Malcolm's Nursery Set

Or, More Proof That I Haven't Been Idle.

Shortly after learning that my brother- and sister-in-law would be having their first child late this summer, I found the perfect nursery panel on clearance at work.  There were only 3 left on the bolt, so I bought all 3.  One panel is still being made into a quilt-style blanket.

The panel itself consists only of the various-sized animal blocks.  I added the light brown border to it, and backed it in the same fabric.  (It's a Keepsake Calico print from JoAnn's.)  The part that looks like a white border is actually a lightweight cotton batting.  I went over all the straight lines in the panel with the sewing machine to help it look more genuinely quilted, and I'm still in the process of outlining all the animals by hand.  Once I'm done with that, I'll cut down the extra batting and square it up before binding it.  

I cut up the second panel to make all sorts of fun things.  The large giraffe and crocodile block became a small, lightweight baby blanket.  There's no batting, but I did back it in a soft yellow cotton flannel, and bind it with pre-made double-fold bias binding from Wrights.

The twelve tiny squares became a set of two plush cubes, one of which has a rattle inside, so that little Malcolm has something soft and bright and colorful to look at and play with.  I used a mid-weight stabilizer to help reinforce the fabric, and help them to hold their shape.  If I do something like this again, I think I might use a heavier stabilizer, but I don't want them to be too stiff.  Hmm...

And the three large blocks I turned into wall art for the nursery.  I bought 3 12x12 canvases from Michael's and decoupaged the fabric squares onto the canvases.

Cute, right?  I haven't done anything with the last panel; maybe I'll make a blanket for my own little boy, now that I'm expecting again.  But I didn't stop there on Malcom's goodies.  I've had this Heather Bailey pattern since before we left Germany, but I'd never made one.  I thought this would be the perfect time to give it a try.  The fabric (a fat quarter from JoAnn's) and the bit of ribbon (for the tail) both came from my stash, and match the rest of the set very well.  Unfortunately, he's so tiny that I had to stitch him entirely by hand and I'm not sure how much abuse he'll be able to take.

A few weeks after discovering the panels in the clearance section, I found a coordinating fabric still with the rest of the nursery fabrics.  There was only a little left, so I bought all of that too, even though at the time I had no idea what I would do with it.  As it turns out, I had just enough to make a Boppy cover for her.

I used this pattern that I found on Etsy, and holy cow, it could not have been easier.  The pattern says that it's a 30 minute project, start to finish, but it took me about an hour.  (Maybe Corinnea or Kelly could have done it in half an hour, but I've not reached their Guru status yet.)   I think that I will be making some changes next time, though.  For one, I want to try using a zipper next time, instead of the overlapped opening that this one has.  It was really super easy to put together, but getting the pillow into the cover is a bit of a pain.  And the cover ended up being a little too big for my Boppy, so I think I will widen the seam allowance a bit.  We'll have to see how it fits Carrie's Boppy, first; hers is newer and may be bigger than mine.

The last thing is a fitted crib sheet.  I used this tutorial, and it was every bit as easy as making the Boppy cover.  The finished sheet fits both of our crib/toddler mattresses to perfection, so I won't be changing a thing when I make the next one.  (There will be a next one.)  I'd wanted to use that leafy fabric (that I ended up using for the Boppy cover) for the sheet, but I didn't have quite enough of it.  With the help of one of the other girls at work, I found this Quilter's Showcase print that's a perfect match for the orange in the panel fabrics, and compliments the rest of the set rather well.

Not too shabby, huh?  It's only taken me....what, 6 months to get all this together?  I'm such a procrastinator.  Now that my poor nephew is more than 6 weeks old, I'm finally getting around to sending a box for him... He'll have to wait for his wall art, because I haven't been able to find a box to fit them, and the big blanket is going to be a Christmas gift, but everything else will be heading his way this week.  :)

James David

A friend of mine just had her baby, and I took a few photos for her, just for fun.  These are a few of the best:

We picked one and I made her birth announcements:

 I made a name plaque to match the sailboat-themed nursery set that she chose.

Nautica's Zachary crib set

And I made a coordinating bath towel hoodie for the little guy.  He hates to be cold, and it's super cozy and plush. It also coordinates with the nursery.

I used cotton towels--one bath towel and one hand towel-- from Target for the hoodie itself, scraps of cotton fabric for the sail boat, and ribbon from JoAnn's to trim across the bottom of the hood, and all the way across the bottom of the cape.  Quilter's cotton worked so much better for doing the applique than scraps of towel, because the cotton doesn't warp as bad.  (Kaylie's "K" was not supposed to be nearly so big!)  I'll have to ask Rebekah for feedback on functionality.  :)

Thinking Inside the Box

We just got some new scrapbook papers in  The Shop this week, and I fell in love with them.  I had to have a few of them, at least, even though I haven't done any paper scrapping since last February.  (Seriously, it's been that long.)  But, as Kelly pointed out in her digi-scrap class on Saturday, there are other things you can do with scrapbook papers.  Things like decoupage.  

I am a pack rat.  I can't throw anything away, not if I think I might be able to use it later.  In this case, it actually served me well.  I'd held on to a pair of boxes that had once contained Godiva chocolates, thinking that I could use them for wrapping gifts.  Instead, I decided to re-wrap them.  So,

plus

 with a little bit of

 equals

Ta-da!  I used one of the papers from Kaisercraft's Utopia Collection for the top, and a sage green from my stash for the bottom.  I love it!  I loved it so much that I did another one.

