It seems like I've been doing a lot of sewing lately, which is fun and a much needed creative outlet for me.
I started with a baby blanket for some good friends who had their first baby a couple months back...a sweet little girl!
I love how pretty all the blues, greens and yellows look with brown
all of my blankets pass the Ollie test of approval...he LOVES these blankets and will try to carry them around the house and snuggle them when I'm not looking.
here's Joshy holding up the entire blanket
Next I give you:
My crowning achievement in blanket making thus far:
My first scrappy quilt (with many more to come...it was so much fun to make!):
This is a special quilt that I made for our new nephew Jackson who was born in December to Brent's younger sister and her husband. When I heard that their baby was coming to them with spina bifida I knew that I wanted to make them a special blanket. I asked her what colors she wanted and she told me to make it colorful! How fun! I got some of the squares from my friend
SewSara's etsy shop, and I cut the rest of them myself, added a border, backed it with some cuddly minky (which will probably be too hot for where they live right now :-o), and I used
SewSara's tutorial (this is a great tutorial!) for appliqueing Jackson's name on the bottom. I hope that he'll love this blanket his whole life!
here's a close up of some of the squares and the diagonal quilting I did with my machine
not great pictures...but another example of Ollie loving on the baby blanket!
Here is a sample of fabrics that I've been collecting, which I think will be gorgeous together in a quilt for my living room...for those days where you want to cuddle by the fire (I had a lot of those days this winter because I was SO COLD in my first trimester!)...and I have been needing a cute blanket which matches my living room's colors.
I'm excited about this project...
but first, I'm finishing a special quilt for Elsa...
it's been on my shelf for the past two and a half years and my heart needs me to finish it now.
(Pictures to come.)
Here's a little maternity t-shirt re-do/re-purpose whatever you want to call it:
I wish I had a before picture, but basically the little square graphic came from an itty-bitty maternity t-shirt that I bought online, on sale toward the end of Oliver's pregnancy. The website told me: one size fits most. Ha! Hahahahahahahahaha!! When I got it, it was more like: one size fits a teeny, tiny x-small teen pregnant mama. I'm telling you! There was nothing about it that was one size fits most! It was smaller than my non maternity shirts and was not at all stretchy to accommodate a bigger size! Seriously, I wear a medium or a large...so I consider myself to fit into the "one size fits most" category! Anyway...I had this idea many moons ago to re-purpose my kids most beloved t-shirts that they outgrow by cutting out the graphic and simply sewing it on a bigger shirt. Very easy! I never actually got around to doing it for my kids, but I went and bought a big old white maternity shirt from a re-sale store and I appliqued the graphic from that tiny shirt onto this gap t-shirt. Now it'll actually fit me at the END of my pregnancy, when I'm actually nesting. :)
Here's my last project, for now:
A big, old Eddie Bauer comfy, cotton dress that I bought on clearance at the outlets many moons ago, but never wore because it was extremely large. I just couldn't make myself get rid of it because I like the colors and the fabric is so soft. I always imagined re-purposing it someday into a maternity dress. Well, I finally did that by taking a few inches off the opening of the collar and gathering the bodice above the belly for a more flattering fit.
Before and after
I really wanted this dress to be a long, flowy summer dress...but alas, it is not quite long enough to be maxi-length. I think I'm going to have to hem it to just below my knees, but I haven't decided yet.
this gathering is really, super easy to do with that stretchy, elastic thread in your bobbin and regular thread on the top.
I wish I could say Happy Springtime, but where we are the weather has been so difficult lately! We finally got our first snow last week and we got some more today. Other than that it's been raining all the time. I feel jipped because when we came up here 5 years ago (!) to search for a house in March, it was so warm we were wearing shorts! That's the kind of spring weather I thought I was signing up for! Hopefully the sun will come out next week for spring break!
One of my
major goals for last year was to do service and/or raise money for Mamababy Haiti in honor of Elsa. One of the very first ideas that I had was to sew a bunch of blankets and stuff and sell them, donating all the proceeds to Mamababy Haiti. I named my brand "Sweet Meadowlark" as a way to honor and preserve a little girl who didn't stay long enough, but still touched the hearts of many. As time went on, I realized that I really did not have enough time or motivation to make that a reality, but I did decide on a one-time fund raiser instead.
THANK YOU once again to everyone who donated money to Mamababy Haiti for Elsa's birthday. I do believe that we have now reached my goal of raising $500. Incredible. And I can tell you that the money has helped with WONDERFUL things, most namely a generator for their clinic/birth center so that they can have lights and running water at all times. This is such a blessing to the people of Haiti.
It took me a few months, but I finally mailed out the blankets to the winners of the drawing. I LOVED the way they turned out, and I hope the families who get them loved them too. I thought I would post some pictures of my sweet meadowlark blankets:
this one had super soft coordinating blue minky on the back
this one had super soft coordinating white minky on the back
These blankets went out to two little girls who I hope love and cuddle with them for years to come.
I LOVE the birdie appliques.
10.31.11
Halloween!
