Nursery Decor and Crib Quilt - WIP

I had really planned to do much more sewing/quilting last week than I actually did, but the weekend was busier than I planned. I managed to finish the crib bumpers. 

I cut the fabric for the crib skirt, but I am waiting for the crib to arrive to sew the crib skirt, just in case the "standard" measurements don't work. 

By the way here is a pic of the crib. 

It has been quite some time since I have had a baby, and I have learned in the crib buying process that finding a crib with the railing that slides up and down is virtually impossible. I understand that those types of cribs are no longer safe and I must now have a "fixed side" crib... Honestly this is posing a big problem for my rather petite self (4ft 11in to be exact). So I decided that I will have to find myself a cute step stool to keep in the nursery just to be able to lay the baby in his crib without tossing him LOL! I know the mattress adjusts and when they are tiny babies it can be up high, so that will be helpful, but once the mattress has to be lowered I am not sure how it is going to work.

 Of course, if I wasn't so insistent on nursing and rocking my babies to sleep this wouldn't be an issue either. Like my husband says, why do we even need a crib, our babies never even sleep in it. He is right, the crib is basically a way to display the adorable crib bedding I am making and to decorate the nursery. 

I was so tempted to make a "puff quilt" as the crib quilt, but after much internal debate, my practical side won out. Whew! A puff quilt is way too heavy to actually be used as a blanket, so I am just making a "regular" quilt. 

Since the fabric I chose is so bold and bright, I chose to keep the quilt design simple. I cut 6X6 squares from 7 different fabrics. I lined them up in rows, 7 across and 9 down, with each pattern coming down at a diagonal. 

I have all but two rows sewn together and plan to finish the top within the next couple of days. Once the top is complete attaching the Minky and quilting should go quickly... But I think I would like to applique the baby's name or initials or something on the back. 

That is what I am sewing this week! 

A Whole Lot Going On

Its been a month since I posted! I didn't mean for so much time to go by, but it has been such a busy last month with some traveling, school starting back, and some BIG NEWS!!!

Over the past month I have worked on baby gifts for a few girlfriends expecting their own sweet babies in the next few months. I didn't want to show pictures or go into too much detail because they might actually read my blog (who knows) and I didn't want to spoil the surprise. At this point I have so many friends expecting babies, I figure if I don't give too many details no one will know which item is for which baby :)

I am not quite finished with the set using Rock N Romance. Still have to finish up one burp cloth and make the wipes case, as well as finish the binding on the blanket.

Now on to the BIG NEWS!!!

We are having a BABY BOY!!! Yes, this will be boy #3 for us. We are very excited and I am so happy to finally start working on his nursery.

It is definitely a blank canvas at this point, an empty room with white walls. We chose Navy and Chartreuse as the main colors for the nursery. I have a rather large list of things I would like to make to turn this blank canvas into an adorable nursery for our baby boy.

For the bedding and some of the decor I picked out fabrics by Premier Prints and ordered them from Fabric.com.

The crib bedding will set the color scheme and pattern for the entire nursery. Below are the three main prints that I am using for the bumper and crib skirt. These prints will be used throughout the nursery, along with a few other prints in this color scheme.

       
   

I added in several more coordinating prints to make the crib quilt, with a Navy Minky backing.

I have never made a crib bumper before so I did a lot of searching for the perfect pattern/tutorial. I am basically following a tutorial from Sew 4 Home.

I made a couple of changes to better suit my needs. The first one being I didn't do the rounded edges. It seemed slightly feminine to me, and I wanted to make sure that while the nursery is cute that it stayed masculine as well.

I completed the first of the six individual bumper pieces before cutting the rest of the fabric, just to make sure that it turned out alright. One change I had to make was that I cut the fabric 28 inches wide instead of 27 inches. I am not sure why, but when I cut the fabric 27 inches wide there just wasn't enough space left to fold the fabric under and stitch close, once the bumper pad was inside. Otherwise the bumpers are turning out lovely and going rather quickly. I was pleasantly surprised how easy they were to make.