I'm not liking this one as much.  I love the top (this time from the Tea at Elsie's Collection, also by Kaisercraft) and I love the bottom (another from my stash)--but independently.  They just don't look as good together as I thought they would.  I guess that means I'm just going to have to go to the PX and get another box of chocolates, so I can make matching mates for those mismatched box halves.

Darn.

New Logo

The lovely and talented Jessica graciously agreed to work with me to create a custom logo for my Etsy shop,  tags, business cards, etc.  She was infinitely patient with me through the design process, especially since I wasn't really sure what I wanted.   I only had a vague idea that it should include some sort of Celtic knot, which turned out to be appropriate since I settled on the name All Wound Up and Celtic knots are all wound up.  I also knew that I wanted something that would be uniquely mine, but that is frustratingly vague.  We kicked around several designs, and in the end, she presented me with this bit of genius:

Is it not just perfect?  It is, I promise you.   I'm in love with it.  Does the pendant in the middle look familiar?  It should.  She pulled it from this:

Such a clever idea, and it turned out so cool.  Thank you, Jessica.  ^_^

 I've already started playing with the design for my Etsy header, and business cards and such.  Here's a mock-up of what I have so far, for the header:

I will definitely be adding color, I just haven't decided how yet.  That was basically just the product of a brainstorming session for Jessica, and I just went back and added the finished logo. 

Fantastic Friends, Fantastic Bags

This is the purse and wallet set I commissioned from Lizy and Katelyn, respectively.  I chose the fabric, and they did all the work.  Don't I have incredible friends??  Seriously, you guys are awesome.
  As a bonus, we got some awesome little charms in at the shop, and one of them just happened to match my new set perfectly.  So I brought one home and promptly made it into a zipper pull.

Perfect, right?  Man, I love it when that happens.  Double yay!!  More of the zipity-do-da-ness.

 This is the bag that I made yesterday.  The design was totally inspired by Lizy's cute little tote.  In fact, she gave me the measurements that she used when she made hers, but I tweaked it a bit to make it my own.  I'm really, really pleased with the way it turned out.  Between Lizy's tip on how to make the bag squared at the bottom, and Deanna's tip about using spray starch when ironing to help make my fabric behave, it went very smoothly and I got great results.  Now, what to do with it?  Keep it?  Or sell it?

inside pocket

I did another bag too, one like Lizy's pink and brown one.  It's similar to this green and brown one as well, but it'll be less tote-y and more purse-y.  This is what I got done on Monday:

And this is the finished product:

Inside pocket detail:

Strap detail:

As a side note, this is what happens when you forget to adjust the white balance setting on your camera:

And this is what happens when you correct it:

More on Elora's Quilt

I finally got my quilting frame, so I was finally able to get started on quilting Elora's blanket.  This is what I had done as of yesterday afternoon:

I've been using the Grabaroo craft gloves that we have in the shop to keep the quilt clean as I work on it.  They work pretty well, but I keep catching the tips of the fingers with the needle and I never realize it until I try to pull my hand away.  It's kind of funny, actually.  We'll see how long it takes before I don't think it's funny anymore.

Bumblebee Baby- Elements (so far)

I finally got started on the elements for my Bumblebee Baby kit!  All I needed was a little push in the right direction, which came in the form of a free template download that I found while cruising Craft Crave, formerly DigiFree.  It was just what I needed!  Here is the template that I started with, which I downloaded from here:

 And this is what I made:

 

And from there, I went on to do all of these:

In total, there are 5 brads, 4 epoxy stickers, 3 bug trails, 3 paper flowers, 3 paper stems, and 20 papers.  So far.  I have ribbons to add, but since my camera is out of commission, I'm not sure when those will get done.  Maybe I can try scanning them?

Elora's Quilt

The pillow (pre-embroidery) and the unfinished quilt top:

The finished quilt top, before I did the embroidery on the letters:

As soon as I spread it out on the floor, Elora had to come check it out, and play with it.

I'm half done with the embroidery on the pillow, and mostly done with the embroidery on the letters. Then I get to put the back on and get started on the quilting. I'm doing it by hand, so wish me luck!

This is a picture that Brandon snapped while I was trying to eat a string cheese. He'd already snapped a few at this point, and I'd just figured out that he was doing it, hence the odd smile.

Anyway, I thought it was kind of a good picture of me, so I cropped it down and played with it a bit in Photoshop. You can see the before and after, it really makes a big difference, doesn't it? I used the Perfect Portrait action from Coffeeshop, along with a few of my own touches. I'm really getting to know the program, and though there is still a lot to learn, I'm very pleased with how far I've come.

Baby Strap Guards

These are the little strap guards I made for Kara. They Velcro around the straps of a car seat (the little ones) or stroller (the longer ones) to protect the baby's neck from being rubbed by the rough edges of the straps. Like them?? They're super easy to make! I'm also working on a set for my sister-in-law, and a tutorial is coming soon to the shop blog. :)

Crafting Again

I've been crafting again!! I've made more of the fun multi-strand bracelets, which I've decided are my new favorite thing.

And, I finally pulled out Elora's baby blanket and started working on it again. It won't take me long to do, now that I'm actually working on it. I didn't have much done on it to begin with, only enough to establish my pattern, and I've already tripled its size. Hopefully, I'll be posting the "finished" pics soon.

And for those who are interested, I posted some more of our baby pics (mine and Brandon's) to my photobucket. There are also a few interesting ones of us as children and teens. :)