Flying geese in grey and yellow

Alrighty folks, since summer is winding down and Phoebe will be heading off to preschool in two weeks (!!!Yay!!!), I'm hoping to get up to date and share some projects that have been keeping me busy these past few months...

One of my cousins is having her first baby next month (a girl - yay!), and is planning her nursery around the palette of grey and yellow.  I've always wanted to do a flying geese quilt - plus, my good friend Brenda just told me about this amazing ruler that makes absolutely perfect flying geese blocks - four at a time!  The Quilt in a Day Flying Geese rulers come in a large or a small size, and you have the option to make two different sizes with each ruler as well!  Even better?  I picked mine up at Joann's with a coupon.  This quilt was made with the large ruler and the finished block size is 4" x 8".

The block layout - as well as fabric choices - were completely random.  I'm actually pretty terrible about planning out my quilts in advance.  I like to just move everything around for a couple of hours after all of the blocks are finished.  I quilted it in straight lines that change direction when they hit the middle of the quilt - following the diagonal; and I backed in it one of my favorite folksy flannel prints.  Soft and warm for a fall baby!

My sister was my lovely quilt holder for this photoshoot, and as you can see, she took her job very seriously :)

Thanks, Abby.

And here's my cousin Jess opening the quilt.  I love you Jess, and can't wait to meet your precious little baby!

A very merry half birthday to Penelope!

This girl is 6 months old today.  I seriously can't believe it.  Didn't she just arrive the other day?

I'm doing a monthly photoshoot in the numbered onesies again, and I'm amazed at just how quickly she changes....

And it's been fun to compare her and Phoebe's photos up next to each other.

It's crazy how much these girls look alike.  My husband has even failed the "who's who" guessing game a couple of times!  

Happy half birthday, dear Penelope!  You bring such an amazing joy to our lives and we love you to pieces!

Bunny Party

We've been having a Mooshy Belly Bunny party over here!

I made one for a friend awhile back, and I wanted to make one for Penelope since she prefers to chew on soft, squishy things vs. the hard teething toys.

Well, once Phoebe saw what was in the works, she promptly claimed it for her own.  So that led to mooshy bunny number two.  Then my mom saw the bunnies and immediately put in her request for two more to give as gifts.  So I made two more.  And then we had a party.

Sleepy bunny.

If you want to make your own Mooshy Belly Bunny, you can find the pattern here.

Scattered Stars quilt

Remember this bundle of fabric?

Well, that led to this sketch...
 

Which led to this quilt.

This quilt has kept me pretty busy.  The construction of the stars went rather quickly, but cutting and piecing all of those little extra pieces of fabric that offsets them from one another took forever!  And since I have yet to construct a design wall, I would lay everything out on the floor, and then the cats would promptly dive bomb into my array of perfectly placed little quadrangles.

Isn't that Flamingo solid just fantastic?

I quilted it by first outlining all of the stars, then throwing in some extra star outlines in the larger areas of negative space.  You can't really tell from the photo - but I went with an orange thread that looks fantastic on the pink.

The back is a Jenean Morrison print from her California Dreamin line.

And the most difficult part of this quilt is yet to come - shipping it off to it's new owner!  It's hard not to fall in love with each completed quilt :)

Penellogram

Gah!  I totally hate it when more than a week goes by in between blog posts.  And it's definitely not for lack of things to blog about.  I've got about a billion posts in my head, but these kids are just sucking the life out of me! 

And it is only being reinforced by my current Instagram obsession, because everyone keeps posting these gorgeous pictures of themselves sewing and working on projects all day long, and it only makes me seethe with jealousy that I can't get more sewing/blogging/thrifting/cleaning/laundry/sleep/alone time/etc. in everyday.  Sigh.  One day when the kids are grown I'll miss these days of endless games of Hi Ho Cherry-O, right?

But I digress....

Here's another baby quilt that I made for a very soon to be born little boy. 

