Random Cuteness!

I can't believe that Baby C will be 6 months old in 3 more weeks!!  Hes getting to be soooo big!!

He tried out the jolly jumper this afternoon and LOVED it!!

No sewing or cleaning on the horizon today - just hanging with my kidlets and playing - the rest can wait for another day......

2 Months old!

Wow - its amazing how fast time goes by!!  Two months ago today we welcomed our wonderful little man, Baby C, into our family and made it complete.

With my oldest I had a tradition of taking her picture every month with a big bear to watch her grow and change over her first year.  I decided to do that same tradition with Baby C with a hippo stufftie that his Aunties gave him for his baby shower.

I think hes a pretty sweet little guy...well maybe not so little.  He weighed in at a nice healthy 12 pound 8 ounces this past Thursday at his check up!!  Hes my little chunky little monkey and I wouldn't change him for the world.

Bunting Bag Recover - planning process

Day #3 of Blogtoberfest - I'm off to a good start!  :)

I read posts all the time on other peoples blogs that are upcycling/repurposing/recovering something and I'm always so inspired but I never do it myself.  I'm horrible for going out and buying what I need rather than at least attempting to make something or repurpose something.

My BIL and SIL bought this super cute pink JJ Cole bunting bag when my oldest was a baby.  Our winters get down right FREEZING - minus 40C can be a week or month long occurrence  off and on in the winter here so being warm is beyond important!  Having a September baby meant we had her in the bucket seat all winter so this bunting bag got lots of use.  Then came Miss L - she was a July Baby but we still had her in the bucket seat pretty much all winter.

Now we have Baby C - and I don't think he (or my husband) would appreciate me putting him in a pink bunting bag cover for this winter!  So I decied that this will be my first upcycle/repurposing/recovering project.

I have some leftover fabric from the Tumbling Dots blanket that I made for Baby C and I thought that some sort of subway panel would look cute.  I started to lay out all my fabric but then Baby C woke up and needed to eat so my sewing/crafting evening was cut short.

I think I'm just going to sew the panel and then turn the ends in and essentially applique the patchwork top over top of the pink cover of the bunting bag.  I'm not quite sure how it will turn out but I can't wait to get started on it!

My Latest and Greatest Creation.......My Son!!!

This isn't a crafty post but it is definately about my latest and greatest creation - my Son!!!  

The newest member of our family was born on August 23rd at 4:08am, weighed in at 7 pounds 11 ounces and was a whopping 20.5 inches long!  He is absolutely gorgeous and perfect in every way!! 

Mr. C hanging out in his bouncy chair having a bit of a break!

Big Sisters S and L absolutely LOVE their little brother!!  This is after they first met him at the hospital.

C is a fabulous baby, hes super easy going and puts up quite well with his big sisters requests to hold him all the time!  He loves to snuggle and thankfully is a pretty darn good sleeper for a 2 week old!  My husband went back to work Wednesday for the first time in a month and my first two full days alone with three kids under the age of 4 actually went really well.  I even managed to make a quick trip to the mall with all three kids yesterday and we didn't forget anyone or anything (except for forgetting to close the van door the entire time we were shopping but thankfully everything was still in the van when we got back to it - lesson learned, do not trust an almost 4 year old when they say they shut the door!) or have any meltdowns!    

Its been a full month since I've posted anything and almost that long since I have sewn anything.  Thankfully I have a craft night planned with my SIL tonight and I'll be able to work on one of my projects that I have on the go.  

Thanks for hanging in there with me with my month off!  Hopefully I'll be back to sewing and posting lots more soon!!!

Dino Buddy Rag Quilt - COMPLETE!!!

I can now say that after years of wanting to I finally completed my first rag quilt - and I think its super cute!!!!

I have been cutting the fabric for the Dino Buddy Quilt for the baby over the past few days (even had Miss S help with the lint brush yesterday!) with my Accuquilt and tonight I sat down and figured out the inner workings of a rag quilt and pieced it all together.  I've been wanting to make a rag quilt for at least 5 years but I always get sidetracked and move onto a different project - now that I have my Accuquilt I'm glad I waited since it was actually quite easy (and much easier on my fingers after reading some blogs and hearing how time consuming it is to cut the individual fringe on each square).  

Once I had all my squares cut out I had to figure out my 'random' pattern - I LOATE doing random patterns....I tend to overthink the simplicity of them and worry that the dot fabric is too close to the square fabric and that I have too many blues and not enough greens in one corner.  That being said I promised myself once I laid the fabric down I could only make a few changes before I had to stick with what I had down on the floor - otherwise I would have been there all night arranging fabric!!

