Welcome Little One Cards

Since I've been making so many baby gifts, I figured I might as well make some baby gift cards too.  I'm a complete amateur card maker, using stuff I have around the house, and just plain creativity, but I like the results.  Here's my baby boy gift card:

The front:

The inside:

In case you can't read the sentiment, the front of the card says "Welcome Little One" and the inside says "Life's most amazing journey begins with the tiniest feet - Congratulations"  I just love that sentiment!  What an amazing journey having children is!

Bugs on the Nine Patch Quilt

Now that a certain special lady has had her baby shower, and she has seen the quilt I made for her, it's safe to post it on my blog.  Since she's a Pinterest fan, I didn't want to spoil the surprise by posting on my blog about her quilt.  Since she was decorating her baby boy's room with Pottery Barn Kids insect themed sheets, I used one pillow case from the sheeting set to start the idea train.  From there, I went to my go to fabric guru, Janice Shoup at Quilters Haven, and the "Bugs on the Nine Patch" was born.  The pattern comes from "Quilts for Babies & Kids", which can be purchased here.  It was a fairly simple project, which was quite a change after the Hollow Cubed Block quilt I finished in March.  Hope you like it!

Here are the fabrics I used, including the pillow case:

The finished front:

and the finished back:

Now, there's one more little boy about to be born that needs a quilt.  I've purchased the pattern and fabric, but am struggling with trying to size the pattern down to a baby quilt size.  I'll get it, but the math is challenging.  Does someone know an easy way to convert patterns to smaller sizes without changing the basic layout?  Once I finish the upcoming quilt (assuming I figure out the math), I would really love for someone to have a girl!!! Enough boy projects...I miss pink! :)

Hollow Cube Block Quilt

The hollow cube block quilt is now complete!  A special thank you to Janice Shoup of www.quiltershaven-newyork.com for helping me pick out the border fabrics.  I was really struggling with how to pull the colors together and she came to my rescue.  The finished quilt is just as beautiful as I had hoped it would be, and I hope the little baby boy who I made it for will enjoy it for many years.  The project was a challenging one, but I learned a lot and am pleased with the result.  Hope you like it too!  Below you can see the front and back:

Productive weekend of sewing

Aah, another productive weekend of sewing!  How I love not working weekends anymore!  It was well worth the pay cut.  I finished sewing each block for the baby quilt I've been working on.  Here they are before I sewed them together.  At this point, I thought my biggest challenge was getting the colors arranged...oh, how wrong I was!!

Somehow, I hadn't yet considered just how I was going to sew these blocks together.  I suppose if I was working from a pattern, or had taken a quilting class, I might have had a clue what I was up against, but as usual, I was winging it and making it up as I went along.  I sewed each row of blocks together - no problem.  My first hint of the challenge laying ahead came when I saw the rows lined up and realized that sewing the rows together was going to involve some very precise connections.  I tried sewing the first row to the second using my machine...complete disaster...out came the seam ripper.  Finally, after staring at the rows and trying to dream up an easy way to get the rows sewn together, I broke down and just sewed them together by hand.  There just didn't seem to be another way to get them sewn together with the precision needed to make the blocks looked stacked properly.  Looking back, if I had had a design wall, and hadn't sewn all the blocks before trying to hook them together, it probably wouldn't have been so challenging, but I don't have a design wall, or the patience to think that far ahead!  Aah, lesson learned (or maybe not)!  But anyway, at long last, my patience paid off and the rows were successfully sewn together.

Now, the next challenge...what color to use for the borders.  After putting several scrap fabrics behind the blocks, I decided on the darkest blue.  Next problem...Joann's didn't have that blue fabric!  I had purchased most of these fabrics in fat bundles, and unfortunately, not all of the fabrics were available by the yard.  Back to the drawing board.  After laying out several (and I mean several!!!) fabrics on Joann's cutting counter, I decided on a nice, bright green.  Green happens to be my least favorite color, so it took quite a bit of struggle for me to get past that.  However, the quilt is not for me, and the green really did seem like the best choice.  I also picked another cute fabric which I am planning on using for the back and perhaps a narrow border along with the green.  I'll be working on that exact layout in the back of my mind this week and tackle the actual "making it happen" part next weekend.  Hope the work week goes by quick!  I'd rather sew than work any day of the week - can't wait until I can spend more time sewing and more time looking at sunshine instead of clouds!

Fabric "Nana Made It" Labels

I've been working out of town for the last week and a half, so I've had to take a break from posting.  However, I have a few updates to share.  First, the hollow cube blocks are coming along for the rainbow baby quilt.  I have sixteen of the twenty-two needed done.  Still not sure what the quilt back or border fabric will be, but I'm working on it!

Another fun project I did a couple of weekends ago was making labels for my projects.  I used a tutorial found  on Pinterest using t-shirt transfer paper. I'd put a link here to it if I could find the tutorial I used, but it seems to have hidden from me.  I'll see about that in the future.  However, it was really easy after a little practicing on the computer and with the t-shirt transfer paper.  Here's the results:

Next week, it's my granddaughter's second birthday, which was a perfect excuse to try out my card making skills.  I've been pinning a lot of cute cards on Pinterest for inspiration.  I went all out and bought (as a little bit early birthday present for myself) a Cricut Expression 2.  Here's my very first attempt at card making.  When I get to be a pro, I'll probably look back at this card as pretty amateur, but for my first try, I'm happy with it.

Aahh...so many fun things to do...so little time to do them!

Hollow Cube Quilt Block

I know some very special people who are having babies in June, so I've been thinking about what I'd like to make for their babies.  I'd been thinking that I wanted to make a quilt, and after seeing pictures of quilts made using the hollow cube quilt block, and watching this very helpful tutorial, Hollow Cube Quilt Block, I thought I'd give it a try.

Here's the color palate I chose:

I made one test block using colors from my stash before starting on the real thing.  It was a worthwhile use of time because I didn't get the layout of the first block exactly how I wanted it, and I figured out a system for which pieces to sew first.  Once I had a little confidence, I moved on to the real thing.

Here's the first two blocks, using the red tones.

Christmas Gifts

Now that I've finally taken the time to download pictures from my camera, here are a few of the fun Christmas gifts I made this year.  As always, full credit goes to Pinterest for my inspiration!