Choo-Choo Baby Blanket

Originally, for a friend's baby's 1st birthday I wanted to do a simple design using fleece I already had around the house.  Unfortunately, I didn't have enough fleece to do the simple project. D'oh!

Since I had a snow day and a stash of fabric, I started looking on Pinterest for an easy train themed baby quilt. SO MANY OPTIONS! I eventually settled on this one and started going through my fabric stash for boy friendly colors.

After an hour of mixing and matching, I settled on seven different fabrics to make the stripes at varying widths and train cars. I mimicked everything from that design mentioned above, but added a couple differences.

I love how this part came out. =) Pre-appliqué, of course.

I wanted his birthday on it so it'll stand the test of time (in theory, no clue how this will be received).  The other change was the engine needed little puffs of smoke... so cute!

Post appliqué - adorable!!

It's much larger than I thought it would be. Oh well. 

For the back I ended up getting new solid fleece for it since the light blue I had didn't match the front of the quilt. One of the ideas I used from Pinterest from another project was quilting down each seam of the stripes using a different pre-set stitch.  It turned out great since I used a mustard color for contrast.

The stitches are different on each seam.

Up close of one of the stitches.

Finished product! So cute!! I love how it turned out.

I'm rather pleased with the finished product.  Thoughts?

Bouncing Baby Boy

Tis the season to have babies, tra la la, la la, la la la la....

But seriously, I'm at the stage of life where all my friends are either getting hitched, making babies, or both. Which is great for them! So to celebrate, I decided to make some baby blankets.

I didn't want to do anything too complex because, after some research, apparently baby blankets aren't but are typically cutesy and cuddly.  Hancock had a sale on fleece, which isn't unusual, so I got enough for four blankets, two of baby blue and two of baby pink.  

I wanted to use a new appliaque process that I saw on Pinterest with circles.  After stewing in my creative juices for a couple months, I used the circles and combined the common phrase "Bouncing baby boy" on the blankets.  

It took a while to make these things... mostly the layout of them as well as cutting all the letters and circles out.

So. Many. Circles. And the batting can be seen here... but not the actual letters which were hiding on another shelf.

See all those letters? Yeah, the original plan I had for ALL those letters I cut out didn't work. ARGGHH. Frustrated that I wasted so much time and materials I walked away from this project for about a month and a half. Eventually, after nursing my crafting pride back to health, I decided to use this tutorial on appliqué to finish at least one for a friend's baby shower.

However, I scrapped the original "bouncing baby" idea because I was running short on time and went for his name instead.  Ended up cutting off some of the white space too. 

Appliquéing all those circles and letters on there took forever.  It's not a small baby blanket... it'll fit the baby until it's a toddler. (Again, it's lying on our pool table... AKA the Quilted items presentation table).  And I used batting so it's super warm.

The Momma's theme was Monsters, Inc so the Monsters U fleece I found was PERFECT.  I also used extra to make it lap over as binding too. 

Of course, it calls for Steam a Seam, which both Joann and Hancock Fabrics didn't in store.  I could only find it online at Wal-Mart or on Amazon.  Annoying. I didn't want to wait! I wanted to do it ... NOW. Figure it out, NOW. Sigh.  I really hate waiting for things.  So instead I found something that does the same thing (and was just as easy and cost much less). 

But I didn't stop there. I also decided to knit some baby booties. 

This isn't the finished product, but they are rather cute. 

These are the finished product... ta-da!

I made two sets for two different little boys. Super easy to knit and it's a free pattern from Bernat... not selling those though. Just for friends!

Thoughts?

Ya ain't nothing but Houndstooth...

Since I've gotten Nina, I've been drooling over different projects on Pinterest that I could do.  Watching YouTube and Craftsy videos didn't help my desire (but will help with my technique and final products eventually).  I've decided that I'm going to make a throw quilt a month (or try to) to either give away to friends or to sell on Etsy (given the pattern I use allows me too).

Anyhow, one of my friend's bought their second home (check out her blog about it!) so I wanted to make them something to celebrate.  My friend is rather modern in her decor and I tend to mock her for it as I prefer comfort.  However, when I found a free Houndstooth pattern online I knew I found something that I could make her and she would like. It was rather easy pattern to follow.

My one complaint is that when cutting the 21 2.5" stripes into triangles, the pattern recommended making my own 6.25" triangle pattern to make my life easier when cutting.  In theory, that worked on some of the stripes.  I recognize that it was probably due to my own undercutting (I prefer to have too much fabric rather than the exact amount) that created my issues but I was able to fix it.

As is the blanket is as big as my pool table. If I had added the other rows it would be bigger.

Also, I didn't make it as big as it claimed it should be (otherwise it would be a HUGE throw).  But I noticed that the template had me making an excess of squares... even with the correct dimensions   So I have a bunch left over.  Maybe I'll make matching pillows eventually... who knows.

As for the colors, my friend has two dogs, two cats, and I forget how many chickens.  I didn't think white fabric was the best choice for her house.  I went with black and a medium grey as they're more forgiving with pet hair/stains.  The grey fabric has a design on it because I can't will myself to buy solids. I know solids are a quilter's friend but... arrrggh sooooo boring.

Love the orange stripe with paw prints.

The fleece on the back is a darker grey than the front color and the stripe of orange with paw prints gives it a little flare that I think looks rather nice.  I know her tastes in favorite colors changes regularly, so I was going for a blanket that would stand the test of time (or at least match a season!). Originally, I was going to use an  orange binding to tie in the stripe.... but I remembered her mentioning something about neon colors/zebra print and decided to use pre-cut strips from a jelly roll the mom in law sent me. It made it so much easier.

I used a fancy stitch on the binding to help prevent it from ripping apart too easily. Still a real possibility though.

I used four different zebra/cheetah prints.  I think it adds a nice BOOOM to it.  Quilting it might have been too much with the houndstooth pattern.

Also, I didn't do any quilting on it.  I had found a couple tutorials on how to add straight diagonal lines on this pattern, but it just seemed too busy for me (I would have used black or white thread).  So I opted to not stitch it together and to use a fancy stitch on the binding for strength.  I purposely used a different thread color to stand out.

Klaus approves.

Thoughts?

Curtains and table runner

For the two years we've been in our home, my husband has used an old to towel on the credenza in the basement by the pool table.  Since I finally finished my mom's t-shirt quilt, I knocked out a couple things on my "To Do" list.  One was the curtains for the small window in his "man cave." On our honeymoon, I went to a quilt shop in Murphy, NC and found a beer bottle fabric.  I made these lovely curtains for him from it.

Looks nice against the wood paneling!

So I used fabrics that made me think of Jason to make his table runner: nature, geometric shapes, money (he collects coins), beer, dice (he enjoys playing poker), music, and Celtic symbols.  From there, I made three large blocks all the same but with different fabric.  Hindsight: These fabrics are too busy to be put together.  But it works for where it goes and looks better than a damn stained, old bath towel. 

Pre-binding.  It looks OK.

It's a good sized table runner.He's holding it to show it's length (he's 6'3").

Close up of the binding.  One of the few times I like how I did the binding.

You can see the quilting/embroidery work that I did by hand.  I did swirls like that in only the two corners (the other you can't see because I turned the runner over).

Happy times! I like it...