Oh yeah, my absolute LEAST favorite part of this whole project is making the ties! That involves making 24 little tubes of fabric that have to be turned right side out, I can't stand doing that! Ugh, so tedious, in fact I think it takes me longer to make a set of 4 of those fabric tubes than to make one of the six bumper pads.

I only have 4 more of these to go!!! Woohoo!

Also, I have fallen in love with piping and my zipper foot through this process. Although I have been quilting for several years, I have only been tackling small sewing projects for the last year, so I was really intimidated by the whole piping thing. It is so easy, and I can't wait to use it to finish sofa pillows and other projects in the future.

I found this great tutorial from A Little Bit Biased to show me how to fold my fabric and cut on the bias. It is terrific! I can't wait to use it for cutting quilt binding in the future.

I have two more bumper pads to finish up and I will be finished with the crib bumper, then on to the crib skirt and quilt, and the bedding will be complete.

The rest of my "To Do" list or should I say my "Would Like To Do" list is below:

Curtains
Minky Bumper Pad Cover
A Pillow or Two
Fabric Baskets/Caddies (little bit nervous about these, yet excited to learn something new)
A Mobile
Decorate Wooden Letters for his name

We still haven't decided if we are going to paint the room. I am trying to find/make items to add color to the walls without painting them. The walls in our home are very heavily textured and it makes painting really difficult, but I also know that paint is really the easiest way to add color quickly to the room... So the decision hasn't actually been made in regards to paint yet, we shall see.

Stay tuned, there will be many more projects to come as we get ready for Baby Boy#3!!!

Wonky Log Cabin and Baby Gifts

Last week I blogged about how I wasn't really into my current WIPs, but was still trying to plug away at them.

I worked on my King Size Wonky Log Cabin quilt. In fact I finished all of the blocks and now I am putting sashing/border around each one. This is a huge quilt for me, so I am working in sections. I am considering "quilt as you go" because I don't think I can push a king size quilt through my machine. The largest I have ever done is queen size and it was very difficult. On the other hand I am just considering finish the top and getting it quilted with a long arm because it is so big. I need to decide pretty soon.

I snapped a couple of photos (not the best quality) of it laid out on my sewing room floor.

Although I have made some progress on the above mentioned quilt, I thought I should take a break and do a smaller project that might get me back into a sewing routine. I have three friends expecting babies in the next 4 months... And I know that once I find out the gender of my baby I probably won't have time to sew a lot of projects for other people so I decided to go ahead and get their gifts made. 

I decided that making quilts was out of the question, so I opted for simple minky backed blankets, matching burp rags, and a matching diaper case as a gift set for each. 

I had to order the minky and fabric for two of the gifts, so I haven't started on any of the blankets. I completed two of the three burp rags for one set and I think they are coming out rather cute. I am using leftover Animal Party by Amy Schimler for Robert Kaufman that I used to make a quilt years ago. I love this fabric and wish I could get more of it. It is so fun for baby boys. 

I need to finish up the third burp cloth. 

I will be using the following fabric backed with turquoise minky and bound with a green satin binding for the blanket.

I am looking forward to the minky and other fabric arriving in a couple of days so I can work on all of these adorable gift sets. 

For the other sets I will be using Ruff N Tuff by Sleepy Tre for Robert Kaufman and Rock N Romance by Pat Bravo. 

On a personal note my 4 year started Pre-K today! We homeschool, but decided to send him to a local private Christian School 2 days a week for Pre-K. He is a mess! We tried to take first day of school pictures, and as usual couldn't get one that didn't have a silly face. 

Hope you are all having a great week!

Don't Really Wanna Work on My WIPs

For those of you that read my previous two posts, you know I haven't been sewing much. This is my first blog post that is actually about sewing in over two months! Wow!

