Apron for Heather

It was almost 2 years ago that we were on vacation with my husband's family and my SIL and I went into this little quilt shop that was in town, and while looking around she found a pattern for an apron, and asked me if I would help her make it. So we got home, and a while later we made it over to my local quilt shop to pick out the fabric. Then it sat. And it sat. Then last Christmas we went on vacation together again and we thought that it would be the perfect time to work on the apron. So I was in charge of bringing the supplies, and my SIL said she'd bring her sewing machine. Well, she forgot her machine. So it didn't get done. And it sat. Then a week ago or so, I was downstairs cleaning out my sewing corner, and I found this bag. As it turns out, it was just recently her birthday, so I thought that I would just go ahead and make one for her. At this point I have 3 kids, one being a newborn, and she is now pregnant with her 3rd, her next oldest being not quite 1 yet. We really are not moving in the right direction to have sewing lessons right now. It turned out super cute. She was very excited to see that I had made it for her.

A decorating idea

So I've done exactly three things to change the nursery from Graham's room to Olivia's room. I put up a pink mobile, I changed the photo on the shelf from Graham to Olivia, and I hung up these dresses. I didn't really have anything special hanging from these hooks really since I put it up in the new house. I don't even remember what I hung from them when this was in Nate's nursery. But several weeks ago I thought how cute it would be to hang some dresses up there. The thing is that I have all of these super cute dresses, and all they do is hang in a closet where no one can see them. (Well, aside from when Olivia wears them to church.) So I picked 4 of my favorites and have them hanging here. (Well, when they are ironed that is.) This is the dress that my mom made for Olivia. It's not exactly her blessing dress, because she'll wear this dress that my mom got in Belgium that 4 or so of the other girl cousins have been blessed in. But I still consider this her blessing dress. She hasn't worn it yet, it's closer to a 3-6 month size, and I'm kind of waiting until her blessing day.

Look at all of the smocking, yeah, my mom's a rock star.

These little pleats came at my special request. I was thinking in bed one night before Olivia was born, and I thought about how cute it would be to have a dress for her with little half inch pleats along the bottom. So I talked to my mom about it, and she did it. Yeah, she's a rock star.

I was walking through Kohl's the other day, and I saw this on the rack, and I didn't really even think about it, but I decided that I needed to have it. Love it!

Look at the little bow at the top!

This is the dress that I bought online specifically so that she could have an impossibly cute dress to wear to church her first Sunday back. It's huge, she'll wear it until she's 17.

I love the eyelet work all along the skirt, and the white lining sticking out of the bottom.

I bought this dress I think before Graham was born. Like, I wasn't pregnant at the time or anything. It was super cheap at the Carter's outlet, and I saw it and thought that I should probably have it on account of how cute it was. It too is still too big for her.

I love these embroidered flowers.

The problem of course is that all of these dresses need to be ironed, and I'm sometimes slow to get down to do the ironing. Two of them, the white polka dot, and the pink one, she wears to church right now, so they get taken off of the hooks. I've started to replace the empty spots with other dresses that I don't love quite as much, but are still cute. Then of course there is this other dress that my mom brought back from Belgium. It'll fit her when she's two or so. I'll have to take a picture of that as well. It's got handmade Belgian lace, and is very beautiful. So much so that I have no idea when she'll wear it, but one day she will.

So what unusual ways do you decorate your kids' rooms?

A fun giveaway

My incredibly talented friend Joan is hosting a giveaway on her blog- customizable Kidlets- stationary and more. You should go over there and check her out. I'm going to have her do my baby announcements for Olivia too.

Olivia's Second Quilt

The second quilt that I made was much more simple than the first. I decided that I wanted to make a trip around the world after I was looking through old pictures on the computer, and saw a picture of a trip around the world quilt that I had made for someone else. I knew that I wanted the squares to be smaller, and of course, the quilt to be small. I found a pattern, and made it work. It was done by tube piecing, which I've never done before. It wasn't too bad though. The unpicking is minimal, so it was OK. It was hard to get it all even though, but at the end of the day, it's hard to tell. And my corners are phenomenal. (If I do say so myself.)

There is no ornamental quilting on this one. The borders are just too thin (I had only a certain width of the backing, which is the same as the other quilt, to work with.) But I did decide to quilt through ever single diamond, so it ended up being a lot of quilting anyway. But it was pretty fast. Of course, I could not avoid seams, so that was a bit annoying. Oh well.

Anyway, now she has her two quilts, and I hope not to have to hand quilt another quilt for a very very long time. My fingers still have not gotten over it!

Olivia's first quilt

It is FINALLY finished. This quilt was the longest quilting project in the history of mankind. Or so it felt anyway. It didn't take me that long to actually make the quilt top. It was the quilting that was insane. I like the way that hand quilting looks, so I have always hand quilted the quilts for my own babies. I think it makes them a little more special. Even though I could easily quilt them very cutely on me own machine in an hour or so.
So I start hand quilting this one, and very quickly realize the error of my ways. The best way to quilt this was to quilt in a place where I was quilting through like, 3-7 layers of fabric, just on the top, so not to mention the batting and back. Then there was the batting. I wasn't thinking, and I didn't get batting specifically for hand quilting, so even when I got to the places where I was not quilting through an insane number of layers there still was plenty of resistance. I got more than one hole through my thumbnail as I was pushing this needle through. So good riddance- it's done!
But it's it so cute! Like, you need to understand that these pictures just do not do it justice. Here you can see the construction. I got this idea one night at like 11:30 while trying to fall asleep. I was glad that I was able to figure out how to do it. As Jesse said, there will be plenty of pockets for goldfish crumbs and spit up.

The flowers are separately quilted as well, and then attached at the centers. I think that I attached them sufficiently that they won't be pulled off.

You can kind of see the hand quilting. The thread was a very close match to the fabric. But you can see the blue marker where I marked the designs. (That washed off by the way.) I quilted butterflies, dragonflies, flowers and swirls into the border.

And this one shows the back. So it's pretty much just an all around cute quilt. No matter which side you're looking at.

So tomorrow I get to start in on my next quilt. It's going to be a trip around the world. I have a goal to finish it by the time this baby comes. I have a little less than 4 weeks. I can totally do it. It's going to be smaller than this one. (And much less involved!)

Adrian's Quilt

Here is the finished quilt that we made for our friend Adrian who moved this past week. You can't even tell that I had to doctor it up! I really like the way that it turned out!

update

So the baby quilt is the slowest quilt in the history of the world. I'll tell you all about why this little girl had better love it more than her mother when I'm finished, but for now I'll say I'm ALMOST finished. My poor little quilting fingers have really had it this time, and the thought of picking up a needle this morning is painful, but I only have about 2/3 of the final border left to do. Then I need to cut out the little flowers that I have already sewn, and then attach them to the quilt. Bind it, and all done. My goal is to finish this quilt by Friday night. Saturday afternoon my friends and I are having a mini-quilting day of fun. Last time we got there at lunch time, and stayed until 10 or so. Today we'll start at lunch time, and be home by dinner time. Anyway, I'd like to start in on quilt number 2 for this little girl. I'd like to do a trip around the world with the same fabric as the first quilt. It should be super cute. I'll post pictures soon!