Matryoshka Love

Yesterday I attended a baby shower for a friend/colleague who fancies nesting dolls as much as I do. This was the perfect opportunity to make a matryoshka baby gift for Baby B.  Onesies seem to be my go-to baby shower gift because they are adorable, inexpensive, do not require me to lug out my sewing machine, and can be personalized for the baby and baby shower theme.  These are my favorite onesies thus far, and are just too cute!

For the Matryoshka Love onesies, I used the felt heart pattern and the matryoshka template was a combination of the nesting doll cards and the felt nesting doll ornament. 

Baby B, sending you and your parents lots of matryoshka love.

Nine Little Elephants: A Baby Quilt

Nine Little Elephants 

My newest baby quilt creation -  nine little elephants from nine different fabrics. I used the same nine fabrics for the ear and border. I saw a pattern here, but created my own. This finished quilt is about 45"x48".

Using Wonder-Under and a high iron, I attached each pachyderm onto a 7"x8" white rectangle.  Then I top-stitched each one with a zig-zag stitch, and added the border (again the border and ear are the same material).  The finished squares were 12" each.  Next I joined each square and row with a white border (the same fabric the elephants were mounted on).

I sent the quilt top to Bayberry Quilts for the finishing touches. They quilted and bound it with the blue fabric I used for the upper right elephant and the border in the opposite corner.

Finally I included a handmade elephant card and gave this quilt for a baby shower gift.  

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Can You Be?

If you have been reading my posts, you may have noticed that The Very Hungry Caterpillar has been a common theme in my recent gift giving.  Well, this time I used a different Eric Carle book.  The Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? fabric made wonderful t-shirts for a little boy in my life.

These shirts were a NO SEWING MACHINE project, just like the onesies.  I cut out the animals from the Brown Bear fabric (which was washed and dried first) and adhered the fabric to the gray t-shirts with Heat n' Bond.  Then I hand-stitched the brown bear and green frog with DMC floss.  I also added a lily pad under the frog and little paw prints from non-Eric Carle fabric that I had in my collection. 

Whether you're making onesies or t-shirts, beautiful fabric and Heat n' Bond, can turn any plain article of clothing into a one-of-a-kind creation.  Happy creating!

Old Sweater Becomes New Cardigan

Old, purple, Banana Republic sweater

A few weeks ago on Pinterest, I saw a pin to make a 10-minute cardigan and then I saw it again this weekend.  Sunday night I told my boyfriend that I was going to clean my closet because I was creating an avalanche.  What he thought would take me thirty minutes, turned into an hour and a half project, but I found some old sweaters to reintroduce into my current wardrobe....by transforming them into cardigans.  

The 10-minute tutorial was very easy to follow and accurate.  I did not have 5/8" Heat n' Bond, so I used the roll I had and cut into 1/2" strips (close enough).  I used a zigzag stitch and sewed all the way up. (She said not to do this, but my thread was so dark that you couldn't see it anyway.  I will probably take her advice for the other sweaters.)  The material was very hard to sew and keep straight.  In the picture below, you can see that the sides are a bit wavy.  However, I didn't notice these imperfections when it was on and looked in the mirror.  

New cardigan

The cardigan took me longer than 10-minutes, not because of her directions, but because my thread was stale, kept breaking, and I had to re-thread my machine several times.  (Yes old thread gets stale and breaks easily and often.)  So, I do believe the cardigan would have been finished in the said time, if it wasn't for my thread.  I will be making more from the avalanche pile soon. 

It's onesie time!

It's onesie time!  Many of my friends and family members are having babies.  I created handmade onesies for the last two baby showers I was invited to - thanks to some inspiration from Pinterest here and here.

This is a great NO sewing machine project! Some of the sites sew the fabric on the sewing machine, but these onesies are adhered with Heat n' Bond and hand sewn with DMC floss.  They are strong enough to machine wash too.

Materials:
onesies and scraps of fabric - which must be washed and dried first
Heat 'n Bond
DMC floss
buttons for eyes
bows (optional)
iron and ironing board   

For my niece I made a cupcake, butterfly, elephant, "B," and fish:

My friends and I made various water-themed animals for our friends who are having a baby in July. The baby-to-be will be born under the cancer sign, so we wanted to incorporate the water element into our creations.  We bought the onesies in various sizes so she can wear them throughout the year.

I added orange button eyes for the crab, a button fish eye, and a blue and white polka dot bow to the octopus.

These onesies were easy to design, inexpensive, original, and adorable! Happy onesie making!