The dilemma I am facing is that I really don't want to work on any of my WIPs. They just don't interest me. I don't know what my problem is. When my pregnancy took a turn towards misery I was in the middle of so many different projects and I was enjoying all of them. After 10 weeks of not working on them, or even thinking about them I just can't seem to want to work on them!

Just before I got sick I started working on a King Size Wonky Log Cabin Quilt for my bed. Last week I spent a couple of hours making more 26 inch blocks. I have 8 of 9 complete, and I started working on the 9th. Even though I added to my pile of blocks, I really didn't feel like it. I am seriously doubting my color choices, and the design. It is very modern in my opinion, and I am just not sure how I feel about it.

I am also part of of the Skill Builder Block of the Month and I am so far behind.

I still have one more "hand-pieced" block for April, then May, June and July's blocks! I began working on the second hand pieced block, the Diamond Carat, but still have a long ways to go. I am contemplating skipping it for now and moving on to try and catch up. 

I really want to move on to new projects... Baby projects to be specific. BUT we still don't know if the baby is a girl or a boy and we won't know until Sept 5th. So I should take this opportunity and finish up what's already in progress. I have spent so many hours looking at fabric options for baby bedding and colors for the nursery. I think I have decided on two different color palettes for the nursery depending on whether the baby is a boy or a girl. Of course it could change next week, there are so many lovely colors and fabrics its hard to make a decision and stick with it.  

Have you ever taken a break from sewing/quilting and then found it very difficult to start back up on your WIPs? Any tips for getting over this?

Linking up with Liz from Shush-I'm Quilting guest blogging for Freshly Pieced - WIP Wednesday. 

Slowly Becoming Human Again

Wow, I can't believe it has almost been 2 months since I wrote on my blog. I had nothing to share sewing/quilting wise. Finally, this week, I have started to feel a little bit better each day and today I started thinking about fabric and dreaming about my baby's nursery. I thought, "That is a GOOD sign!"

I am 14 and 1/2 weeks along, and I am thankful that it appears I will be one of the "typical" pregnancies that start to feel better by about 15 weeks.

Fortunately, over the past month I have had a lot of help with my two boys. My mom drove the 10 hours from Texas and stayed with us for a week, then she took my boys home with her for 10 days. Then she and my dad drove back with the boys and stayed another week with us. While they were here with us for this last week, my dad built a bedroom in our basement for our oldest son.

Since we moved into our home we planned to eventually put a room in that part of our basement. I had always envisioned this room as my future sewing/craft room... But a surprise baby changed that plan! The room looks amazing and like it should have been there all along. The wide open space behind our "family/tv room" had been used as a play area, but by closing it off and dividing it with a wall, it defines the two spaces and is really nice.

The walls are primed and now we need to paint. My husband and a friend plan to paint today. Hopefully by the end of this weekend the painting will be finished. 

Nate (DH) and I will be out of town this next week at a youth conference with students from our youth group at church. My hope is that when we return from the conference we will be able to rearrange the bedrooms pretty quickly. That way I will have the month of August to focus on the boys rooms and getting them done before we find out the baby's gender at the end of August. Our oldest son will move to the basement, while our youngest son will be moving from his room into what was the older son's room. The nursery will be what is currently our youngest son's room. So we have three bedrooms to rearrange and get ready! Although I am not changing bedding or anything for the boys, we just have to change some of the paint colors to match the bedding. 

Also, when I come back from the conference I plan to get back to work on the Wonky Log Cabin quilt for my bed that I started over two months ago! I have 6 of the 9 26 inch wonky log cabin blocks finished. If I think about all of the WIPs and planned projects that have been neglected for over two months, I could totally get overwhelmed, but I will continue to give myself grace in this season of my life. I will think about one project at a time, and realize that it isn't the end of the world if I can't finish something right now. 

I hope all of you have been doing well and hope to be communicating with all of you more frequently now. 

- Jessica 

MIA From My Sewing Nook And Blogland...

