{phfr} The almost TWO edition!

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~ with the lovely ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter

{pretty}

This doesn't look pretty to you? Well, that's because it's only begun in this picture. I've already finished it and I love it! What is it? It's a very special birthday surprise for my sweet little Cupcake who turns TWO this coming Monday! Yep. It's her Golden Birthday and we are giving her the moon and the stars!

{happy}

This little girl is most happy when she's outside (even if it's just outside of the dentist's office) and when she's busy. Playing hide and seek, coloring pictures, reading her books. She loves stacking things... blocks, books, pretty ribbons, whatever!

{funny}

Uh oh, Mama! He's upside down!

I wearing Mama's shoes!

Oh, she's such a funny girl! She talks CONSTANTLY and is always cracking us up with her silliness. Her teeth don't seem to be bothering her as much which is good and so far, she's handled the naptime weaning just fine. We are still nursing at bedtime but I've even noticed that she's not falling completely asleep while nursing anymore.

{real}

 So, I wanted to make her some little kitchen mitts and potholders. The potholders turned out fine but the kitchen mitt was too small. Well, it fits her right now but won't for long. I'm going to revamp my design and try again. I didn't use a pattern or a tutorial, just kind of did my own thing. That probably accounts for the 50% success/failure rate.

 Have a great rest of the week and an especially lovely long weekend (if you get to have one). We will be celebrating our sweet Cupcake on Monday so I'm sure I'll be back later with tons of pictures. Bye now!

Sew Successful!

My girls, along with another sweet friend, are taking a couple of sewing classes. I'm really hoping they learn the proper way to sew, then they can teach me! I learned to sew for the theater with lots of shortcuts and jimmy-rigging. It's served me well when I've needed it, but I wish I knew more about proper sewing techniques.

Anyway, their first project was a pillowcase with a little accent color at the opening. They picked out their colors and everything. Sunshine's had a vintagey vibe while Shortcake's was more fantastical. Aren't they adorable? The pillow cases, too!

 

Extreme Makeover ~ Dolly Edition!

So, y'all convinced me. In fact, with only half of the total opinions in, I already had her under the knife, or scissors, actually! It was a complicated operation, but the patient had a great attitude and should recover nicely.

Caution... naked dolly pictures ahead! If you faint at the sight of wool stuffing, please avert your eyes!

First step, to make her more huggable, I opened her back to remove some of the stuffing from her torso area. I didn't need a big hole, just big enough to get a crochet hook in there to start the removal process.

I found that not only was this dolly stuffed tightly, she was stuffed using really large wads of stuffing. I like to stuff my dolls with little bits of stuffing which is why they end up squishier, I think.

I tried to remove her arm at the shoulder but found that her arm was a single tube that went all the way through her body (also not the way I make mine because then their arms are always splayed open never falling down at their sides). So I ended up opening a seam up under her arms (to minimize scarring) and removing the stuffing that way. There again, not a big hole, just small enough to pull the stuffing out and put some back in in little bits. Once her arms and legs were done (I opened the legs high up on the inner thigh) I stitched her back together with a blind hem stitch. It took a lot out of her but I think she'll pull through! Hah hah hah, I crack myself up! Actually, it was about a quart size baggie of stuffing. Maybe I'll use it to sew her a nice pillow or stuffed animal.

Next step, I started chopping the hair off as close to the stitched line as I could using very small, very sharp pointy scissors. It came off easily and I knew that any remainder would be hidden under the new wig cap.

I decided not to change the face because my big girls said they liked it, buy you can see where the stitching for the eyes and the mouth was hidden under the hair. It would have been easy to change that if I wanted to.

Here she is with her wig cap on. My kids said it looked like an old fashioned bathing cap! 

Then we gave her new hair and a pretty side part and voila!!!

A new old dolly who fits in nicely with the purple haired Cutie Beautie and the fiery redhead, Dorothy Ann. She doesn't have a name yet. We are going to let Cupcake tell us what it is once she decides. That could take a while.

 

Pinning It Down {4} Baby Book of Colors

Click to see more!

I didn't think I'd get this one finished in time for this week's link-up, but a baby who took a super long nap, then stayed up way too late plus a patient husband who loves playing with silly-happy-I'm-not-tired-babies all worked together to help me make this happen.

I have been itching to make something for Cupcake lately. You crafty types know what I'm talking about. It's almost compulsive! Well, since I don't have the yarn I need for a blanket I have in mind, I turned my attention to this beautiful soft book of colors, because fabric scraps I have plenty of!

I was woefully lacking in oranges and yellows (guess they're not exactly my favorite colors) so rather than a rainbow theme like Baby Finn's book in the tutorial, I made just a book of colors and called it....

One thing I did different--- when you are ready to stitch the batting to the layered squares in step 6, I didn't just stitch the top, right side and bottom. I also stitched the corners on the left side, just about an inch each, so that there was still an open space to turn it inside out but the corners were already done. 

As you can see, she really likes it! She's already read it, touched it, and chewed on it which is the equivalent of 2 thumbs up in baby speak. 

Her sisters had a ball with remembering where all the little scraps of color came from. 

