Sewing for baby: Handmade blankie

I noticed that four-month-old Etta was showing signs of wanting some sort of blankie. (I guess they call them "loveys" now? That term is so weird to me.) She was snuggling with burp cloths, and I thought we could do better than that. She needed a blankie and what better blankie than one your mama makes for you.

I've been itching to make another quilt lately, but time has been tight. So this simple sewing project certainly scratched that itch. I hadn't sewn anything since December, which meant I hadn't really played with my fabric stash since then either. Please no one let me buy any more fabric. It's bad, you guys. But that also means I was able to do this project start to finish with what I already had on hand.

I had a remnant of pink minky fabric that was just under 15 inches wide, so I used that to determine my dimensions. I layered it with a pretty cotton print and a layer of flannel in the middle to give it some weight. (I thought batting might be too bulky.)

I cut three rectangles, sandwiched them together and bound the edges using a solid gray cotton. I probably would have used store bought bias tape to save some time if I hadn't been trying to whittle down my stash. The finished product ended up being about 18" x 14.5", which turns out to be the perfect size for grasping and chewing and rubbing on your face.

All in, it took two hours start to finish. Looking back that's sort of hard to believe it took even that long, so perhaps I'm out of practice. Or tired. Or both. These two are certainly keeping me busy.

Scrap bag fabric flower garland (Guest post from Moonfield Lane)

Thanks to Michele for filling in for me today and sharing her project with us! Check out her blog Moonfield Lane for more great decorating and project ideas!

Hi there! I'm Michele and I blog over at Moonfield Lane. I've been a fan of Erin's creativity for a long time, and I'm thrilled to guest post at Lansdowne Life while Erin cuddles her new baby girl.

Today (in honor of spring and baby girls) I'm going to show you how to make a flower garland from scrap fabric.

If you sew or if you've ever made fabric crafts, you probably have an assortment of fabric scraps already. If you don't, you can buy fat quarters cheaply at the fabric store, often bundled into coordinating prints.

You'll need:

• fabric scraps
• scissors
• cardstock and a pencil to make a pattern
• needle and thread
• twine
• hot glue gun

Before you start, I'd think about where you want to hang your garland, how long you want it to be and how many flowers you'll need. I hung my twine across my mantel before cutting it, allowing for drape. I then marked the middle of the twine, so that I could begin my flowers on either side of the mark. I also tried to get a visual idea of how many flowers I wanted and how I wanted them spaced. I ended up with 12 flowers on 7 feet of twine to hang on my 4 foot mantle.

Loosely draw and cut out three petal shaped circles on the cardstock, each one smaller than the other. These three petals make up one flower. Mine turned out to be about 2 3/4 inches, 2 1/4 inches and 1 3/4 inches respectively, but you don't need to be precise.

Decide on your fabrics and start cutting! I was able to cut through four folds of fabric at a time, making the process go a little faster. You'll need a flower on the front of your garland as well as a flower to glue on the back, meaning I created 24 flowers in all. So I cut 24 petals of each size and 72 all together. You'll want the flowers on the front and back, if not entirely the same, to at least sort of match.

As you're cutting your petals, lay them on top of one another the way you're going to sew them so you can visualize the finished flower and how your patterns look together. You can see in the photo that I frayed my edges a little by running my fingernails around the edge of each petal, pulling some of the loose threads.

Now it's time to sew! Start stitching about 1/4 the way through the smallest petal and go all the way around ending with your needle on the wrong side of the fabric (not like in the picture where the needle comes up through the correct side.)

Pull the needle and thread as tight as you can through the back (without breaking the thread!) as you would a drawstring bag. This creates the center of the flower. Tie a knot in the thread and cut it off. You may need to adjust the center a little until it looks right. You can stick something pointed through the back to sort of "fluff it up" if you need to.

After you've made your flowers, glue them to the twine. I just put a small blob of hot glue on a flower, laid the twine on the glue and pressed another flower on top.

Glue the flowers along the entire length of twine and you're done!

Thanks for having me, Erin!