I guess I overestimated the size of the finished rows - it wound up being quite a bit smaller than I thought it was going to be.

After I had all the rows pieced togehter I realized that it was WAY too narrow and way too long.  Thankfully I cut just enough extra squares to add as boarders on the outside edges of the quilt.  Then I had to dig out the cutter and cut the backing squares for the 16 extra Dino squares....

All the rows in their pieced goodness....!!

Whats a quilt project done by me without a screw up?!!  I mean its a miracle that I made it as far as I did with this quilt before I made a mistake.  I have never done a rag quilt before and couldn't figure out how to piece the rows together - and apparently I pieced the wrong sides together.  Thats ok, a few seconds with a seam ripper and I was back in action and the one and only screw up was behind me!!!

The finished Dino Buddy Quilt!!!  I'm quite happy with it.  I need to throw it in the washing machine a few times and then take it outside so I can get a better picture of it but I'm quite happy with the way it turned out.  Its a little wonky in size but I figure that will be hidden a little better when I wash it tomorrow.  Next rag quilt I'll put batting in since this one is pretty flimsy BUT I'm not really planning on using it as his full time blanket - just a throw for when hes on the floor, a stroller cover, or when we just need a blanket for him for snuggle time.  

The back - I decided to do the left and right edges as the dark green to mix it up a little bit - plus I ran out of fabric so it was the next best thing!!

I can knock off one more thing on my Work In Process List which is a good thing since I've got so many things I want to do and at least 5 blankets that I have in various stages of completeness that I need to finish.

Its so awesome to get this blanket done, I lost my sewing mojo for a few weeks but it seems to be coming back.  I just need to find a better corner of the house to set up my sewing stuff in since its such a pain to have to set it up and tear it down off the kitchen table each time I want to sew.  Maybe I'll take over the bonus room and be able to watch the big screen while I sew!

Rag Quilt - Progress!!!

Well I got some cutting done last night and ran out of steam - its amazing how that can happen when you are almost 36 weeks pregnant!!!

I was able to cut up the 6 fat quarters that I want to use as the main body for the quilt and zip them through the rag quilt die for the Accuquilt in no time.

I quite like the fabric combinations that came in the fat quarter bundle.  I'm just going to arrange them in a random pattern on the quilt top and then edge the entire thing in a dark green flannel I picked up tonight.

I have decided that I'm not going to put batting in the middle of the layers - its mostly going to be a throw blanket that will go down for tummy time or to cover the stroller so I don't need it to be too thick.  Plus I figure since its my first one I'll keep it somewhat simple so I don't get too caught up in the details so I can finish it before the little guy makes his appearance!

Rag Quilt Planning

So my super awesome SIL went on a trip to the west coast for a wedding last weekend and along the way she stopped to scout out some fabric at some fabric stores along the way.  I NEED to go on these trips with her since she comes home with the cutest, awesomest, most lovely fabric that I can never find in Calgary.  She also finds the sweetest fabric bundles - I can never find good fabric bundles for kids - so I think she and I need to head out for a girls trip to get some fabric for me and build up her yarn stash (because stash building is more fun when its done in groups!!).

Not that I need yet ANOTHER project on the go I've fallen in love with some flannel that my SIL brought back from BC and I decided to make a cute little Rag Quilt for the baby (yes I'm feeling bad that hes not even born and I've made him one blanket already, pondering another one and my oldest still doesn't have her baby blanket done yet - but I digress!!!).  I've been dying to make a rag quilt for years but I've always done other things with my fabric rather than make a rag quilt so now is the time to give it a try!

I'm going to use the green dinosaur fabric as the backing so its all the same fabric and then I'll use the 8 fat quarters as the top of the quilt. I'm thinking that I'm not going to put batting in between the fabric or should I?!  (If anyone wants to weigh in and give me some 'to add batting or not to add batting' advice it would be greatly appreciated!!!!!) to keep it a little lighter.  I still haven't figured out the dimensions of the quilt but I'd like it to be a little bit bigger than the Tumbling Dots quilt I made a few months ago so he can use this quilt a little longer.

I bought the Accuquilt 5 1/2 inch rag square die - everything I have read or when I have spoken to people they say that this die is the most fabulous thing ever since it saves so much time when assembling a rag quilt.   I was forewarned to make sure that I have my lint brush handy since the die will create a TON of lint.....maybe I'll make sure my vacuum is close by too!

