i-Spy Quilt!

So I have been obsessed with i-spy quilts for awhile.. After I saw this and this I just wanted one for my little one. I even considered paying $75 and buying one off of Etsy here. But I didn't. I was lucky enough to be able to sign up for one of Care's I-spy swaps over at Obsessively Stitching and got to make my own.


Now I have never really made a quilt before. I made a t-shirt quilt. But beccuase I so poorly put the binding on and didn't machine quilt it altogether (just hand tied it in a few places) I don't consider it to be a REAL quilt. This one though is legit. The only thing I didn't do was free motion quilting. I just quilted in diagonals and really liked how it turned out. Many quilting in my little basic singer is a chose. Quilts are heavy. I am glad I did it this way. I don't know if I could do a quilt any other way in my machine.

My in laws were/are here for Father's Day and they watching my little one while I spent hours - it wasn't as hard as I thought - to make this quilt. Here is the process and the finished results:

First I laid out all my i spy blocks to put them in some kind of order and to make sure I didn't have too many with the same color background next to each other.

Then I sewed pairs of fabrics together and then pair os pairs together to make rows of four. Note how in the above picture I used post it notes to mark my 1/4 inch seam. I don't think I sew very straight so this kept me in line - it totally helped! I read about how to do this on some blog but not sue which one. I consider myself not a self taught quilter, but a blog taught quilter!

I sewed the three rows of four together to make my 15 total rows. Then I sewed all my rows together to make my top

I didn't photograph the nex steps but I then added my green border, and quilted the three layers (the back, the batting and the top together) and sewed on my binding, first the back side with the machine and then the front by hand. It was a long weekend and I am glad myin laws were here to help because I hate having projects left unfinished because I do all my work in my kitchen since we live in such a tiny house. Here is the completed quilt.

What a week

So after our ordeal in the hospital this week, Joe then had a huge work visit (which went very well). This visit though left me home alone with the dog and the baby from Wednesday right after we got home from the hospital until Friday afternoon. This was tough for me because I felt like I have been holding my daughter (as much as I love to) nonstop from Sunday night until Friday afternoon. I really needed to have someone else hold her. Of course, since Joe has been home she has been great. She has smiled tons (see below pictures) and allowed someone else to hold her and allow both of us to put her down. She's had a great routine of eating, playing/awake time, and sleeping. Needless to say our week is ending much better than it started. Today we are getting ready for the 3:30 OSU v. PSU game (so much has changed since last year's game when Meg and Scott were here and we were a pitcher or two of Bloody Marys in at this time of the day). Its also much warmer this year than last. We took advantage of the pretty day by taking some family pictures. Enjoy:Six weeks has really gone by quick!

Bear hasn't thought its gone quick...here he is eating the six week sign
She is really starting to look like a real person And smiling!

I made her a hat for the cold days that we go for a walk outside in the baby wrap. She seemed to like it!

And now the family just watches the game.

On another note....I started gentian violet this week for my thrush....what an improvement. Now I realize nursing isn't supposed to hurt!

My attempt to make Christmas more green

So after making the kids PJs last week, I had fabric left over and thought it would be cute to wrap the presents in the fabric. I thought that the wrapping needed to be useful, so I made them each a cinch sack backpack and put the PJs in those. I put a few other surprises in each bag. Christmas is awhile away...

PS - I don't make a good model for this, but you should have seen this little backpack try to fit on J's big shoulders. It was not good!

I can't make it for someone else...

...and not make it for my little one. So here are some things that I have made her.

A taggie blanket:

A diaper/wipes case:

Some barrettes:

J likes the football one the best. I thought the colors were good. She can wear it with her OSU gear or her Giants gear. I have to make a green one also for her Jets gear!

Baby gifts

For an upcoming baby shower, I made a series of gifts all with a cute non gender specific monkey fabric that I purchased early on in my preganancy. I love this little set. It includes a taggie blanket, a burp cloth, a diaper/wipes case, a pair of booties and a bib. Hopefully the new mommy will like it. Want me to make one for a little one that you know...just let me know. It was a fun set to make!

T-Shirt Quilt

Here is the T-shirt quilt I made with my shirts from training/running for the marathon last year. I had been saving them in hopes that Ammi would make me a quilt, but in the end, I thought I could do one myself and I did. Hers would have looked a lot better, but I am proud of my first try at something this big!

The kids PJs for Christmas

Another sewing project complete :)

Keeping Busy

So I found this tutorial about changing T-shirts to Newborn gowns and thought...we don't have any t-shirts left that we could do this with, but I thought they were incredibly cute. Then I thought about how we have no OSU gear for this baby and thought that the local Goodwill would have plenty of OSU shirts that would be perfect for this. So that is exactly what I did. I bought three OSU shirts and a Yankee shirt (because although we have some of those already, you can never have enough Yankee gear). After making the first four gowns, J thought they were so cute that he felt he had to give a shirt to my craft and thus the Goonies gown was made. Enjoy the pics and let me know if you want me to make one for a baby near you...just send me a shirt :)

Oh yea, and I made our little one her Christmas PJ pants. I don't know why the pattern made the pant legs so wide...They will look like a cute skort :)

Busy Nesting

This weekend I bought a sewing machine and was busy with these beauties:

Is this what they call nesting?