Sewing up a Storm

And the sewing continues! This is the completed Boppy cover that I started the other day. It was a little tricky, because on the inside of the curve there's a strip of fabric I had to figure out how to sew in... because of the nature of the curve and the thickness of the pillow, you can't just sew front to back and be done with it. But, it worked and it fits!

Instead of bothering with a zipper, buttons, velcro, snaps or anything else, I took the lazy - but trendy - way out and used ribbon ties instead. :-)

I'm very happy with it, and will use the same process and pattern to make another cover once I get through the other things on my list.

Last night I started on the changing pad cover, which was on the 'must-finish-before-baby-comes' list, as I haven't purchased one. This is what my sewing table looks like these days. It works best to keep all my fabric and remnants out where I can see them and mix and match. Also, my laptop stays handy, as I've been using patterns from Prudent Baby.

This is the first project for which I've used my cowboy print fabric.

After stitching the corners, ironing in and stitching a pocket for the elastic and threading the elastic through this morning, this is the final product.

Of course, more canvas dropcloth fabric is used for the neutral part of the cover.

This is what the bottom looks like, with the elastic.

So now I've taken it downstairs, and next I'll do the curtains for the little window in the baby room. It's also occurred to me that my mom might want curtains in the sewing room, which is also our guest room, so I'll have to sew some of them up, too, while I'm at it. :-) She will drive to Wyoming next Monday, then spend some time in Lander with my sister Melissa if the baby hasn't arrived yet, coming back to Casper either when the baby starts to make its entrance into the world, or by Thursday evening, whichever comes first. My brother will also be out in Wyoming soon, as he and friend Aaron are coming out for a four-wheeler trip over Labor Day weekend.

Also for projects in the baby room, I have the cowhide, drawer pulls and nailhead trim all gathered together for the cowhide door fronts on the armoire... it just needs to come to the top of the list. Once I get started I don't think it'll take long - maybe this weekend! I know, I know, my time is quickly counting down, and I don't expect to get all the projects done before the baby comes, but I'll keep working down the list until Delivery Day! Besides, I'll need something to do when I'm just sitting around at home being lazy after the baby arrives, right? :-)

Sewing for Baby With a Cat

Over the weekend Link and I were able to work a little bit on a few sewing projects.

The first project we worked on - and finished - was the slipcover for the rocking chair. It's good to have that one done!

Link was very helpful, offering his advice at every turn.

We decided to cover most of the cushion on the plain canvas dropcloth fabric, but we did use one other kind of fabric on one side.

So this is the one side of the cushion with a piece of fabric I picked up at the church thrift store in Iowa Falls when Melissa and I went to Iowa about a month ago.

And here's the finished chair! I had considered doing a blue star applique on the seat back, but decided I'll leave that detail for later, and for now focus on getting some of the other sewing projects done.

There are 2x4s under the chair because Scott still has yet to finish his part of the rocker project - blocking up the legs a little bit so it's a little taller and easier to get out of.

The next project we worked on was a cover for the Boppy pillow that my mom found for me. We decided to use the red stars because that fabric hasn't been used anywhere else yet.

And Link approved of my choice.

He's such a helper, and doesn't get in the way at all!

Project: Baby Quilts

Yes, I have finally gotten a start on my baby sewing projects! Last night I finished cutting out the top pieces of fabric for Baby Martinez's quilt, and started sewing them together. I would have taken a photo this morning, but I left my little camera's battery charging at the office overnight.

However, I realized that I never posted the final photos of Baby Ehlers's quilt, whom we now know is little miss Sophia Ruth. :-)

It all started with this stack of fabric on my sewing table...

And lots of help from Foxy...

And Lucy...

And, of course, Link, who felt the need to be in the closet shelving in this photo.

This is called a 'log cabin' pattern, and one that I found in a Martha Stewart magazine last winter. I like it because it's easy, and doesn't have multiple small pieces. I'm not that confident in my quilting accuracy, at least not yet. I'd like to try a more complicated one at some point...

Sewing the strips together...

Here the photo is almost all completely sewn together.

And all done with the top! Surprisingly, sewing the top together has been the easiest part of both of the quilts I've made so far. Getting the top, lining and bottom to all come together smoothly and evenly without bumps or shifts has been the worst part.

I chose to use the darker pink fabric for the binding.

Half of the binding is machine-sewn, while the other half, to finish it off nice and pretty, is attached by hand. At this stage I had machine-sewn the binding all the way around.

And after a couple winter evenings of hand-stitching, here it is, all done!

