Baby Shower Gift - Elephants

So I started working at a new job (which I must tell you all about at another time) and within a week was invited to a surprise baby shower for a co-worker.  I hadn't met her at the time, but knew that I would rather make something than buy something.  The mom-to-be for a second time, knew she was having a girl but was worried about the possibility of the tech being wrong on the gender.  So I planned to make a gender neutral gift. you know, just in case.

While I was in JoAnn's searching for Janet's gift for her bridal shower (yup gotta post about that one too) I saw this absolutely adorable fabric that I immediately knew I had to use for my co-workers gifts.

It was different colored lions.

I was in love.  I didn't buy it initially because I was on a time crunch to get Janet's stuff done and could not afford the distraction of cutie little lions.

So Jon and I made a trip to JoAnn's a week later to buy the baby shower fabrics.  And while I was intent on using the lions, Jon found the same fabric but with elephants!  They were super cute too!  Then the shelf the lion fabric rested on was broken and we ended up finding another fabric with monkeys!!!  Decision.   Overload.

After much deliberating the monkeys were out because their size would not work well with my "vision" of the end result.  The lions would have been perfect for my "vision" but Jon convinced me they weren't girl friendly enough to be a gender neutral fabric.

I got home and got straight to work on my plan.

I wanted the elephants to be outlined in embroidery of the same color.  A little texture and some fanciness at the same time.  With that done I went ahead and backed it with light green minky fabric.

Turned the whole thing into a taggy blanket and part 1 of 3 was done!

And it was late and I got lazy so rather than hand sewing the opening closed, I machine sewed it.  I have to say you can hardly even tell I did that!  I may end up getting lazy more often...

The last two parts I wanted to make were the ribbon outlined burp clothes I usually make.  I had found ribbon that matched the colors of the elephant fabric perfectly.  (Sorry no close up).

I have to also comment that the back of the burp clothes were perfect.  No random colored blob of "oh crap the sewing machine went stupid and I didn't realize it until I was done" thread!

I was very pleased with how well they looked together.  The mom-to-be was actually surprised by the baby shower and mentioned having never received a hand made gift like mine before.

All in all, a success.

I have several more posts planned (Julie I am going to get it together!) and hope to get them up soon.

Burp Cloths: In color!

I mentioned that I made several things for my mom two weekends ago.  I will share the second set of things I made.

Along with the taggie blanket she wanted burp cloths too.  I was going to pick up a pack of the plain ones so that any ribbon could be used.  Instead she wanted the colorful pack.  We went and picked out cutie ribbons to match the two pinks, green, and purple cloths.

This is what I ended up with.

This is the light pink cloth

This is one of the ribbons we chose.

First one all pinned up

We chose the purple ribbon with flowers for the green and purple cloths

Purple all pinned

All of them together!!

Just like I said last week.  It was really nice to sew again.  My mom said she liked the burp cloths with the ribbon rather than the ric rac I had used before.  I must say the ribbon was much easier to pin and sew.  Especially the corners!

I hope you enjoyed!!

Jumping back into Taggies

As I mentioned yesterday, I actually was able to sew this weekend!  My parents friends daughter is pregnant with a little girl.  Since I have been making things my mom thought it was a great idea to just buy the material and things for me and have me make what she wanted.

What I will show today is the taggie blanket.  But some back story first.  My mom didn't want to go to JoAnn's but I pretty much made her go.  I wanted to be sure I picked something she would like.  Well, we were there forever!  At first she didn't like any of the fabrics.  She finally found one she liked but couldn't find any ribbons.  That meant a trip back to the fabrics to find something else.  This is what she finally decided on.

She liked that it was girly and didn't have any brown in it.  She apprently does not agree with me that pink and brown is very cute together.

Obviously I had to cut the fabric.  I however was a big dummy because I used the nice thick line to measure the fabric... well that starts at 1 inch so I cut the fabric shorter than I meant too.  Boo.

 All cut and right sides together!

 My mom wanted the white ribbon to break up the pink and green.  I think it was a good choice.  I lined them all up with approximations of the spacing.  I don't measure anymore, it is a pain in the butt.  Eye-balling it works just as well.

I pinned them all.  You must have the ribbon with wrong sides together so that it will be facing the right way when the fabric is turned.  The ribbon really needs to be pinned as straight as possible because they will sew crooked and that just looks weird.

