Saturday, November 26, 2011

Rocket Man and Baby.



Least year, before I went to Texas, B gave me the book One Yard Wonders. Flipping through the book I found several little projects I wanted to try. One that caught my eye though was for a Rocket Pillow. Since Jeff is a big fan of space travel and I work at NASA I thought it would be the prefect toy if we ever had a little boy. Almost a year later, with the house already a mess from all my Thanksgiving long weekend crafting I figured it was the perfect time to knock out a rocket pillow. I already had the perfect fabric, which I purchased from Whipstitch in Atlanta to back the Airplane quilt.

Its hard to get a good picture of the three dimensional rocket - but here it is in the lap of our large Christmas bear. The yellow ribbon is the top of a pocket that runs the length of the rocket on one side. It seems perfect for whatever treasurers our little one discovers.



I added some beans to weigh down the bottom of the rocket so it stands upright. This was a simple modification done by making a little bean bag and sewing it to the inside of the base before attaching it to the rest of the rocket.
If your looking for some motivation for your own Rocket Pillow, Google Images and Flicker both have some great variations. This is an easy afternoon project.

Sugar, Spice & Everything Nice




My dear friend M.E. is expecting a baby girl in February (just six weeks before we will hopefully welcome our little boy). It has been so nice to have someone on base to be pregnant with. We are often out on a slow walk together or comparing notes on maternity clothing. Anyway, several of the girls and I have been planning her shower for months. I've additionally been planning to make a little baby quilt. I had the fabric and the pattern all picked out but just couldn't quite get motivated to get it done. With the shower fast approaching I got to work over the holiday weekend.

The fabric is a combination of scraps and randomly ordered girly fabric. I machine quilted it myself using the lovely painters tape trick to mark out the quilting pattern. I also used basing spray - which for some reason I previously missed the memo on. The basing spray sure made the job allot easier and avoided all those nasty snags that I used to wrestle with. Once I had the top done the rest of the project was finished by the time Santa made his appearance at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.





Mini-Log Cabin Quilt



When I finished up the quilt for our little baby boy I had another quilt using the same fabric line (Moda's Hideaway) that also needed binding. I'm thinking I will also use this one in the baby's room since it matches.. but I may change my mind still. This one used a modified log cabin pattern that I made up using the scrap fabric from the other quilt. Its nice and red!

We walked to the park to take some pictures but it was so windy we couldn't get the quilt to hold still!

Giving Thanks

I celebrated my one year sewing anniversary over Thanksgiving. Last year my husband gave me a sewing machine as an early Christmas present. Although my first official project was the apron B taught me how to make - the first project I did on my own were Thanksgiving placements. I finished them last year just in time to host Thanksgiving dinner with my family and our Edwards family. Unfortunately, I never got any pictures before we put them away. While we were in Texas we had some mice move into our garage and the pilgrim hat and mayflower designs were eaten - the others survived the attack and I was happy to see these beauties again this year. (I only took pictures of the two letters and a turkey - there are a few more in the collection.)








We didn't host Thanksgiving this year and instead got to focus on just making our favorite dishes. I made the same Pecan Pie (which we pronounce pee-can in Georgia) I made last year - only because I remember it being amazing - but it all being gone by the end of the night. This year was no different but I did sneak an extra piece!

Jeff focused on baking bread. His bread baking skills just get better every year. I can only imagine what the bread will look like once we have an oven that properly heats. (The cheap ovens in base housing don't maintain their temperature very well making bread baking a big difficult.) The bread was one of the highlights of the evening. Here are a few pictures of the deliciousness that came our of our kitchen for Thanksgiving.



The Fabric Picks the Project

I was in JoAnn's on Wednesday and found this amazing whale fabric in fleece.





My sister loves whales - she is always teasing that my baby needs more whale stuff. When I saw the fabric I knew I needed to make her some PJ pants. It's a quick project and they just came out of the wash and I snapped a picture while they were line drying.




I think they are actually going to be a bit shorter then she typically wears them.. but they are adorable. Plus they are made with love and isn't that what counts.

I have some leftover fabric that I'm going to back a little baby quilt with...when I get to it.

Happy Crafting!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Quilting for Our Baby Boy



It has been a long time since I have finished a project!

I have plenty that are in various stages but between traveling and being pregnant I have made little to no progress. This week, as the cold rolled in, it finally felt like time to get back to work. I finished this little guy up just as we found out that we would be welcoming a baby boy in early April. The quilt is in Hideaway, which incorporates some of my favorite colors so I've already set it aside for our little one. I have a few more projects to finish in the next few weeks but sometimes it just takes getting over the hump to finish a bunch of things.


Hopefully I'll get a few more done over the long weekend! Happy Crafting and Happy Thanksgiving!