Ruby Blanket

Oh my Lord I just started and finished this blanket today while my sweet hubby and daughter were ill....that means lots of crafting for mommy. I have been meaning to make baby Ruby a blanket since she was born a couple of months ago and I was indecisive about what fabric to use. The mother, like myself when I had a girl, didn't want to go overboard on the pink. I sifted through my stash of wonderful fabric and found this gem of fabric, which I forgot I had purchased when I found out I was pregnant in case I had a girl. I LOVE the vintage look of it and I am now very upset that I am giving this away as it is the most favorite blanket that I have made to date. So on that note I hope that little Ruby loves it as much as I do.

I bought the fabric at Joann's. The front is the snuggle flannel and the back is the soft and fluffy light yellow fabric. Stuff I had in my stash so I couldn't tell you the prices but usually I can pick up the snuggle flannel for $2.99 a yard and the soft and fluffy for $7 a yard with lots of scraps left over for other projects. The pink flannel I just had in my scrap pile and I couldn't resist adding a little pink to Ruby's blanket! I sewed the letters on with a yellow embroidery thread and tied with a sweet pink bow and this gift is ready to go after about 2 hours of work putting it together!

This is a sneak peak of another big project that I am working on for my soon to be born son Blake and my husband's best friend is expecting a boy the same week named Thomas. Unfortunately Thomas will be born in Brazil but fortunately his dad will be here for a wedding shortly after so he can truck it on back to sweet Thomas. Yes it is another puff quilt but this time VERY boy. That is my daughter posing with all of the pillows as she likes to call them. Yes there are 2 baskets, a wooden bucked and a bag full of pillows for these 2 quilts, I feel like I am done making pillows for now! Now to put them together we will see how much time my family is going to give me today to just craft, I could only be so lucky huh!

Seahawks Tutu

So happy...Seattle just won the Superbowl. Growing up in Washington I have been a Seahawks fan my whole life so this was a BIG game. And of course I have several pictures to show it. Of course my daughter wanted a tutu so I converted her Halloween minion costume tutu to a Seattle Seahawks tutu! Here is the tutu transformation.

Minion Halloween costume

She wasn't ready to take pictures.

I think it turned out pretty well and Riley was very adamant that I get her tutu finished before the Superbowl. So hilarious as I'm sure this is the first one she has watched.

I am also 18 weeks pregnant today so I took my first real belly picture in my Seahawks jersey of course. My nausea symptoms are starting to decrease and most the time I can get away without taking any Zofran which is nice. I feel like I am getting huge, I hear this is normal for the second baby but seriously. I am already needing to look for maternity jeans which I will be doing tomorrow for sure. I wouldn't mind taking naps with Riley everyday but obviously I have some things to do around the house so I try to at least do the last hour with her so I get some rest. My husband is a big advocate in getting me enough rest, I don't know what I would do without him. Not to mention those massages, my hip and back pain is tortuous this time around, probably from lugging around a two year old! It will all be worth it in the end but in the meantime I will take as many massages as I can squeeze out of my hubby!

Jodi Picoult - The Storyteller

Oh man I just got done reading this book and all I can say is WOW. Being the type of student that I was, which was great most of the time, one of the subjects that I hated the most was history. Then I married my husband and all he watches and reads about is anything regarding history, who would have thought?!?! Anyways I have read several of Jodi Picoult's books, the first one I read being Nineteen Minutes. Nineteen Minutes quickly because a favorite of mine but every since then I haven't really found a Picoult book that has done that for me since (granted I haven't read them all). That is until now. I love this book, despite it having a lot of history in it. I guess I had always heard about Auschwitz but never really was that interested in reading too much into it. The stories that Picoult tells are truly saddening and amazing at the same time. It terrifies me that people actually lived in places like these and lived through it. I often times had tears in my eyes while reading into the wee hours of the night in bed or on my lunch break at work but in the end I can truly say that it taught me more than anything I retained in a history class. I highly recommend this book and that doesn't come lightly because any book that I pick up nowadays has to be great since I so rarely have time to read.