All pinned and ready to sew.  I paid careful attention to which corner I wanted to leave open and sewed accordingly.

 Every time I get this far in turning my pieces I get worried the hole I left is not big enough or it will end up ripping.  This time was no different.

It worked!  As you can see the white taggies on the bottom right and left are wonky.  Not much I can do about it now but I will have to be more careful in pinning next time.

What I must learn is how to sew the opening better.  It is not as crisp and cornery like the other ones.

It was so nice to get back into sewing.  I realized how much I missed it.  And now I have enough left over fabric to make 4 more of these!!  I may have to buy more ribbon though...

Pinterest Pick - Onesie

Today's pick is of something that I hope to recreate for a baby shower gift.  I have to find ways to use the 20 onesies that I have.

Linked to: http://www.etsy.com/listing/82435400/applique-necklace-onesie-or-tee-with-ric

 I have ribbon and cutesy fabrics so I totally think that I could do this!  I do have quite a few people to be making things for too!

Sorry for a short post... it took me too long to make my new banner thing.  :)

Baby Blanket Take Two

As I mentioned before I made a second taggie blanket for my very good friend from high school J.  I felt much more confident starting this one.  I again started by going to JoAnns (I have realized that I HAVE to go in there with a very specific list of items or I want to buy everything cute in sight!) and picking out two different complimenting fabrics and fun ribbons.

I knew that I wanted to embroider the baby's name on the blanket so I cut the fabrics to size and prepped the "busier" fabric on the hoop. After finishing up the name I realized how plain the solid green side was going to look. That's when the idea of embroidering a frog took shape. I have to say I wish I would have planned the stitching better but he is still cute. And you can't have a frog without flies so some lazy buzzing flying flies were added.

Ribbon cutting was next and it was much easier to space them this time because I only used two different ribbons.

Placing the wrong sides together I placed and pinned the ribbons between the fabrics. One sewing trip around the blanket (remembering to leave a turning hole) and it was almost complete! Several hand stitches later and I could admire the blanket in all of its embroidered and ribboned glory!

The best part about all of this was that my friend has absolutely no idea I was planning to attend the shower. You see she lives a good 8 to 9 hours away from me. I show up at J's house and see her mom outside on the porch. She was so surprised to see me. As I was giving her a hug I asked if my friend knew I was coming. Her mom said that by the shocked look on her daughters face she didn't think that she had any idea.

Surprising my friend J by showing up was almost as good as when she opened my gifts.

Baby Shower Gift

As I mentioned in my first post the whole reason I began creating my own items was when I was invited to a coworkers baby shower.  I had been reading my favorite group of blogs for a while by then and knew exactly what I wanted to make.  A taggie blanket.  You may be thinking to yourself what the heck is a taggie blanket?  Well my dear readers, it is a blanket with ribbons folded to look like t-shirt tags.  I have known many of my friends kids to basically eat the tag of their stuffed animals and my former students (when I was teaching kindergarten) to eat the tags on their clothes.

Back to the blanket I made.  I decided that I didn't just want to make the taggie blanket, I wanted to make it more personal.  For me that meant embroidering the childs name onto the blanket.  I did have prior experience embroidering so I knew that it could be done.  I purchased the fabric
and the embroidery floss color to compliment both fabrics.

Super cute sleepy bears and fun zoo fabrics

I went to work embroidering the child's name and cutting out what would be the front and back of the blanket.  I brought all of my pieces over to my boyfriends' Mom's house to borrow her sewing machine.  Mind you, I had not sewn using a machine since my Home Ec days in 8th grade (about 12 years ago).  I had to call my Mom to find out how to tread the darn thing - luckily the bobbin had enough thread.

I used three different types of ribbon and I made sure that they evenly were spaced the whole way around (yes I am a sucker for punishment of my own doing!)

I laid out my two sides of the blanket wrong sides out and inserted my cut ribbons between them, pinned it all up, and sewed that baby shut.

Well except for a small part so that I could turn it of course.  Once it was turned I hand sewed up the small hole and declared the blanket done!

Now the only bad part was that I was so excited about making my gift that I ended up having it finished almost two months before the shower!  Don't worry I managed to keep it a secret from the Momma to be.

I created a second taggie blanket for a friend of mine for her first baby a few months after making this one.  I was smarter that time and took more "during" pictures.  I will treat you with those another day.