Awesome gift

When our second anniversary was nearing, I was searching through Facebook, looking for photos of our first 2 years of marriage. While we had documented many of the fun things we had done together, there were many things we were missing photos for. One of the main reasons (besides forgetfulness), is that I have a beautiful camera that’s too large/lovely to take along for occasions like walking, camping, hiking, dancing with friends, etc. We were discussing that one of our main goals for the next year of marriage is to do a better job capturing some of the fun times we have together, so we would have photos to job our memories as the years rolled by.

Which, is what made this such a perfect gift. For our anniversary, this weekend, my mom gave us the following camera:

I am super excited to use this to capture the next years of our marriage, and look forward to having more photos to look back on. Thanks for the perfect gift, Mom!

Thrifting Thursdays

So before you declare a triumphant return from the almost dead … you should probably make sure you have triumphantly returned from the almost dead. Alas, still fighting some sort of illness off. However, I wanted to make a very special post for Thrifting Thursdays. This probably doesn’t completely count – as it was a gift, and not a thrift – but I think it fits.

This, along with the beautiful quilt featured in an earlier post, was one of the most meaningful wedding gifts we received. Matt’s aunts gave me, collectively, this Pyrex bowl that belonged to his grandma, who unfortunately passed away before I could meet her. This came along with a copy of a family recipe book they had put together. Each of the grandkid’s wives receive one of the grandma’s bowls as a wedding present. What a neat tradition. It was especially neat in our case as I collect Pyrex bowls just because I like them – and this one obviously means so much more. Matt’s grandparents didn’t have much, and his grandma cooked all of the meals for her very large family. They had a huge vegetable garden and his grandma used everything they grew, canning much of it to make it through the long South Dakotan winters. I’m sad I never got to meet his grandparents on that side, as I would have loved to seek their gardening advice. However, I am thankful that thanks to his kind aunts, a piece of his grandma will always be a part of our kitchen.

See other great vintage items here.

Another owl – sensing a theme?

Oh, the powers of social media. I made a stuffed owl for my baby cousin, and her mom posted an adorable pic of the sweet baby and the owl. One of her friends saw my owl, and requested one herself! So fun, and so amazing that someone in Missouri can make something for someone in Iowa and someone in North Carolina sees the post and orders one. Small world. 🙂 I really hope she loves him – I think he turned out really cute!

My quilting hero

… is my Aunt Carol, or technically, my husband’s Aunt Carol. She is an incredible quilter, and can whip out even complicated patterns in an afternoon. She works for a fabric store, and has previously been a professional sewer.

She’s also insanely generous, and has provided me with quilting books, quilting magazines, and the beautiful Bernina I have. She also made us this beautiful quilt for our wedding gift.

I would guess that a lot of quilters have someone who turned them on to the hobby. Who was your inspiration?

Baby blanket – trials and tribulations

I wrote earlier about finding the perfect fabric for a coworker’s coming baby. Here are the fruits of the effort:

The perfect fabric

 

The backing

 

The blanked turned out pretty cute, but not exactly as planned. I thought this would be the perfect project to try some machine quilting on, since it was small. However, the flannel fabrics kept sticking to the all cotton batting, making it almost impossible to lay the layers completely flat. So, I ended up tying the quilt to finish it.

On the plus side, the flannels are super soft and it should make a very comfortable blanket for a newborn. 🙂 Readers – does anyone have suggestions to offer for layering batting and flannel fabrics and keeping everything smooth?

An owl softie for Cameron

I have made some improvements over my last owl. I love the bright, springy, girlie but not icky fabric. And the sewing has improved drastically since the last effort, if I may say so myself.

This owl, along with some baby blocks, was a gift to my cousin Cameron for her first birthday. She was giving the owl hugs before we left, so, I am hoping that’s a good sign!

Quick, cute baby gift project

Have you ever had a baby shower to go to and needed a gift really quickly? Or just a little something to add a homemade touch to a baby gift? This is the perfect project for a situation like this. If you craft on a regular basis, you probably have everything you need already. The project takes fewer than 30 minutes, and best of all – babies actually love them.

Cute, easy and practical - can you beat that?

First of all, can we mention how cute the fairytale flannel fabric is??

OK. This is a taggie-style little blanket, perfectly sized for baby’s pincher grasps and small enough to stick into a diaper bag, tuck into a stroller pocket or comfort a baby in a baby carrier. Making these is super easy. Cut out two equal sized squares from flannel fabric. This project had 6X6 inch squares. Cut out a variety of different satin ribbons – about 2.5-3 inches long.

Place flannel fabric squares right sides together. Insert satin ribbon, folded in half, between the two pieces of flannel, with tails of ribbon sticking out. Pin into place. Repeat until you have enough ribbon ‘taggies’. Sew 1/4 inch seam around the entire square, leaving about 1.5 inches unsewn in order to flip the blanket right side out. Flip right side out, sew remaining space closed. Then, sew a second time around the completed blanket on the right side, half an inch in, securing ribbons in place so that ribbons do not detach when baby plays/sucks on the tags. And that’s it, you’re done!

An owl for Luke

I brought in an owl I sewed for my cousin’s first birthday (to be posted this weekend after she has received it) to work today, and my coworker Kim requested one for her son. I realized I didn’t have many boy friendly fabrics. So, I broke my long streak of not buying fabrics happily, and went to the cute sewing store in downtown Maryville to pick out some beautiful woolen, brushed flannels in gender-neutral and boy-friendly prints.

When I finished the owl cut outs as I traditionally do, something seemed missing. I decided to add eyelashes and it made him perfect.

The only downside to this beautifully soft fabric (perfect for a baby boy’s hugs) is that it was much stretchier than the quilting cotton I was used to working with, which meant when it came time to stuff him, the stuffing stretched his shape a bit. However, I think it can be a worthy tradeoff for a snuggly baby toy.

I wish I had a better place to take photos after dark – the colors are terrible in this photo. Look at the eyelashes, though!

And on that note, back to the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. Yes. I don’t know which is better – the adorable dogs or the hysterical commentary.

Also, the Purina shelter ads are making me cry.

Another gift for Riley

I mentioned my cousin’s upcoming fourth birthday and the first part of his present here. The other half, I completed Sunday night.

Riley is the quintessential boy’s boy – he loves trucks, cars, anything with wheels. And recently, he’s fallen in love with fire trucks.

When trying to decide what to get him to go with the aforementioned monster mittens, I wanted to get something fireman/fire truck related but didn’t want to accidentally get him something he already had/would get for his birthday. So, after much deliberation, I decided to try my hand at creating a fireman puppet.

To the rescue

If I were to do it again, I might make a few changes. The hat isn’t quite right, and I would have sewn a separate jacket and sewed it on top of a puppet base. Nevertheless, I think it turned out pretty cute and I think a 4-year-old’s imagination might overcome my pattern’s shortcomings.

One of our dogs was certainly fascinated with the creation, though:

Mmm ... firefighter puppet ...