About Michele from Moonfield Lane: I live in Virginia with my husband and our two wild and woolly little boys. I blog about home decor, crafts and chocolate, and much of my day is spent picking up Legos and cleaning up dirty footprints.

p.s. from Erin: Wouldn't these flowers also be super cute on little girls' hair clips? Might have to make some for my girls! Thanks again, Michele!

Quick and easy detail: Adding fabric to end tables

I've always wanted to dress up our family room end tables with something under the glass tops. I lived with the plain wood for quite a while, but ultimately this room needs more pattern and more detail. This was a quick, easy, non-permanent and cheap way add some interest. No risk and nothing to lose!

I took a trip to a local art store and perused the selection of oversize decorative paper. (You know, the $5+/sheet stuff that's supposed to be "gift wrap.") I spent what must have been half an hour being indecisive, not finding anything I really loved. And then I left empty handed. Hate it when that happens.

Then I remembered this piece of houndstooth fabric I picked up on clearance a few years ago (for $3/yard!). Apparently, I couldn't pass it up even though I didn't have any real purpose in mind. Such is the root of my fabric hoarding problem.

Very simply, I cut the fabric to size and then just sandwiched it under the glass. One yard of home decorator width fabric was enough to do my two large-ish end tables.

Apologies for the glassy glare. Next to impossible to take photos of flat glass without some type of reflection. (Well, next to impossible for me anyway.)

p.s. I've got a photo assistant working for me now. (She takes excellent closeups!)

Coin purses: Cute gift card packaging

Sometimes giving gift cards can seem a little empty, but there are certain situations where they really are the best option. I wanted to give Elise's teachers gift cards for Christmas, so I decided to personalize the gift a bit by making some coin purses (similar to those I made for Elise's birthday party).

I used the same black and white striped fabric I used on my recent baby quilt and some pink cross-hatch fabric for the lining.

I had zippers on hand from my last go-around with coin purses and all the fabric as well, so these cost nothing to make. I think they'd price out between $1 and $2 each if you had to buy all the materials.

These really are so simple to make. I made them assembly-line style, but they probably only took around 20 minutes a piece. (Same as last time, I generally followed this tutorial at Noodlehead.) I even made an extra for myself!

Green patchwork squares baby quilt

For some reason, it seems I make quilts in pairs. On the heels of the baby quilt I showed you last week, I pieced together this simple patchwork squares quilt, measuring 40.5" x 51.5".

To cut down on the time factor, I made this one in the binding-less "pillowcase" quilt style (generally following this tutorial). I didn't set the stopwatch, but it didn't take much time at all. I think I had the top pieced together in a couple of hours and the whole thing together in a couple more. Definitely do-able in one day.

I quilted it with a walking foot, but in wavy lines. This is my first time not quilting straight lines, but I'm hoping to improve my skills in that area. Can't learn if you don't try!

All of the fabrics were things I had on hand already. The wiggly lines backing fabric is from a duvet cover I found on clearance at Target earlier this year.

This quilt is earmarked for donation. Not exactly sure where to yet, but possibly The Linus Project. (If anyone else has any experience with good places to donate handmade blankets, please leave a comment!)

I realized that I usually only sew when I have a need to sew (for gifts, etc.), but sewing infrequently isn't making me any better. I'm still very much a quilting beginner, and I need more practice than that. Pair that with the need to do some fabric de-stashing (before the prints start to look dated), and that means I need to make more quilts.

So I'm hoping to make a handful of baby/kid quilts in the coming year for donation. This might be a crazy thought knowing full well I am going to have very little free time once baby #2 arrives, but I'm going to try to keep the quilts uncomplicated and unfussy. And maybe I can squeak in a few before she gets here.

Herringbone half-square triangle baby quilt

She may not yet have a name or a place to sleep, but, by golly, baby girl has a quilt.

I felt like I needed to start challenging myself a bit, so I decided to tackle the half-square triangle quilt, or HST. Supposedly easy and a gateway to fancier quilting. Truthfully, it wasn't that much harder than simple patchwork squares, just the extra step of making the triangle squares. (There's a great shortcut for that at In Color Order.)

The herringbone pattern was inspired by this grey and white quilt, but I don't have enough restraint to only use neutrals in a situation like this.

