EYMM Contest

I'm entering a contest to win some awesome patterns from www.youcanmakethis.com, at my good friend Kim's Blog. Hurray for winning stuff. :)

I Made a Fish

It is made from the same material that I made Peter's sleep sack out of. He really seemed to like playing with the sleep sack. I assumed it was the fabric that he liked. So I figured I would make something that he really could play with.

I found a clip art picture of a fish online, printed it out in the size I wanted and used it like a pattern. The eyes are really small button holes and the mouth is a satin stitch. I've decided that it is a boy fish because in the process of sewing him up he ended up with a big chin. :) I can't wait to see Peter play with it.

Check Out The Curtains I Made

http://morganmadestuff.blogspot.com/2009/06/curtains.html

Ruffle on the Crib

Now that the ruffle is done I figured I would waste no time in getting it put on the crib. First I had to raise the crib to little infant height and then put the ruffle on. Let me just say that raising the crib is A LOT easier with two people, but I managed to get it done.

Here's the finished product:

Sew Stinking Excited!!!

The dust ruffle for the Baby's crib is DONE!!! Hurray! Though I didn't actually complete it myself; the Relief Society president in our ward is super awesome. She used to own her own professional sewing shop up in Utah and she still has most of her industrial sewing machines. Anyway, I was talking to her the other day about some of the projects that I'm working on and I mentioned my dilemma with the crib ruffle and she said come on over and she would help me out. Of course I said okay. So I walked to her house this morning and she whipped out her awesome serger and zip zam it was done. I love sergers and wish I had one.

The Baby's Room

I just finished assembling the wall hangings and wanted to see how they looked up on the wall. I'm not sure if I'm going to leave them where they are or not, but they really make the room look more interesting.

The Baby's room is pretty much ready to go. Although we do need to raise the crib back up. We lowered it so cousin Eva could spend the night here a couple of times. Or we could leave it down since we have a bassinet in our room where the baby will be for the first while or so; yet another decision to make. Oh, and we still need to figure out how we are going to attach the bumpers to the head and foot of the crib.

The lamp in the picture is a touch lamp, it's one of two but the other one doesn't work when you touch it, and we purposely found a really dim light bulb to go in it to be our night light. We are still debating about whether or not we need a baby monitor.

I Finally Finished the Baby Quilt!!!

That's right I finished the baby quilt that matches the bedding that I made for the crib. I already wrote about it on my new blog so here is a link to what I wrote so I don't have to write about it twice... Too late. :) Anyway here is the link.

Stuff I Made

So just for fun I decided to create a new blog specifically for stuff that I've made the link is: http://MorganMadeStuff.blogspot.com. Some of it I have already talked about on this blog, but I have a lot more new and old craftiness that I am going to post. There are a couple of things in progress right now that I can't talk about because they are awesome gifts for people for Christmas, but I'll be sure to post them up after Christmas. :) Hurray for being crafty!!

Today is 36 Weeks

Officially I have 4 weeks or 28 days left. We are hoping to have this baby either right on time or a little early. The full moon this month is on the 12th so who knows maybe we'll have the baby around then. :) I'm to the point that I don't think we could be physically anymore ready. We have clothes and diapers and blankets and a place for the baby to sleep. That's all you really need right?

I guess we need a name too. We've got a list and we're working on it. Right now we have more girls names on the list than we do boys names. Which is funny since I have had a bunch of people tell me that they think I'm carrying high so it must be a girl. :) I don't know about that but I can still breathe so I don't think I'm carrying that high.

I haven't really started nesting yet either. Andrew was joking that my nesting will be me telling him what to clean; just because I told him to clean the bathroom before people came over for Thanksgiving. I have been crafting a lot I've finished up one crocheted blanket and putting the finishing touches on another. And I've got quite a few other projects that I need to get finished before Christmas.

This picture is me at 35 weeks and 4 days and yes the pants are supposed to be capris.

