Gingercake

Nigh Nigh Time… Doll, Carrier & Blankie for Sew Fab Sale

Another adorable pattern that is part of the Sew Fab Bundle is this Doll, Carrier & Blankie from Patchwork Posse.  This pattern called out to me and said "Gingercake must sew this!"  and I loved it. I used some Get Together fabric by David Walker for the baby body and AnnKelle fabrics for the handles, blanket and carrier.  It was really easy to add the pom poms and I think it made a really cute addition! 

Little Miss Marion loves it too.  She immediately picked up the baby and said "nigh nigh baby" and cuddled it to her shoulder.  She is a baby doll lover already.  Her oldest sister was the same way- all about the baby dolls.  Her other sister is more into things like her new robot (but that is a whole other story!).  

Marion immediatley took the blanket off and pushed it back on and held the baby and then put the baby back in the carrier again.  And round and round like all 18 month olds, right?  I had to gently sneak it away from her though because this baby was actually a gift to a super sweet 1 year old cousin.  I will happily make my baby another one though!

My favorite part of making this was sewing that sweet face.  The sew fab sale is still going strong!  Check out my original blog post with the info on all the patterns and don't forget to enter the giveaway at the bottom of the post.

Making Lemonade from a Lemon: Baby Bloomers

Yesterday's bubble dress has a back story.  I rushed and made the skirt section too short.  I was just on the verge of abandoning the whole thing when I took a breath and brought out my seam ripper.  I made the skirt all over again but then had this cute bottom section left over.  A simple elastic waste band meant that all that work wasn't waste after all!  And they are seriously cute on her...  What mistakes have you made that turned out to be lemonade?

Baby in a Bubble

Miss Marion is trying hard to be on the move.  She is not there yet and usually ends up on her face.  It's actually pretty funny since she lays there flat for awhile until she suddenly starts to yell.  Like, is she thinking we won't see her flat on her face?  Or is she wondering "What went wrong this time?  Is it that my head is still too heavy for the muscles in my neck???!"

At this age a dress just gets all caught up in her knees and is frustrating for baby.  For this project, I made the geranium dress (faux sleeves option without the notch neckline) and turned the bottom into a romper/ bubble.  A pretty simple addition but adds some time to your project.  You could follow a tutorial like this one.

Another plus of the bubble is that we get a good look at those chubby chubby legs!

The geranium dress pattern is as great as everyone says.  Yes, it's true!  I will be making more of this dress in the future and I imagine it will become a staple in Marion's wardrobe.  

The fabric is Riley Blake So Happy Together Happy Stripe Multi.  It's perfect for summer and the small print looks sweet on a baby.  The weight of the fabric is a little thick for clothing but still fine since it's for the baby.  I think you can get away with quilting weight more easily on clothing for little ones, don't you?  Mostly because you use a smaller amount of fabric for their garments!

Some Weekend Sewing- Mushroom Short Pants

Over the weekend I sewed a couple things for the baby.  She is so cute right now and it's fun to pick out fabrics for her.  I like sweet but fun fabrics on babies and this ann kelle print is perfect!

I followed Made by Rae's baby pants but added a panel to the bottom for some extra space.  I also shortened them for a shorts/ bloomers look.  I made a bunch of these pants before the baby was born.  They look so tiny now!  

I added a 7" piece of 1/4" elastic to the hemmed pant openings and stretched it to make a simple ruching. They turned out really cute!  More baby clothes cutenss later in the week...

Fabric: Ann Kelle Woodland Pals Bermuda

Goodbye May!

Last night I realized today would be the last day of my favorite month of the year.  May is fantastic in Western Pennsylvania.  Just beautiful!  I am feeling a little let down since I haven't been able to sew much lately but May is a hard month to stay inside and sew!  Here is has been happening this month...

Hopefully you can see that I made some changes to the website.  My awesome helper, Christian was in town and he helped me work some things out I have been wanting to do for a long time.  I do the designing and he makes it work!  Also, thank you to Vanessa for giving me some great tips to clean things up the looks of things here on the blog.  Good friends can give you a much needed fresh eye sometimes!

I joined a program in which I can choose my own sponsors for the blog.  Scroll down on the right to see them.  I love the program since I can choose who I want to have advertised and it can be part of my blog theme.  You have to be approved but it's a short process and I am looking forward to seeing how it's going to turn out!  There are tons of businesses to choose from.  Email me if you want more info on my experience so far!  