I'm pretty happy with the final product. I was concerned about the pinks clashing, but I've come to discover the whole point of a quilt is to not be perfectly coordinated, and both of them have turned out just fine.

Here is the previous one I made for Baby Seehusen, whom we now know is Nora Beth:

Yes, this is the one of which I forgot to take a photo of the final product before boxing it up and sending it off to Iowa.

I'll upload some photos of Baby Martinez's quilt in the days to come... hopefully I'll also get those baby room photos taken that I promised several days ago. :-)

Sneak Peak: Baby Ehlers project

A portion of last weekend I spent working in my sewing room on my next project, the one for Baby Ehlers, the daughter of college friends Amy and Caleb, who now live in Kansas City. First thing Saturday morning, after breakfast, Scott went out to help one of his brothers trim trees, and the girls didn't get to go with, so of course I had them underfoot, helping me with my project.

Foxy thought sewing was a little boring at times.

Sneak Peak: This is the fabric I'm using for the project. It's going to be very girly with a little bit of sparkle, but I think it will be just perfect for the new baby girl, who is due to arrive April 8.

Link hesitated to come into the sewing room because of the dog presence, but he eventually tip-toed in and reclaimed his position as Feline Helper. So then all four of us were my little sewing room. At least I had all of them to talk to and ask advice about the project. :-)

Sneak Peak: Here's pieces of the fabric beginning to be sewn together. We made good progress, and it's about half done at this point.

Nora's baby quilt

I have neglected to post photos of the project I was working on in January for Baby Seehusen, who we now know is Baby Nora, born Feb. 6 and interupting her father's Superbowl Sunday.

It had been a while since I'd undertaken a sewing project, but this one actually came together pretty quickly. To me, the most enjoyable parts of any sewing project, save for being happy with the final product, is visiting the fabric store to choose fabrics, colors, textures and patterns. The day I visited Hancock Fabrics my coworkers were beginning to worry about me in my absence. :-)

Since at that time we didn't know if Baby Seehusen was to be a boy or a girl - although I had thought from the beginning she would be a girl - I did my best to choose gender-neutral fabrics and actually was really pleased with how they turned out, not too girl or boy, and just the right amount of fresh spring-time feel, as well as a little 'farm' and 'country' thrown in.

The pattern of this quilt is called Log Cabin, and I was inspired by an article in one of my wintertime Martha Stewart magazines, which featured the pattern in different applications, one of them a pale blue/purple/gray seersucker baby quilt.

I decided on the color and pattern layout through trial and error, shifting things here and there before cutting the next pieces. I tried to vary the directions of the stripes on both the pale and bolder fabrics, thus the joining of fabrics in the long yellow piece, because I wanted the stripes to run lengthwise.

I love the pieces with the blue plaid. They're my favorite part of the quilt. Through cutting this out I decided that I would really like to have a rotary cutter - it would have been much easier to get straight even lines with one of those, rather than using my scissors and cutting mat. As it is, through being very careful, I managed pretty well.

Here it is partially sewn together. I was really paranoid about my seams getting crooked and everything getting off-kilter, so I took plenty of time and was very careful that everything matched up.

And of course my assistant Link put the same care into the piecing together as I did. Ok maybe not. Sorry, Holly, I tried to make sure the quilt was cat-hair-free, but there might be some lingering hangers-on that I didn't notice. Blame it on the feline assistant who insisted on being in the middle of the project.

Ta da! The whole top pattern sewn together, and very please with how it turned out. And loving the colors and the arrangement of patterns.

Yes, that is a seam ripper there next to my scissors. My seam ripper is one of my nearest and dearest sewing tools. I had a somewhat hard time sewing the top to the middle batting to the yellow fabric for the back. In hindsight, I should have cut both the batting and the backing several inches too large, then simply trimmed, instead of fighting with them to make them line up.

The next step was hand-stitching all the seams between color blocks, to make them stand out and add a little bit of a highlight and a homespun feel. It didn't take that long, after all, and was actually the part of putting the quilt together that I enjoyed the most.

Then came a part I had a tough time with - the binding. The edges were fine... it's the corners that confused me. And now if Holly looks at it I'm sure she'll be able to tell I had to do some improvising. It was either that or re-cut and re-sew the entire binding, and I was so close to finishing and didn't have enough fabric, so I made do with what I had.

I also debated about whether or not the blue plaid would look good on the binding, and had my doubts, but I ended up really liking it.

And, apparently, I completely forgot to take photos of the entire finished project. So instead, here is a parting shot of Assistant Feline doing what he does best.

Next project: Baby Ehlers. :-)