I splurged and ordered a Fat Quarter Bundle of Happy Go Lucky from Jennifer at the Knotted Thread! Isn't it lovely??? I currently have no project in mind for this, I just bought it because I love it.


Not sure if anyone has really noticed, but I have been MIA... both from my sewing nook and my blog... I have a really good reason. I wasn't planning to share this with the general public for a bit longer, but since it has been keeping me from living life as usual, I thought I had better share.

3 weeks ago today I got some totally unexpected news... I AM EXPECTING! Yes, expecting a baby, our third baby in fact.

After I got over the initial shock, and readjusted my thought process to include another child in our family I started to get excited. Started scouring Pinterest for adorable and creative ways to announce our unexpected news to very unsuspecting friends and family. I started peaking at nursery ideas, and fabrics for bedding...  But only ideas for little boys, because I have two boys, and I just don't want to get my hopes too high that we might have a girl! But wouldn't that be fun??!!! Oh if I let myself I can get very carried away with thoughts of all of the wonderful girly projects that I would love to make!

Announcement that I plan to post on FB once we are ready to share with more people. It might be hard to read on here, but it says "We thought our family was complete, but God has blessed us with two more feet... Arriving January 2014!"

Then about a week into my excitement, I began to feel a bit nauseated, over the course of a week the nausea went from just needing a cracker or two to settle my tummy, to something I won't even try to describe. Lets just say I couldn't keep anything down for about 5 days. I finally got some prescriptions medication this past Wednesday, and while I am still nauseated all day long every day, I can now eat, which has given me energy to at least get off the couch every now and then.

Since I do have limited energy and still don't feel the greatest, I have had to put crafting, sewing, and quilting on the back burner just to manage some of the MUST DOs of every day life. Like making sure my boys don't kill each other, and that they know where the food is, they are almost 9 and 4 1/2 so between the two of them and a lower cabinet full of snacks they are managing pretty well.

Hopefully I only have 4 or so more weeks of this and I will find my energy and get back to my old self, until then I can't promise myself or anyone else that I will be accomplishing anything, but surviving.

I really have so much to get done, I want to finish up ALL of my WIPS before the end of August when we will find out whether the baby is a boy or girl. I know after that all of my sewing will focus on the baby! So much for everyone's handmade Christmas gifts! LOL!

So basically, I am not sure what the next few weeks will hold, if I will be sewing/quilting and blogging, or just surviving... I am just taking it one day at time.

Talk with you soon... hopefully :)

Jessica

Wonky Log Cabin Grunge Quilt - Committed

Last Monday I wrote about my issues with committing to fabric for my Master Bedroom Quilt... Well I committed and there is no turning back!

After hours of looking at fabric and designs, I am going in a direction that is completely out of my norm... I have never made a quilt with only solids, but I think it will be lovely when its finished.

Fabric - Seven different colors of Grunge by Basic Grey.

PB&J Fluffer Nutter
PB&J Jelly
PB&J Basket
PB&J Creamy
Pear
Kissing Booth Dark Chocolate
Charmed

Design - Well I said I wasn't going to do this... but I am. I searched for a pattern, and although I found some images of quilts I liked, I couldn't find patterns for them... So I drew my own. I will make 9 wonky log cabin blocks, with 4 different fabrics in each, measuring 26 inches square upon completion. Then I will use Fluffer Nutter to create a 10 inch border between each block on all sides.

I ordered about 1/2 the fabric, since it is going to take about 20 yards of fabric just to make the top!

I was able to make quick work of the first 3 Wonky Log Cabin squares on Saturday, these goes quickly, but haven't had time to get into my sewing nook this week. If I had a good solid day to sew, I think I could do the whole top, but of course I only have half the fabric so I will need to order more before I can finish it anyway.

I am starting with an approximately 8 inch wonky square in the center, and then I use 3 1/2 inch strips to go around the square. The wonky affect that I am using isn't huge, but I am not creating perfect squares.

I really hope to make some progress on it later in the week and this weekend... We shall see.

What are you working on this week?