The taupe polka dot fabric on the back is vintage yardage from my grandma. I had been saving it to use especially in a quilt for this baby. Gender neutral! The rest of the back was pieced with Alexander Henry "Market Stalls" print (which inspired the whole color palette to begin with) and scraps from the quilt top.

The quilting itself is easier to see on the back. I followed the peaks and valleys creating a fun zig zag pattern.

I am so in love with quilts with striped bindings. I couldn't resist giving it a try myself.

It's so not perfect, but I still love how it turned out. This is only my fifth quilt, so I think I am making progress!

p.s. I forgot to note the size above. It's 38" by a long-ish 55".

Modern patchwork stripes twin quilt

Elise's quilt is finished! And I love it.

Elise loves it too. It's a twin size for her new big girl bed (more on that at a later date) and it ended up being 63.5" x 85" (post washing). I was aiming for a bit larger for each dimension, but it seems I always lose a few inches trimming it up at the end.

This Michael Miller Children at Play Balloons fabric inspired my color palette for the entire quilt. Pinks, corals, aquas, grays and white. I loved it the minute I saw it. 

I spent a lot of my life disliking things like hearts and pink, but now I find myself totally drawn to them. I guess that's what having a little girl will do to you! (Even if said little girl couldn't care less about such things.)

The squares started out 6"x6" (so 5.5" finished size) and the white stripes started out 4" high (3.5" high finished).

I used a mixture of designer prints and "non-designer" prints from the big fabric stores. Michael Miller is well represented here, but there are also souches of Anna Maria Horner and Riley Blake. And a few from Jo-Ann under the DS Quilts label. There's also one of those cheapie fat quarters rolls they sell for a buck in there, but I challenge you to figure out which one it is.

The solid white is Kona and the large swath of gray on the back is another solid quilting fabric, both from Jo-Ann.

Total time spent on this quilt was about 27-28 hours (spread out over a month or so). I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make another quilt this large until I have another kid to make it for! I'm ready to work on something with more immediate gratification!

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Other posts in this series:

1. Planning and cutting

2. Assembling the quilt top

3. Assembling the quilt back

4. Quilting

5. Binding

Twin quilt progress report: Binding

Are you ready? This is my last "progress report." The quilt is complete and I'll have all the "beauty" shots in the next post. I hope all of you non-quilters have enjoyed this peek into my world as a novice quilter. And I hope any experienced quilters out there didn't laugh too hard at my beginner-level skills.

But there's one last step: binding the quilt. I really love how binding finishes everything off. It's like a frame around the quilt.

First, I took a few minutes to trim up the edges, making sure everything was straight and square. Then it was time to create the binding.

It took 15-20 minutes to cut the fabric strips and then about an hour to sew them all together and press the long strip in half.

When all was done, I had a long, nearly 10-yard strip of pretty binding ready to sew onto the quilt.

It took about 50 minutes to attach the binding along the edges of the quilt with the sewing machine. Then I wrapped the binding around the raw edge and broke out the needle and thread to finish the binding by hand on the other side. Those barrette looking things are called binding clips and they help hold everything in place while stitching.

Finishing by hand takes a super long time, but it's something you can pick up and drop at anytime. It took eight hours to hand stitch the binding around the perimeter of the quilt (a total distance of about 8.25 yards).

As I was adding up all of the little bits of time I had jotted down, I realized it seems absolutely crazy to spend eight hours on finishing the binding alone. That's more time than I spent on the quilt top!

BUT, two things:

1. On my previous two quilts, I spent a LOT of time ripping out sloppy machine stitches from finishing the binding with the machine. For my last baby quilt, I actually started with the machine and then ripped out the machine stitches and switched to finishing the whole thing by hand. I'm learning. Doing things and re-doing them is definitely not an efficient use of time.
2. Hand sewing is something you can do mindlessly while watching TV. And it's sort of therapeutic / meditative. In this case, it helped me decompress from frustrating days of potty training boot camp. (Ugh.)

Total time spent: About 27-28 hours.
Next up: The big reveal!

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Other posts in this series:

1. Planning and cutting

2. Assembling the quilt top

3. Assembling the quilt back

4. Quilting

5. Binding

6. Finished quilt