Monday, January 23, 2012

Christmas crafting - revealed!

With Penelope being born so soon after Christmas, it got kind of hectic meeting up with friends and family to exchange presents.  Actually, I have yet to exchange secret santa presents with a group of friends from my modern quilting guild - so I do have one handmade present that I still have to keep under wraps.

I kept it pretty simple regarding the amount of gift sewing I took on this year.  Just a few simple projects for those closest to me.

In addition to the nesting pouches I've previously posted about, I've been working on the following....

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My sister does a lot of traveling, so I made her a zippered dopp kit for her toiletries, using this tutorial from The Purl Bee, along with some additional pouches to go inside.  I'd been eyeing this tutorial for a long time, and am glad to say that it was generally super easy!  The most difficult part was sewing on some of the bias tape on the inside seams (those corners!), but thankfully those aren't visible unless you go looking for them.

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Phoebe's best friend got a dachshund necklace to match her own.

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I finally cut into my closely hoarded stash of voile to make a square dance scarf that I've been seeing all over Pinterest.  Such a simple, lovely project, and the voile was so wonderful to sew with that I wondered why I hadn't made anything out of it sooner!

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These were my most time consuming projects of the holiday season.  From Alicia Paulson's book Stitched in Time, I was excited to finally try the patchwork picture frames project.  This was my first attempt at printing photos on fabric, and I'm amazed at how easy it turned out to be!  I picked up a package of printable fabric sheets from Joann's, and just ran them through my printer (which is nothing special or fancy) on plain paper, normal setting, and they came out perfect the first time.  Score!  You can find the full instructions in Alicia's book, of course.

Thanks for sticking around during the sporatic posting - I've got tons of stuff to show you, but I've been using every free minute to cuddle my dear little Penelope.  She's pretty much the sweetest baby in the world.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Gratuitous baby pictures

I had a crafty post planned for today, but then some sneak peeks from Penelope's newborn photoshoot were posted, and I can't seem to tear myself away from them.

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If anyone in the Southeast Michigan area is looking for a great photographer - especially with babies and children, I highly, highly recommend Kari Breker Photography.  She is incredibly talented, fantastic with kids, and happens to be a dear friend of mine :)

Check out some more from our photoshoot here.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

A blanket - just in time for baby

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For such a simple blanket - just about the entire piece is made up solely of double crochets - this has become my favorite crocheted project ever.

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I finished the actual blanket shortly before Christmas, then feverishly worked to whipstich some doilies on the top - because heaven forbid if the baby would come and her blanket was still doily-less!  I was crossing my fingers that I had enough yarn, and some of the blocks were finished with a mere inches left on the skein.  Unfortunately I wasn't so lucky with the green and if you look in the bottom right corner, you'll see that I was one row and three stitches short.  Instead of waddling out to the yarn shop on Chirstmas eve, I just went with it and threw in some more yellow.

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For the edging, I ended up using the same method used on Dottie Angel's patchwork blanket  - a row of double crochet, a row of single crochet, then a simple picot stitch to finish it off.

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So even though she didn't feel like waiting until the crib skirt was finished to make her arrival, this cozy blanket was completed and waiting to wrap up this precious little bundle. 

Penelope June arrived on December 30 at 4:10pm, weighing in at 8 lbs, 13 oz - one week early, and not even 24 hours after my last blog post where I was bribing her to come out.  What a well behaved little girl :)

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Becoming a momma for the second time has been simply wonderful.  With Phoebe, I felt like I was wrapped in a new mommy fog of worries, anxiety, and post partum depression that lasted for months and I can barely remember her little baby days.  This time I feel like an old pro, where I can just relax and nuzzle my face into her sweet smelling baby hair for hours and hours.  It's simply divine.  Plus, as any momma knows - newborns are a piece of cake compared to toddlers!