I wasted a bunch of energy on creating this silly turtle which I have now abandoned for other ideas temporarily.  Sometimes you just have to take a break when you can't get things quite right and you start to get too complicated your own good.  This turtle took up a week and I have only this oddly shaped thing to show for it!  If I pick it up again in a month or so I bet I'll figure out a way to make something better...

I have spending LOTS of time at my kids sports this month.  It's cute though and they like it.  I bring my chair and a blanket for the baby to play on and we watch all the fun of little kids playing soccer and baseball.  Not a bad way to spend your evenings and Saturdays!

I have other projects happening which I hope to share soon but this little gal is taking up A LOT of my time!  I refuse to complain though since she is one good baby and now that I am older and I know for sure this is my last one, I am really enjoying all her cuteness...

Baby's New Shoes

I have been losing a lot of baby socks lately.  On our Washington DC trip, strangers kept coming up to me and either handing me fallen off socks or letting me know the baby was missing a sock.  Whoops!  Socks don't work so well to keep baby's feet warm but these little shoes do the trick.

I cruised Pinterest to find a free pattern but then just decided to search on Etsy "baby shoe pattern PDF"  and this great pattern by Petitboo appeared in the results.  They are adorable and totally functional.  The clever construction makes them fully lined too.  By the 3rd pair I had them done in 1/2 hour.

 I made them in 6-9 month size and they are a little big (since she isn't 6 months yet) but they still work great.  Yeah for a useful baby item that I could sew up myself!  There are lots more baby shoe patterns that include frills and ruffles but I just wanted a shoe to keep her feet warm and wouldn't fall off!

She sits!  Loving this stage.  Just in time for spring-  I can just plop her down and be outside.  Thanks to PetitBoo for such a cute pattern.  I'll be making more when she grows out of these!

Related articles

Super Simple Little Bib Tutorial- for my Slobberer and Craft Hope!

Fun with HST

I bought a stack of solids and finally starting cutting into them using this method.  It's really cool to try if half square triangles interest you!  I love fun sewing tricks, don't you?  I enlarged the fabric pieces to 18" x 18" since I wanted bigger triangles.  The baby enjoyed chewing on the fabric pieces as Cal and I messed around with a quilt design.

She is getting big!  Almost 5 months already.  My original idea was much more random piecing (like this) but my 5 year old was really interested in making a pattern.  I am feeling a little over the chevron look but we were both pleased that it all came together like magic since I didn't even plan on the pattern!  Quilting is super cool like that.

I'll be sure to give more details as I get further along with this project!

How Bunny got a Pocket

Since I am having the bunny sale this week, I was trying to think of a way to make more versions of the pattern.  In the past I made the bunny smaller by printing it at 65%.  You can read about those here.  Very cute!  I have gotten lots of emails by sewers saying they are excited to use the pattern to make bunnies for the easter basket.  I thought, why not make Bunny the easter basket?!

This was surprisingly easy and fun.  I thought it would be perfect for the baby this easter too since she is obviously not going to be eating chocolate or jelly beans!  I am thinking the easter bunny can fill the pocket with baby toys and onsies.

To make the pocket in the bunny, you have to just make a couple adjustments.  First, give yourself some extra width so the pillow will stand on its own.   Add about an inch to the base and backside when you are cutting out your pattern.  Like in this fuzzy camera picture below!

Follow the pattern instructions with interfacing, sewing the darts, making the ears, and all that other stuff.  Next cut out a rounded piece of fabric for the pocket.  I didn't take measurements here but from the picture below you can get the general idea of size...

Before you sew the 2 bunny sides together, attach the pocket pieces to each side of the bunny like in the photo above.  Then, flip up the pocket piece and layer the 2 bunny sides together and sew all the way around the bunny edges and, instead of going straight down the bunny back, sew your seam around the pocket edges.  Trim your seams and clip the corners around the pocket.

Turn it right sides out and push the pocket inside.  See?  works!  I then used a funnel and added about an inch layer of rice to the base before I stuffed the bunny with polyfil.  This gave it a nice weighted bottom so it stands up easily.

Stuffing the polyfil was a little extra work since you need to keep your hand in the pocket but it doesn't have to be perfect since the bow hides folds in the neck area and when you stuff your items in the pocket it fixes problems there too!

I stuffed it with the super simple bibs I made a couple weeks ago.  I went to a baby shower over the weekend and I thought this would have been a perfect gift!  The kids are loving trying to figure out what they can stuff into the pocket.  It would be fun to make one for a big kid that has velcro and is like a secret pocket, huh??  

 

Super Simple Little Bib Tutorial- for my Slobberer and Craft Hope!