{I know I'm running behind on this one, but after I'm done with October I'm so much closer to being caught up since I don't have many adventures from November and December to post! So excited to be caught up, and then hopefully print a book for the year!}
Ever since Toby got a Star Wars video game for his birthday in June, the boys have wanted to have a Jedi Halloween
{until they saw Voltron on Netflix and decided they wanted that, but I insisted against it...}. Jedi was very easy for me since I already made the cloaks for Joshua's birthday party several years back
{it was so many years back that it was on my old blog...unbelievable! That should have been my first warning sign. Actually click here if you want to find that birthday part. It's really cute!}. I just had to sew a couple of pants and a sash. Looking back, I really could've done a better job on their costumes, but oh well. I had too much fun working on MY costume. At the last minute, on the night of the trunk or treat, I decided to throw costumes together for Brent and I in the Star Wars theme as well.
STAR WARS
We were wishing you a Happy Halloween {at the time}
from Luke, Ewok, Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Obi Wan Kanobi
I had a bunch of problems with the big boys' costumes. First of all, the cloaks {which I made for Joshua's 6TH birthday party, and I thought would still fit} were way too small. Sad. Also, I didn't measure for their pants, and those ended up way too big. And I couldn't find Joshua a white long sleeve shirt to wrap himself up with and tie a sash around. Coulda done WAY better. Oh well.
Ollie on the other hand, wore his little friend (who is 11 months older than him) costume from last year, which we had been planning on doing for many months. Only it was too small too because Oliver is such a TALL boy! He was busting out of the costume.
Then there was Brent's Han Solo costume. I had less than 30 minutes til we had to leave, and I looked at a picture of Han Solo and got major inspiration. It's a good thing he was being a good sport because I handed him my jeans to wear...yep that's right, he's wearing MY pants! Han wears tight pants, Brent does not. I have not laughed as hard all year, as I did when I handed Brent my pants. They were a perfect fit. We must be the exact same size...go figure! Then he wore his black galoshes, and a funky blazer over an oxford shirt. But the other funny part, which I WISH you could see in the picture, was that I made him a belt. It consisted of a child safety seat strap and buckle wrapped up in aluminum foil. PERFECT! Such a great Han Solo for 30 minutes of prep time.
Finally, on to the costume of which I am most happy:
Leia!
I had 3 yards of white stretchy fabric laying around, so I folded it in half and pinned the fabric in a T-shape...where I wanted the seams for the body and the sleeves. I sewed that and cut off the excess. Then I cut a slit in the top for my head, and sewed on a strip of fabric folded in half for the mock-turtle neck...to give it a more defined look, like the real Leia dress. Then I took a wide elastic band and fit it around my waist...and decorated it with cut out cardboard shapes covered with aluminum foil. Then there was the hair. The HAIR! I do NOT have enough hair for those big buns, so I made a head piece with a coat hanger, cardboard and brown yarn (which I already had at my house). I wish I had taken pictures of the step-by-step process of making that, because it really came together so well! I was most pleased with the outcome. Just think, earmuffs with yarn wound up and glued with a hot glue gun on the cardboard, which had a hanger punctured through and twisted up. For a nice finishing touch, I wound yarn around the hanger so you couldn't see it. Then I put pigtails in my hair, positioned the muffs over the pigtails, and wrapped my long pigtails around the yarn earmuffs. That way it looked more like my real hair! I threw this all together in about 2 hours.
After the trunk or treat, we had a little soiree at our friends' house. We made skeleton face mini-pizzas, and had other spooky treats.
cutest little ewok, no?
But Ollie's favorite event was bobbing for apples!
{one of his favorite foods!}
It was so much fun to watch Oliver getting so in to the festivities this year!
The only question left in my mind is what would Elsa have been if she could be here celebrating with us? Yoda?
8/9/10, one year later...our baby turned 1!!! And because first birthdays {equal} pancakes, we invited the whole world to join us in eating pancakes for dinner! And we invited everyone within driving distance to join us at our house to share in our stack of pancaking love. We had a good lot of family and friends join us for the occasion, and everyone ate pancakes and birthday cake to their hearts content. We requested no gifts {we want to be like hobbits and give away gifts on our birthdays}, but a few people brought some anyway! Thanks everyone...because your presence was a gift!
I hurried and whipped together this birthday shirt and hat for the little birthday man, and we took a few pictures:
ah! the many cute faces of our baby and oh! how we love him!
pancaking!
Ollie with one of our party guests
more pancake love!
{kumut pancakes}
singing happy birthday!
...and devouring the caramel apple cake. Yum, I must say.
{am I the only one who refuses to put food color on my cakes? :-}
enjoying his first birthday cake!
CAKE FACE!
PRESENTS!
Ollie's Aunty Lara and family brought him this CUTE kitty! Lara knew how much Oliver loves kitties, and how he points to them and says 'mmm' in a high squeeky voice like a meow, and how he loves to pet them and bury his face in their soft fur.
it's absolutely perfect and he has to have it in his crib whenever he is falling asleep.
the brothies and I picked out this cute play set for Oliver, from all of us.
At one year Oliver:
~is crawling all over the place and getting into stuff, but not everything {quite curious}
~is pulling up to stand and cruising along furniture, but still not walking
~loves all animals, but especially kitties
~loves to play with cars and trucks
~is ticklish and fills our house with wonderful laughter
~loves to scream and shriek as loud as he can, especially when he wants to eat
~loves to eat
~can wave hello and bye-bye
~can give 'em fives
~loves to clap
~loves pat-a-cake and peek-a-boo
~can say da (dad), mama, cheese
~can find nose, mouth, teeth and tummy
~still loves his blanket and his pacifier
~loves to go for walks, jogs and hikes
~is our RAINBOW BABY, we all love him SO much!
