Pictures of my Busy Day

As promised, I have found the time to take pictures of all that I did yesterday.

These green squares are roughly 3 1/2" x 3 1/2". As yet I'm not really sure what to do with them. I'm thinking of surrounding each one with denim squares (repurposed from old jeans of course) and making a quilt. Another idea is to take 4 of them and make a larger square and turn them into coasters or trivets with denim on the back. (I really like repurposing denim)

The finished squares all started out like the one at the bottom. You take two like that one and sew them rigt sides together on all four sides. Then you cut them apart from corner to opposite corner (diagonally) both ways and when you unfold them you have 4 squares made up of triangles. It's much faster than piecing the triangles to begin with.

You may remember when I posted about finding some old quilt blocks that I had hand stitched. I found more of the purple and polka dot fabric, already cut into squares, and I machine sewed them together to make more blocks. Also in that find were blocks of horses. I took the ones that had their heads and put them into the blocks. Right now it is only a long strip but I hope to find more of these fabrics in my mother's stash (which is where I originally got them from several years ago) and convince her to part with them so that I can at least make another row of 2 above the horses. I'll have to find other purple and black & white fabrics for the rest of the quilt.

This is my favorite project right now. It is going to be a ticker tape quilt for my son. I only have one row done and with only one row it does look pretty silly. The fabrics laid over it randomly are the other fabrics I am going to use on this quilt. They are all scraps from either myself or my mother. Mostly from my mother as she does much more quilting than I do.

Rice Cereal

We tried rice cereal for the first time today. It was super close to bedtime, so he was pretty sleepy and not very interested. I was probably more excited than he was. After a few spoons of it we waited about 5 minutes and tried again. This time he got very excited, banging his fist on the highchair tray and opening his eyes wide. But I couldn't get him to open his mouth! He would grab my hand with the spoon and bring it to his mouth, but then he kept his lips closed tight. Finally I caught him in a grin and dashed in with the spoon. He sucked on it for a few seconds and gave me another huge smile. After a few spoonfuls he got drowsy again, so I put him to bed with a bit of rice cereal in his bedtime bottle. I put another scoop in before putting it in the fridge to finish in the morning.
Here's to hoping it helps him sleep better. He gets 6 hours at once now, but I'm shooting for 8+

Lessons Learned From Being A Mom

Babies do not conform to our schedules. We conform to theirs.
The difference to an infant between a 6 oz bottle and an 8 oz bottle? 2 oz on your shirt.
Some transit buses are not stroller friendly.
Everything changes when you have a baby. Absolutely everything.
Some days 2 hours is just not enough time to get ready to leave the house.
No matter how big the bib, the spit-up will end up on the outfit.
A tape recorder may come in handy when asked the usual questions about your baby. Or a sandwich-board sign.

Birds, Elephants and the 100 Day Cough or The Picture Obese Post

I've been sick the past few days (I'm thinking its the 100 day cough the CDC has been talking about) but fortunately I've been able to do most of the things I normally do, just with soem caughing and a bit of diziness and light-headedness.





Last night I finished this:

I used the same pattern as for my son's elephant . I know the button eyes are a little wonky but I think it just gives her a bit more character.

I used a new way of closing the stuffing hole. I think it looks a lot better than whip-stitching/overcast stitch.

And today I whipped this up:

The first two were mock-ups. They actually didn't turn out too terrible. The first one was too small and the second one had a massive head so I just used the head from the first pattern and the rest from the second to make the third birdie, which came out just right.

You can see the differences in head size better here.

I did some stitching on the first one to make the tail look like it had feathers. It didn't turn out quite like I had wanted it to, but I think it's fairly cute anyhow.

No fancy tail stitching for the end product. The tail looked too cute to stitch over.

Since this is going to a baby, I had to do the toilet paper tube test. (We didn't have any empty rolls, so just bear with me)

And again, this time tail down. She doesn't squish into the tube without quite a bit of effort, so I give it my Crafty Mom seal of approval for babies.

After finishing the bird and having a lot of time left, I decided to make a bag to match it.

It's a drawstring bag. My very first! I've determined that I love drawstrings and will make many more bags like this in the future.

All cinched up.

Bird and bag together. As you can see, they were made from the same material so that they match perfectly.

The elephant was made from fabric my mom had, and the birds and bag were made from my stash.

Mutants, Dentists, and Pilates/Yoga

I finished up a baby mutant sock monkey last night.

(it's supposed to be an ear on top, but since he's a mutant it could really be anything)

Shown with the keyboard for size reference.

I made a blue one for my son out of a pair of his old socks and he loves to hold it by the tail. And then he stuffs it into his mouth, which is how I know he likes the toys I make for him.

The mutant monkey has not, however, been in my son's grubby grasp. I will put him up for sale on Etsy for only $5 (plus $2 for shipping) if there is a request.

And I spent 3 hours at the dentist's office today, only to find out I need a root canal. So back I go on Thursday.