Crafting and Organizing

Since having kids, I haven't had too much time for crafting.  Honestly, most of the crafting I've done is while nesting during pregnancy.  But, I've recently gone through a little crafting kick.

Earlier this fall, I made Matilda an Angelina Ballerina costume (the ears and tail) for her school's book parade.

 Then I sewed a new Christmas table runner and pillowcases.

And I sewed Matilda a twirly Nutcracker skirt.

And I've made decent progress organizing Matilda's ridiculous amount of accessories and costumes.  All of her jewelry used to be in one large drawer, which made it impossible to find anything.  I used a cup rack to help organize it.

Her costumes were hung on a bar across her windows, with the wings and such in a box next to it.  We got her a toybox for her wings and other costumes accessories (along with her stuffed animals) and a wardrobe for her dresses and leotards.

DIY Montessori Topponcino

This weekend while Jason and Matilda were out of town camping, I knocked out one of my last projects I had planned for baby Mabel.  While we aren't strictly following all Montessori principals from birth (no floor bed until she's 6-12 months old), one thing I had researched and previously didn't have with Matilda was a topponcino. 

A topponcino is basically a flat security pillow you use with newborns and infants.  You can use it when holding the baby, under them when they sleep, for play time, etc.  The thought is that it will retain their smell and your smell and provide them a comforting spot, especially when you might be traveling or handing them off from adoring relative to adoring relative.

The typically run about $37-40 online, with each case running an additional $12-15 (plus shipping).  I had found several sets of instructions online to make your own, and was confident this was a project I could handle. These were the two instructions I used for my topponcino (here and here). 

The materials for the topponcino and 2 covers ran about $31.  I could have probably gotten them cheaper had I waited for the right sale at Hobby Lobby.

To make it, I bought 1 yard of wide cotton batting, 3 yards unbleached cotton muslin, and 2 yards of fabric for the cases (I chose 1 yard of while flannel with cute delicate flowers on it and 1 yard of very plain white gauze.)

Once I had my materials, I had to cut a pattern out of paper.  My pattern was about 26x16, with slightly rounded corners.

One tutorial said to use about 4-8 layers of batting, and 6 seemed about right for me.  (Remember, while this is a "pillow," it still needs to be rather flat for safety reasons.)  You layer muslin between the batting, so all in I had to cut 6 layers of batting and 5 layers of muslin to get me started.

Here's what the batting and muslin looked like layered together.

Then you hand whipstitch around the edges to combine all the layers.

I didn't take a picture of the next step, but I made a permanent cover out of muslin.  I cut about 1/2-1 inch around my initial pattern and sewed it on the sewing machine leaving about 8 inches open.  I turned it right side out, inserted the batting, and hand stitched the opening close.

The permanent cover needs to be attached to the batting by darting it in place in 5 spots.

Here is the finished topponcino.

I also sewed two covers/ shams.  For the front of the sham, cut 1/2-1 inch around your initial pattern.  For the back, do the same thing but make it an additional 8-10 inches longer and then cut it in half.  Hem the flat edges of the two halves (the goal is to have them overlap 4+ inches on the back so you can slide the pillow in and it will remain in place).  Then line up the backs to the front (right sides facing in) and sew all the way around it.

Here's a picture of the back of the sham, so you get an idea of how it should overlap.  My flannel cover overlaps by like twice the amount as this one.

My flannel cover ended up slightly too small, but it will work fine, and the gauze was a pain to cut, pin, and sew since it was so flimsy, but overall, I'm happy with how everything turned out.

Looking forward to seeing how it works with Miss Mabel.

Fall Garden and Sewing Baby Clothes

Fall makes me feel all domestic-y.  As such, we've planted our fall garden and I've spent my free time sewing Matilda some clothes.

Fall Garden

Our garden has cauliflower, swiss chard, arugula, lettuces, cabbage, cucumber, tomatoes, snap peas, jalapenos, blackberries, mint, rosemary, basil, cilantro, sage, thyme, oregano, and lemon grass. We still have room, so we'll probably plant a few more things.

When we planted it three weeks ago, it looked like this:

 Now it looks like this:

 

 

Matilda helped us pick plants out at the nursery and plant them.  Although she doesn't look happy, she was really chill and such a good helper.

Sewing Baby Clothes

I've also spent some time sewing stuff for Matilda.  The first thing I attempted was a bonnet to go with her Halloween outfit.

I also sewed her two fall dresses.  I've never sewn clothes before, so I think they came out okay for my first time.  I didn't have a pattern, so I just used one of her other dresses as an estimate.