XOXO Valentine's Day Pillows

I have absolutely not one decoration for Valentine's Day so this year, during Riley's nap of course, I decided to make some easy Valentines Day pillows. OK I confess, I didn't get them done during her nap only, I worked on them after dinner as well. I got the idea from Craftaholicsanonymous.com. It looked simple enough so I set out to Joann's today for some fleece. I actually had some pink fleece in my stockpile so all I needed was red, I got 1/2 a yard and I already had some polyfill from my Puff Quilt.

Next thing I needed to do was make a template. So I rummaged through my cardboard pile and found a pizza box, hence the grease stains. I didn't print anything out I just free handed the X and O and then cut it out when I was finally satisfied with how it looked. I decided after I had done this that it would have actually been easier to do on freezer paper because then I could have ironed down the pieces but oh well, too late and all went well enough.



I just doubled over the fabric and made sure my template would fit on the half yard and then cut out a little extra around the edges to give me room for where I was going to sew. For the center of the O I actually didn't cut the fabric right up to the edge because I wanted to have enough for where I was going to sew. I just used a marker to mark where exactly I wanted to cut it.

To make my life a little harder than it needed to be I decided on a cool pattern to sew instead of the standard straight stitch. I also used contrasting thread, white on the red (mainly because I didn't think about using light pink until I started doing the X's) and red on the pink. I just left enough of an opening at the bottom to stuff my pillows with polyfill. Don't worry about the creases going through the fleece, once you put the stuffing in it will pull the fabric tight and you won't notice, I didn't bother ironing this at all.










Then I used pins to pin together the opening before I sewed it. The rest of the project I didn't have to use pins because fleece sticks pretty well together and stays there but when it is stuffed it is hard to keep all together, hence the pins. Then I just trimmed all of the loose threads and I was done!

 

Now I have a Valentines Day decoration that is durable and happens to be greatly enjoyed by my 2 year old daughter so of course we had a little photo shoot! Not to mention, now that I am done I could use the red O's and use them for Christmas, I will just need green H's (HOHO). I wish I could say I thought of that all along but I did not.

Puff Quilt

In an attempt to get organized this new year I have started a new blog and revised what all I would put in it. My last blog I talked A LOT about my child and looking back I'm thinking that I want that to be more private than I was initially thinking. So in attempt at a fresh look I will focus this blog mainly on all things I love. Crafting, reading, kids and decorating! That doesn't mean I won't throw in some surprises here and there like some fun recipes or maybe a family photo but I will try to focus it on things that people actually want to read about...so let me know if I get side tracked! Also I am almost always willing to make whatever I blog about for readers to buy. Message me if you have any special requests, I am a busy momma but can usually get things done fairly quickly!

I have a lot of crafts that I have to catch up on so my blog will soon be full of fun things to look at but the first craft that I am going to show you is my puff quilt!

Sweet Kora with her puff quilt

The finished project, should learn to take pictures before I give it as a gift!
 

I am fairly new to quilting and I decided to give this pattern by Honey Bear Lane a go for a baby gift. It was a super easy pattern to read and not to difficult to actually put together. Needless to say the baby is one year old and she got it this last Christmas rather than when she was born. Sorry but not a fast quilt to do with a toddler in the house that wants to "play with the pillows!" In the end it ended up being by far my most favorite quilt I have made to date and I immediately contemplated not giving it to sweet Kora and keeping it for myself. In the end I did give in and I hope she loves it as much as I do, however I have had a request from my 2 year old daughter Riley that she "really liked that blanket and would like me to make her one." So I guess I will soon make my trip to the fabric store to pick colors for my Riley girl's very own puff quilt!

So if anyone wants to buy one of these gems let me know, I would rather do it in bulk than one at a time and I should be starting Riley's soon, special requests are always welcome and usually feasible!