Baby gifts: because they can't complain about your color scheme.

Finally, finally, someone I know is having a baby, which means I can make baby gifts! Wheee!* My very fun friend Pat and his lovely wife Sarah are expecting their first child sometime in June. I immediately pulled out my copy of Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts, by Joelle Hoverson, and made every baby item she had. Overwhelming, I know, but I just couldn't resist. So, the new little tyke will be enjoying a cheerful blanket, some happy changing cloths (or maybe spit rags?), and (my favorite) a huggable little elephant. I even sewed the ears on extra tight so they could withstand that deadly combination of slobber and chewing.


* Hurry up, college friends! High school friends are beating you 1-0!

I love the fabrics--happy little trees and polka dots! All part of my devious plot to turn their child into an environmentalist who enjoys wearing bright orange.


Peanut, the littlest elephant.


The finished blanket and changing clothes. All matchy-matchy!

Tessa and her elephant (a practice model for the real thing).

Tessa's elephant was made out of denim and upholstery fabric, to withstand her combined slobber and chewing, but sadly the little guy only lasted for about five minutes before he began to leak stuffing.

Spoonflowering!

Spoonflower opened their virtual doors to everyone a while back, but I didn't find out until around October. I got suckered in by The Small Object's "letter to my niece quilt." Awww. I couldn't resist. So, I made my brother and his new wife a quilt. Instead of a letter, though, I used the text of "their song" from their wedding and added in some fun border circles, sent it off to Spoonflower and had it printed.

The quilt turned out alright. I'm not crazy about it. I liked the design, but it was hard to quilt since I don't have a quilting machine and I didn't have time to do it by hand. I think if I ever find the time, I'll steal the quilt back from them and do it properly. I just ended up quilting the circles and underneath the words. Arrr! adorably said they would hang it up in their new house, but I hope they use it.

The fabric itself was quite nice. The color saturation in some of the larger circles wasn't quite right, but I imagine they are still working out the kinks with their printer. And if I ordered any more yardage, I'd definitely first print up a color pattern, so that I know what colors to use. At the time, I only knew for sure how pink and brown would print, so I just used those two. Fortunately, I like pink and brown together. Also, I don't think I would print a 2 yard pattern again. I think it would be a lot of fun to make another "special occassion" fabric, but I would do a smaller pattern and make a wall hanging out of it, rather than a quilt.

Leaf Bowls

I really like these Oak Leaf bowls from Martha Stewart. They are the kind of gift that would be perfect for one of my grandmothers, who entertains a lot but who has more than enough bowls. That said, I can't help but feel that this is not the kind of project I'll probably do. For one thing, it involves what looks like a lot of tedious cutting. I hate cutting. For another thing, I don't have a local fabric store that carries wool tweed. And I probably wouldn't order five different kinds of wool tweed online, since to make the shipping charges worth it I'd have to order way more wool tweed than I really need. Or end up making leaf bowls for everyone I know.

I wonder, though, if you could do this project with the felt, a really heavy interfacing, and quilting fabric? I doubt the cotton fabric would have enough heft to hold up, but maybe. If I had an actual studio, I'd probably try this out. This is why I need a sewing studio. So that I could simply open up my wool tweed stash, pick out a few yellows and oranges that didn't make it into my fall wardrobe the year before, and turn out some leaf bowls.

Or I could just spend hours and hours creating new fabric designs to send to Spoonflower.

Xmas Quilt

For Christmas, J!'s parents gave me a beautiful, beautiful quilt by Lizi Boyd with the pattern above. The quilt is not pieced together, but instead is two large swaths of fabric stitched to each other. The fabric is amazing--green with large white dots and birds of paradise swimming among water lilies. I love it. It is the perfect "cookies and tea" blanket for rainy mornings. Or, alternatively, "apple butter toast and orange juice" for sunny mornings. Not that I actually eat anywhere near this quilt, since the chances of me spilling something stain-remover-resistant all over it are quite high.

