than a reqular quilt - stuffing instead of trying to align and pin the backing and quilt the whole thing together...
Just a quick post for now. I am just about to update my movabletype install so keep your fingers crossed.
In other news, I started a new blog, just trying it really, over at vox: zum-zum.vox.com. I realize that I don;t post as often as I would like to because it is not as convenient as I would like it to be. That is also the reason I m updating mt, to see if the interface will be easier, and faster to use.
And, I have also started my very own etsy shop. But more on that later. Now on to update...