The first one was a little peasant style dress with 3/4 length sleeves.  (Don't tell anybody, but they were suppose to be long sleeves, but didn't quite end up that way.)

 And the second one is a pillow case style dress for Thanksgiving. 

All I need to do is bake a fall bread or desert and put up our decorations, and my fall nesting will be complete.  :)

Nursery Pennant Banners

Last weekend I pulled out the sewing machine and made a couple pennant banners for the nursery.  (Jason corrected me from calling them "pendant banners".)  It was a fairly easy process.  Just cut out triangles, sewed them together, and linked them together using double fold bias tape. 



 



Jason didn't like the way I had hung them first, so we tried another style today.  Can't wait to get the crib in there and see how it looks!

The Beginnings of a Nursery

We'll be turning our second bedroom into Matilda's nursery.  Since we moved into this house, I figured that if we had kids, that would be the nursery, so I've always kept that in mind when buying stuff for that room.  I also didn't know if Jason would want to find out the sex of the baby, so I've tried to keep it a bit gender neutral.  It errs on the girlier side, but I think we could have added more blues to make it a little boys room.  This is basically the room as is:

I've always admired this artist's work, so as soon as we found out we were pregnant, I ordered a few prints.  They now hang on the wall opposite the bed.

I also went to Hobby Lobby and picked out some scrapbook paper to make a mobile and alphabet poster.  I cut out clouds, hot air balloons, and sail boats and strung them together using fishing line.  I covered an embroidery loop with yarn and tied the fishing line to the hoop to make it a mobile.

 

For the alphabet poster, I simply outlined some letter stencils, cut them out, and glued them to a poster board.

 

 

The only other project we've really worked on is cleaning out the closet and organizing the items my brother, sister-in-law, and mom have passed along.  I bought some baskets from The Container Store to help organize toys, pajamas, diapers, etc. since we don't plan on buying a dresser.

The only furniture we plan on adding is a crib and maybe some open shelving for toys down the line.  We'll likely use the desk as a changing table.  I still want to add some Ikea spice racks under the alphabet poster to use as book shelves.  I also might sew a flag pendant to decorate the back wall.  Anybody want to come re-paint my trim for me?  :)

Paint Your House

Last year for my birthday, Jason got me a gift certificate to Pinot's Palette.  I finally cashed in the certificate and went to the Paint Your House class.  It was a lot of fun.

They took this picture of my house:

And printed it on a canvas:

And I turned it into this:

Neat, huh?

Now we have a painting of our house in our house.  Kinda funny.

Crochet Hook Roll

We didn't have much planned this weekend, so I pulled out my fabric scraps and completed another sewing project.  This time, I made a case for my crochet hooks.  I still had my crochet set in the plastic wrapping it came in, so I needed something to store it in anyways. 

I got the idea for the design here, but I didn't measure any of my fabric pieces.  Also, instead of using three separate pieces, I just used one big piece for the outside which I folded up for the big pocket and down for the flap and then added another small piece of fabric for the needle pocket. 

About half way through the project I ran out of bottom thread and had to wind a new bobbin.  Somehow when I put the new one in, my tension messed up.  I spend about 3-4 hours this morning trying to get my tension back to normal.  I almost gave up several times, but now I can say I'm an expert and dismantling and mantling my sewing machine. 

Baby Bib and Hat

Last week I worked on making a few gifts for my new nephew.  I followed this tutorial for the crochet hat and this tutorial for the patchwork bib.  The patchwork bib was especially fun to make.    

 

Crochet Blanket

Remember a year ago when I said I was learning to crochet and then never mentioned it again?  Bet you thought I had given up.  Not the case.  I've been working on a project in my free time for over a year.

I started by using the single crochet stitch to make individual crochet squares.  I learned that using the single crochet stitch probably wasn't the wisest choice since it is the most compact stitch and thus took a much longer amount of time to make the same sized square than if I would have used the double or triple stitch.

Once I had 12 squares made, I joined them together using the mattress stitch.  It didn't matter which color of yarn I used since it would be invisible once pulled tight.

 

Here's what it looked like on the front and back as I worked on joining them.  Once all the squares were joined, I weaved in all of my loose ends.

 

 



 



 The blanket didn't look quite finished once I had done all that, so I added a simple border. 

 

 

Then I washed it and wet blocked it so it maintain its form a little better.

 

 

 Now it's all done.  Doesn't it look nice?