I just love the range of fabrics I chose for this quilt - some are from current lines of fabric, some are from vintage sheets, and I even used some cotton napkins that I picked up at Target awhile back. 

Phoebe kept calling these diamonds when I was sewing this together, but I informed her that they are actually parallelograms.  Henceforth, Phoebe's favorite shape is the "Penellogram".  Obviously, she seems to be doing much better with her little sister :)

This measures about 45" square and is backed in a vintage sheet that seems to match perfectly.  And speaking of vintage sheets, I've recently added quite a bit to the shop.  Stop by and take a look and I'll give you 15% off your order through the end of the month if you use the code PENELLOGRAM!

Doily lamp tutorial. Finally!

Well, it only took me three months, but I promised that I'd finally get around to showing you how I made the doily light for Penelope's nursery.  Unfortunately I can't take credit for this awesome idea - I saw this version on Pinterest awhile back - but here's my version it and some tips that I found useful....

So a mere week before Christmas, and only ten days before I went into labor, my husband came home to this going on in the middle of our kitchen.  Luckily, we've been together for about 11 years, so he's pretty used to my crazy projects taking over our house.

I used one of those giant punching bag balloons that I found at the dollar store since they are perfectly spherical vs the typical balloon shape.  Plus, they seem to be a little thicker than a normal balloon, and less likely to pop during the process.

The original poster used wallpaper glue, but I just went with what I had on hand which was regular old Elmer's school glue, that I watered down a bit.  I simply placed the doilies on the balloon and painted them with the glue until they were completely saturated.  The glue seemed to have just enough tack to hold them in place and I didn't have any problems with them falling off before they were dry.

I let this dry for about 24 hours and then went back and touched up some areas that didn't feel quite stiff enough (if your doilies seem too pliable, just increase your glue to water ratio).  Then I let this dry for another day.  Then it hung there for another couple of days just because.

Finally I popped the balloon (which was Phoebe's favorite part) and used this lighting kit from Ikea to hang it up.  I intentionally left an opening between a couple of the doilies so that I could fit the bulb and socket into the center without having to cut out a hole in the lamp.

And there you go!  It was incredibly simple, and it only cost me around $10.  Four for the lighting kit and I probably used about six doilies (thrifted at about $1 each) to cover the balloon. 

The light has held up beautifully.  It gets turned on every evening, and I haven't had any problems with it warping, or getting too hot, or anything.  And Penelope just loves looking at it and all of the beautiful shadows that it makes on the walls.

Next up - one for every room of the house!

Postage stamp baby quilt

I'm finally getting around to posting about this little quilt, even though it was finished and given away at the beginning of the month.

Two good friends from college are having a baby and aren't finding out the gender - which usually drives me insane when making quilts - but I decided to base the quilt off of a description of their nursery, which I was told is a beachy theme with blues, aquas, and some hints of orange.

Each of the little squares is 2", which I first strip pieced in threes, then sewed into little nine patches.  Then I sewed four nine patches into larger blocks, then pieced everything together and added the tan border, which reminded me of the sea floor.

I used the same fabric for the backing, which is actually a tablecloth that I picked up on clearance at Target about a year ago.  I free motion quilted it with a loopy pattern that traveled across each of the rows.

I hope this baby knows how special it will be since I cut into some of my precious Heather Ross fabric for this quilt!

A little less talk

I have determined that if I would like to continue blogging, I'm going to have to start using more pictures and less words.  Because there's no other way I can fit it into my schedule (or lack there of).  This past week I've been dealing with a sick baby who refuses to sleep or be put down, a toddler who demands constant attention, and a husband who won't have a day off work for two weeks.  That has left very little time for creating - let alone blogging about it! 

But I love this little space, and want to keep it going.  So hopefully some pictures here and there will suffice - at least until Phoebe goes off to preschool in the fall :)

So anyways - Commissioned baby quilt.  Girl.

Ten inch blocks with 1/2 inch sashing in Kona medium gray.  Backed in an Alexander Henry print (I think it's called Petals).