Lizi Boyd also makes lovely cards, gift tags, and wrapping papers. I'm particularly in enamored of the gift tags. Eventually I want to find some cardstock and rubber stamp material so I can make my own, but I'd definitely use these in the meantime.

Doggie Diapers

My younger brother Arrr! and his lovely fiancé S adopted a beagle (named Baxter, of course) around Thanksgiving. He’s the sweetest little dog—curls up in your lap in the evenings, whines pathetically whenever Arrr! isn’t in the room, and spends the rest of his time with his nose to the floor smelling anything he can get a whiff of. The only problem is that B has a bit of a marking problem—he was around 3 when they got him, and arrived with all his bits intact. That was quickly remedied, but the marking continues on. Outside this isn’t a problem at all, but it becomes a bit awkward in my mom’s dining room. Or the kitchen. Or pretty much anywhere in the house. So, during Baxter and Arrr!’s visit to my parents’ house over the break, I sewed up a little doggie diaper so that B didn’t have to wear an ignominious ace bandage wrapped around a dish tower. Instead he got a snazzy ninja themed jock strap.

Unfortunately, the first effort wasn’t perfect—I didn’t use any elastic so the band was a bit tight whenever B sat down, and after about a week the fabric bunched up and had a tendency to slid off his tender bits. He seemed to be learning, though, as he wouldn’t mark when he was wearing the diaper, regardless of whether or not it was actually in place.

I’ve spent the last week or so brainstorming some ideas for how to improve the diaper. A few changes: A.) it needs a little pocket to hold the “diaper” (or, in Arrr!’s case a cut up old t-shirt—very absorbent and much softer than a dishtowel), so that you can remove it easily in case of accidents. B.) Elastic side bands to make it more comfortable when B sits down. I think this will also help with the bunching problem. C.) Shaping for greater wearing ease in between B’s hips.

Of course, I don’t have a doggie around to use as a model anymore. Maybe I’ll try to manufacture one out of cardboard, or something. That might be interesting.

Going for a Green Xmas!

Inhabitat had a neat post a few days ago about using silk scarves to wrap Xmas or Chanukah presents this season. It's win/win--no wasted paper that's simply going to end up in a huge garbage bag on the curb, plus you gift someone a present and a silk scarf!

Too bad for me I have no silk scarves, and I'm too much on-a-graduate-student-budget to go get any. So instead my ever-patient J! drove me to Jo-Ann's and I picked up some very soft red fabric, on clearance for only $2! I couldn't believe someone hadn't already snatched up a yard or ten of this stuff! Some stitching later, plus a little gold ribbon, and all my gifts were swathed in red (and reusable!) bags. Well, all the wee sized gifts, anyway. I'm going to have to make some not-so-wee red bags later.


I'm very, very excited about my gifts this year! Our local grocery store, the fabulous Nugget Market, has been selling salt plates. Turns out, you can cook on them, freeze them, scrub them--do pretty much everything except drop them on the floor! Well, you can do that too, but it would tend to ruin their usability as plates. I can already picture that somewhat shocked, but valiantly-trying-to-be-polite-look that my sister will get when she opens up her gift and finds herself staring at what appears to be a large salt lick. In all seriousness, though, I think she'll love it, if only for the sheer uniqueness. How many people can say they've cooked veggies or made ice cream on a block of salt?

My sister and her husband are also getting a handmade gift for their pug, Rocko. He's devoted to my brother-in-law, except when football is on, at which point he deserts him for my sister. Ha! We're all heading up to Northern Arizona this weekend, where it has been snowing, and as pugs aren't exactly "mush, dog, mush!" animals, Rocko is getting a little cape to keep him warm.


Sadly, from this angle, it looks a lot like a giant, football-themed tick. I'm sure it will be much cuter when he's actually wearing it. If it fits him. I was pretty generous with the strap length, but then Rocko is of a pretty generous girth.