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!!!