Quilted with straight lines in gray thread.  Final size is about 42" square.

Lots more quilts on the horizon - stay tuned!

Ruffled Waterfall Crib Skirt

I was planning on doing a tutorial on how to make this lovely crib skirt, but I ended up going into labor just after I started making it.  I wanted to be really sure it was true labor before I went to the hospital, so I kept working away on this project, pausing every 10 minutes, 7 minutes, 5 minutes to grab the table, white-knuckled and try not to scream my head off.  So sufficient to say, I did not take any pictures of the process.  But I'll try to walk you through the construction nonetheless.

So basically a crib skirt is made up of a deck and three panels (I didn't make one for the 4th side since it would be up against a wall and you wouldn't see it anyway).  The deck is just a measurement of the crib mattress size, which is a standard 28" x 52".  The side panels are the length of the side and then the measurement of where you want the skirt to hit the floor.

With this crib skirt, I left it hanging a good 6 inches or so off of the floor.  That way when the crib mattress is lowered when Penelope gets older, it will just brush the floor as opposed to puddling in a crinkled mess.

I ended up using exactly one yard of each fabric for the ruffles.  I cut the bottom two colors into 6 inch tall strips and the top color into 5 inch tall strips (this makes all of the ruffles appear the same size since there is about one inch of overlap on the bottom two ruffles). 

To get a full ruffle-y effect I cut my strips 2 1/2 times as long as each panel.  So for the short sides, my strips were 70" and the long front panel strips were 130".  Hem the two short ends and one of the long sides.  Then I simply ruffled the strips by sewing a long basting stitch along the unhemmed side and gathering the fabric until it was the length of the panel, pinned it down like crazy, and sewed it to the panel.

 

For the topmost strips, I sewed them to the panels - wrong sides facing - so that the raw edges would not be exposed, but for the middle and bottom strips, I simply laid them so they were laying right side up because the raw edges would be covered by the ruffle from above.  I didn't even bother to remove my gathering stitches since they won't be seen anyways.

Then I sewed the panels to the deck.

Ta-da!

Now since you've tackled the crib skirt, you can go on to make one of those fancy shower curtains from Anthropologie.  But probably not for awhile.  You'll be super sick of ruffling.

Penelope's Nursery

Deer print is from here, bunny was thrifted.

I'm happy to say that so far Penelope has proved to be a pretty patient little baby, and didn't seem to mind that her nursery was still in shambles when she arrived.
 
Thankfully, she's also been a great sleeper, so I've been able to finish it up before she outgrew it! 


We recycled most of the furniture and main baby items from Phoebe's nursery, but went with a completely different color palette. 

Want to see a before picture (as in, before we bought the house)? Click here. But be warned, it's a little scary.
 

Once again, Polly finds herself right at home in the crib.



I want to secure and paint that darn cord the same color as the wall, but with a newborn and a 2 1/2 year old, I've got better things to do with my (almost nonexistent) free time.
 

I found that sweet little Hansel and Gretal lamp for $3 at my local thrift store and added a clearance lampshade from Target.  The house lights up too!

More info on the ABC crewelwork sampler here.
 

I totally copied these doily clouds from here.


I picked up the bird screen print from local artist Marcy Davy of All Things Grow, the book was thrifted, and the cat was my great-grandmothers.


I made the crib sheet from one of my favorite vintage sheets using Dana's tutorial - which is ridiculously simple and fantastic.  I ended up getting Phoebe to sleep in her big girl bed by letting her pick out her own fabric for her sheets.  Now she has kitty sheets, snowman sheets, and butterfly sheets.  It's crazy how much joy a fitted sheet brings her.

The stuffed lamb has been around for awhile, but has seemed to take up residence in the crib because she matches so darn well.
 

Stay tuned for a post on how I made this super-sweet crib skirt!
*The post is up!  Click here for a how-to*






The doily lamp will be getting it's own post too. 
 

The nursery at night.  Such a cozy place for a sweet baby!