Baby Shower Gift

I found out that one of the girls I had hired to watch my kids is expecting her first child. This weekend was her baby shower and I was excited to make her gift. I'll be honest I was kind of unsure how the gift I gave would be received, not only because it was home made but also because I had no idea what was on the registry, I didn't even look, I knew what I wanted to give her. You can see everything packed up in a box. Only one thing was store bought and it is the No-cry Sleep Solution book. I've heard more mothers swear by this book than any other book. I only wish I had known about it while my kids would have been young enough to employ the techniques.

The box includes a couple things I could have purchased but rather chose to sew myself so that there was that extra care and love that went into making them. The first item I made was the little purple bunny you see peeking out of the corner of the box. It is made with purple and blue fleecy, the eyes and nose are stitched on with embroidery floss, I finished it with a blue tulle tail and a blue tulle ribbon around the neck. The second gift I worked on was the two pink and white swaddling blankets. After a run through the washing machine I cut the fabric so it was 45"x45". I took care to hem the edges so they wouldn't fray and looked like it was professionally finished. The last step was dyeing the fabric. One of the blankets has a swirl in three shades of pink, the other has more of a splattered dye job.

There is also a jumper style dress hiding in the box. The dress was by far the most fun to make. I was able to make it out of less than a quarter of a yard of each fabric. Of course making clothes for a baby you never need a lot of fabric. The dress unfortunately was being hidden by the tutu. Now normally I wouldn't make a tutu as a gift for an infant. It's not like they would get much use out of it. However when I mentioned making tutus to the mom-to-be her eyes lit up. I just couldn't resist making one for her. The final thing in the box was 4 embellished burp cloths, they were made from Gerber prefolds.

So busy lately

I feel like I have abandoned this blog so shortly after I started it and it makes me sad. Life has been so hectic by the end of the day I just don't have the energy to sit at the sewing machine and crank stuff out like I did just a few months ago. The kids have had so much going on with sports, school, and the youngest with his recent Apraxia diagnosis. I have a feeling things will be getting much more hectic soon once his therapy starts.

I recently obtained a this book. It was my grandmothers she only ever made one of the animals in it for an auction. My goal is to make several this spring to give to the numerous babies that are about to become part of our extended family. I plan to make them all baby/young child friendly by using embroidery floss to create eyes rather than buttons.

My daughter has already been begging me to get started on her summer wardrobe. She was browsing patterns online and begging me to bring her fabric shopping. I only hope that I can do as much as I did last year her entire summer wardrobe was either clothes that still fit from the year before or stuff that I had made. Thankfully she will gladly wear nothing but dresses and I can whip them together rather quickly.