My sweet little Marion is almost 4 months old.  She is precious but the girl can slobber!  And spit up all over me and her clothes several times a day.  My other babies were not big spitters/ slobberers so I always looked a little sideways at the moms whose babies had bibs on all the time.  I found a small bib pattern I drafted years ago that worked great for her size and should be good for a few months at least!

This has been saving me from changing her clothes like 10 times a day.

Also, I try to contribute to craft hope projects when I can and figured I could make extras and send over bibs for their current project.  So even if you don't have a baby to sew for right now, making these little bibs is fun and fast and you can contribute your work to craft hope's excellent cause!  

I made mine reversible and with pearl snaps.  This way baby can slobber (my 8 year old, who is always dying to hold her, says "MOOOOOMMM!  She slobbered on me again!  Come and get her please!") on one side and then she can slobber on the other side too.  OR, you can switch the bib around to match her outfit if you care about that (and I admit that I do...).

First gather your materials~ 

2 pieces of cotton fabric that measure 9.5" x 12"

1 piece of cotton batting that measures 9.5" x 12" - flannel can substitute

pearl snaps (or velcro, regular snaps, or ties)

chopstick to poke out corners

sewing machine, coordinating thread, scissors, & iron

optional- rotary cutter & self healing mat

 

1.  Print pattern pieces, cut them out and tape A & B together.

Download Gingercake Little Bib Pattern Pieces

2.  Use pattern piece to cut out mirror image pieces of the 2 cottons.  This is important since the sides of the pattern are not symetrical!  Maybe layer the fabrics right sides facing and cut them out together.  Also cut out a piece of matching cotton batting.

3.  Layer the materials together- starting with batting, then a piece of cotton face up and then the other piece of cotton face down.  Pin together.  Sew the 3 pieces together with a 1/4" seam allowance and leave a 3" opening to turn the piece right side out.  Trim the seams down to 1/8" except at the opening.

4.  Turn the piece right sides out and poke out tip with a chopstick.  Iron it nice and flat and match up the opening edges.  I use a piece of steam a seam to close up my opening but if you don't have any around, just be careful when you top stitch.  Top stich around the bib about 1/4" from the edge.

5.  Follow the directs to attach the pearl snaps.  Make sure you have one side of the snap facing up and the other facing down!  

Now you have a pretty little bib!  One thing I noticed is that a quick ironing after washing seems to shape them up really nicely.  If you want to put in the extra time, you could easily quilt the top to give it some added interest and probably eliminate that ironing after washing.  I made a bunch at once and it was so fast and easy!

Now she slobbers away and I just have to change the bib!  So cute and yet so slobbery...

If you want to make these to sell, go for it!  Just give me credit for the pattern with a link back to this post.  Thanks!  Also, please share your creations in my gingercake flickr pool!  

 

A Baby Book

Baby Books!  Love em or hate em?  The pressure of filling them out makes me aprehensive.  I am fine with the initial info about when baby was born, what was happening, what the birth was like, etc.  It's just the follow up that gets me!  All the other kids have half filled baby books- great at the beginning and then lots of blank pages!  Life gets in the way and I forget to stop and fill out baby book info.   This is where my big girls will be helping future Marion.  They are PSYCHED about the baby book.  

Fabric used: Pretty Little Things Tree by Dena Designs, Free Spirit Get Together Flock of Birds Pink

& Valori Wells Wrenly Rosette Cerulean Blue

I knew the notebook slipcover pattern would come in handy for this project.  My older daughters helped me choose the fabrics.  I added a double layer of cotton batting to make it softer and decided not to add the extra top stitching.  A cleaner edge just seemed right for this project.

I purchased the whole set of pages from the lovely Shanda over at CustomMemoryBooks.  These are so nice!  Shanda customizes the cover page and all the pages just for the baby.  Check it out if you are in the baby book market.  So so sweet.  You can either have her print the pages and send to you or she will customize a set that you can print out yourself.  They are clean and simple with modern graphics. Brilliant.

I bought a binder and clear protector pages from Office Max- an invest of about $15.  At first I thought I wouldn't like using the protector pages but they are actually really nice.  You can insert photos and cards in with certain pages and it keeps the whole thing more organized.  You scrap bookers probably already know about this trick but it was new to me!  

So, were you good about your baby books?  Does it really even matter?  All I know is that when I mentioned baby book to the big girls they were so excited.  We brought out their baby books and it turns out that I filled in just enough to make them happy and together we talked about their baby times.  Phew!  Hopefully we can give that gift to Marion too.