A quiltie for a cousin, an Easter dress sash, a nightie gown, even a pair of pajama bottoms are in there.

Sleepy tired serious faced baby!

I used some adorable cupcake fabric that my SIL decorated her table with for Cupcake's baby shower for the cover. I have never made a quilt square before. Maybe a crazy quilt square wasn't the smartest one to start off with but I think I got the hang of it after a awhile. You'll notice that some pages are less crazy than others. Other than that, it was fairly easy.

Hey... speaking of stitching and fabric... did you sign up for the giveaway in the post below?

Bandana Blankets :: a tutorial and a giveaway!!!

Please, whatever you do, please, please, pleeeeeease... don't sew like I do! I learned to sew in the back of a very tiny little theater, this tiny little theater in fact, from a technical director who was a magician with a sewing machine but lived by that old theater adage that things only needed to last 7 nights and only look good in the dark. I hope that what I lack in technique I make up for in enthusiasm!

So, here is a tutorial on how to make a bandana blanket and anyone who reads the whole thing, or just skips down to the combox at the end and leaves a comment will be entered in a little giveaway!

Step One: Prepare your fabric.

Choose your backing fabric and your coordinating bandanas. They can be different colors or all the same color. It's up to you. I like to make a 2x2 blanket for babies and a 2x3 for toddlers and little kids. So that means 4 bandanas for a baby blanket or 6 for a toddler blanket. You'll need 1 1/2 - 2 yds. of fabric for the back and batting for the middle. You can purchase batting off a bolt or just pick up a package of crib size batting. It's the perfect size for these blankets but buying it off the bolt is sometimes cheaper. Make sure your fabric is all cotton because really, it's the best! (I have used both cotton and poly batting, it usually depends on what I can find and afford.)

Machine wash and dry your bandanas and your fabric. Then you will want to iron everything except the batting of course. Well, you may not WANT to, but you need to. You'll thank me later.

Step Two: Sew the bandanas in pairs. 

Here's the funny thing about bandanas. They are not always perfectly square and sometimes the borders are not perfectly even. Most of them are a smidge rectangular. So, you're going to want to hold two (different colors if you are using different colors) up to a window or a light and try to match up the printed designs, not the corners of the bandana. Also, they may not look like they have right sides, but most bandanas do so make sure you've got your right sides together.

It's weird, I know but it makes the blanket lie much smoother in the long run. It doesn't have to be perfect, just eyeball it!

Chances are, your corners and edges will not match up. It's OK. You're gonna cut those off anyway.... not now, but later. 

Pin one side.

Stitch it.

Use the pattern as your guide for your seam allowance. I eyeball it to about an inch from the edge of the printed design.

Trim it.

I like to use pinking shears.

Iron it.

Open or flat to one side, makes no difference.

Repeat for remaining two or four bandanas. You don't need to be concerned yet about which side which color is on. Just get them sewed in pairs on one side.

Step three: Sew the bandanas all together.
Here is where color placement becomes an issue if you've got multicolored bandanas. With right sides together, you want opposite colors facing each other. Line them up according to the center seam, ignoring the edging and use the see-through technique or fold up the top one to get them straight across again.

Then, pin it, stitch it, trim it and iron it again. Just that one side.

So that when you open it, it looks like this:

And when you flip it over, it looks like this:

Don't worry if your seams don't match up exactly. Mine don't... bet you'd never notice in the dark!

If you are making a larger quilt, do this step all over again for your third set of bandanas and it should look like this:

Step Four: Sewing it all together
Here is how I like to layer it. Find yourself a large space on the floor or at a table and spread out your batting nice and smooth. Then place your backing fabric, right side up  on top of the batting. It will lay out nice and smooth because you ironed it! You're welcome. Finally, place your bandana topper, right side down, on top of the backing fabric. Should look like this:

Pin it all the way around leaving an opening big enough for your hand to fit through on one end.

I like to mark my opening with double pins so I don't accidentally stitch it closed.

Trim it... 

...especially the corners.

Flip it inside out. Don't forget to poke out the corners.

Step Five: Finishing it.

Once you make sure the corners are nice and pointy, turn the opening inside itself and iron it flat. 

Use a blind hem stitch to stitch it closed. You can probably find a YouTube video showing you how if you don't know. It looks like this:

And now... you are done!

Don't fret if it's not perfectly even or even straight. In my experience it usually looks like this...

...so no one will even notice. Plus, it'll be dark.

These blankets machine wash and dry beautifully. The more you use them, the softer they get!

Hello?

Is anyone still there?

And now for the giveaway!

Leave me a comment or send me an email and tell me about your favorite blanket (it can be one that you loved or one that your kids love) and I will select a winner who will receive the bandana blanket featured in this tutorial! 

That's right. 

The very one you saw me put together here! 

One lucky person will get to own it, mismatched seams and all. :-)

I'm leaving this giveaway open until Thursday and will announce a winner on Friday. Feel free to spread the word and share the chance to win! Anyone can enter, you don't even have to have a baby right now. Please make sure you leave me an email address so I can contact you if you are the winner!