I think I'll start tackling this blanket tomorrow night when the girls are in bed - I'm really looking forward to being back sewing again!  I just need to finish planning how I want the quilt top to look with the 8 fabrics - pattern or random - and how big I want it then I'm ready to go!!!

Tumbling Dots Quilt - Top Complete!!!

I've been a sewing/cutting machine the past few days (with plenty of rest and relaxation in between!) and have managed to get the entire quilt top finished for the Tumbling Dots quilt that I'm making for our newest addition that is due to arrive in August.

The other day I managed to cut up all the tumblers for the body of the quilt so today I managed to get the yellow boarder tumblers cut.  Through a bit of trial and error I think I have finally figured out the easiest way to cut the tumblers with the least amount of waste - but I'm sure I can still find a better way - wasting fabric kills me!!  At least I'm getting some good scraps out of the deal this way!

The rows all laid out on the table before quilting them together.

The finished top.  I still have to square up the sides and find some backing in the near future but I'm quite happy with how it turned out!  Its approximately 30 x 40 inches which is a great size for throwing down on the ground so the little guy will be up off the carpet and on something nice and cozy.

I think I'm going to do echo quilting to finish the top but I've never done it before so I might try out a quick trial run on some scraps before I attack the entire quilt top and bite off more than I can (or want!!) to chew!

Tumbler Quilt Top

I managed to make a little progress with the little guys tumbler quilt top today. I had tried a few different layouts but I really liked the repeating pattern that I finally came up with (they aren't sewed together just laid out for designing purposes).  Its a little smaller than I was planning on but it still should be big enough to lay out and have the little guy hang out on and be comfy.

One day I'd love to make a bigger quilt with a ton of different fabrics but I think thats something that would work better with a twin or bigger sized quilt.  Until then I'll keep rocking this quilt out and get it onto the finished list!!

I still have to cut the bright yellow as the boarder tumblers (to go all the way around) and then I'll bind it with the bright green to add a bit of pop.  Hopefully I can get to the boarder fabric tomorrow and start sewing it all together after that.  

I need to come up with a name for this blanket - rather than Boy Quilt #1!  I'm thinking maybe Tumbling Dots?  

Baby Boy Quilt Designing

Wow - its been a bit since I've posted here, sorry about that!  Between being sick for a bit last week and life getting in the way I've been a little lax in my Blogging.  I have however finally decided on what to do for a quilt for our little boy that is due in August - a flannel Tumbler quilt using my Accuquilt GO cutter.  I'm still trying to find 'the quilt' to make for him but I can't decide on fabrics or the style of quilt I want to make so I'm going to make this Tumbler quilt as a start I've got something on the go for him at least!!!  I really want to make a log cabin quilt but any time I think of trying to pick out THAT many fabrics it makes my head hurt so I guess I'm not ready for one of those yet!

My SIL picked up most of this fabric when she was in Lethbridge a few weeks ago and I've been trying to figure out what I could do with it for the little guy since I don't want to waste such awesome fabric on something just because....  Then it hit me - TUMBLERS!!!  One of the biggest things that drew me to the Accuquilt was the big Tumbler die and now I have a sweet little project to try it out on!

I'm thinking I'm going to use the 5 fat quarters in the middle as the main body of the quilt (no its not going to be very big!!!) and I figure I can get 6 Tumblers from each fat quarter = 30 Tumblers.

I think the yellow fabric on the bottom will be a filler fabric and I'll just a few extra tumblers cut from that fabric to fill the space in between the fat quarter tumbler squares.  I think I'll need between 6-10 of these yellow tumblers.

Finally I'm thinking I'll use the green fabric on the left to edge the entire top of the quilt for two reasons - to make it bigger and to help make it a little more cohesive.  I may have to go out and get one or two more fat quarters or something to make the quilt top a little bigger if it seems too small when I start to lay it all out.  Its really just a big work in progress right now!!

Finally this is a picture of my written down ramblings...!!  I've got a ton of these little sheets of paper with my scribbles down for measurements, ideas, designs....anything like that.  Maybe I should invest in a little note book or something?!

Hopefully I can slowly start on the cutting tomorrow and see how it might fit together with the fabric that I have.  Who knows, I might have one or two other fabrics that might fit in that I have hanging around in my stash and if not a shopping I will go!!