Random Thoughts in a Numbered List

1. Maternity overalls sound like a good idea right? They're nice and loose and don't bother your belly. I thought so too... until I decided to wear a pair the other day and I litterally had to use the bathroom 10 times that day when I finally decided to change into something else less cumbersome to wear, and ironically once I changed my clothes I didn't have to go to the bathroom as much.
2. I've been doing a lot of "crafting" recently in addition to the things that I've posted about already. I've been crocheting a blanket and making Thank You cards, I even made a wrap so I can wear my baby. It's just been a very crafty time. Yesterday I said to Andrew, "You really like me doing all this crafty stuff, huh?" He said, "Yes." And then I said, "It's because it helps to justify having a room full of crafty stuff." He again said, "Yes."
3. I found a really cool website while searching Frysfood.com (Fry's is our local grocery store in the Kroger family, the one by our house is a Market Place which just means it's bigger, similar to a Fred Meyer or WalMart) for the sales to make my weekly shopping list from. The website I found is called shortcuts.com and basically you register your loyalty shopping card with the website and "clip" coupons online, then the next time you use your card at that store and buy that item the discount will automatically be deducted from your total. I haven't tried it yet but the next time we go grocery shopping (probably tomorrow) I will test it out. There are only certain stores that participate so it may not be available to you but it's a great way to clip coupons and save money. Though I think the hard part will be not having the physical coupon to remind you to use it.
4. This past week I am to the point in my pregnancy that it has started to get particularly uncomfortable. I was sitting on the floor cutting fabric and really got annoyed that my belly was in the way and I couldn't quite reach what I was doing comfortably. I actually had Andrew cut the fabric for the wraps because it was so long.
   
5. I really enjoy walking with our walking group on Thursdays, it gives me a chance to get out of the house and get to know the ladies in our ward that are in similar situations that I am or else that I soon will be in. I also really enjoy the walking it's really good exercise and one of the ladies wanted to up the walking so we're going to go walking on Monday's too. I'd love to do it daily but I don't know if I can handle that much walking right now. The last time I went walking my pelvis really hurt, just like the first time I did the walking. Maybe I need to walk more to help prevent that... I'm not sure.
6. I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. We're doing it at our house and we're having Ham. I can't wait to have all that yummy food. I get to eat more this year because I'm "eating for two". :) I am trying out a couple of new recipes so I will be sure to share them afterwards if they turn out okay.
7. I'm constantly thinking about things that I can blog about. I don't always end up posting what I've thought about but it's still fun to think about. Sometimes I will tell Andrew what I'm going to blog about and then I remind him that he's allowed to blog too. The typical reply to that is, "Yeah, I know... mumble, mumble, mumble."
   

I Finished a Boppy Cover!!!

I originally found a tutorial on how to make Boppy covers and I didn't like it because I would have had to print out a bunch of pages and tape them together to get the pattern. In hindsight perhaps I should have gone that route. Instead I reverse engineered the cover that came with the one I got from my baby shower. It was going really great until I was almost done sewing the darn thing together. The last 16" or so I started to notice that the fabric wasn't even close to the edges lining up like they were supposed to. So it looks alright but not great. The next one I make I will definitely pay more attention to that to make sure it's not all caddywhompus.

This is the front

This is the back I think I did an awesome job on the zipper

Things I'm Going to Make Next

I think that the next thing that I'm going to make is an extra cover for my Boppy pillow. It came with a super cute cover but I think that it would be nice to have an extra cover or two on hand for when the others are in the wash. Plus the fact that an additional cover costs from $10 - $20, and since I already have fabric it will be way cheaper to make it. I think that I will just use the existing cover as an example and figure it out from there.

I also think that I will crochet a baby hat. Babies need to keep their heads warm and I feel like crocheting some more. I found a pattern for this super cute Santa hat. Even if the baby comes after Christmas I will still put the hat on the baby.

Nursing Cover Completed

I waited until this afternoon to start working on this project and it was really easy!!! I decided that since I have the most of the top left fabric I would make the first one out of that, just in case it didn't turn out well I could scrap it and take the hardware and try again. :) I think it turned out really good. The only issue that I have is the fabric is a cotton/poly blend and it is stretchy. I wasn't paying attention to the direction of stretch while I was making the straps and so now they are stretchy the long way instead of the short way. So all in all it took me around 2 hours to do, but I definitely could have done it in less time; there was some lollygagging back and forth between the living room and the craft room.

Here's the finished product.

You can't really tell that the top stays curved out so you can peek in on baby.

Nursing Covers

Andrew and I sat down recently and made a list of baby things that we still want/need for the first 3 months of baby's life and on that list is a nursing cover, because you never know when you'll need to nurse when you're out and about. So today I decided to google "nursing cover tutorial" and I found a really awesome one with pictures and everything here. After I found the tutorial I went and looked through my fabric to see if I had anything that would make a good cover and lo and behold I did! Andrew likes the top left, top middle and bottom right. I like them all. :) Though the bottom middle and bottom right are more of a "quilting" cotton as opposed to the others which are more of a jersey cotton/cotton blend.

I used my awesome JoAnn's coupons to get the notions that I needed to make the nursing covers and since I already had the fabric I'll be able to make more than one for a serious fraction of the cost that it would take to buy one in the store. I'm really excited to have my next sewing project; I almost want to start tonight, but I know I'll have plenty of time during the day. :) I'll be sure to update you with pictures of the finished product.

Pretty Pillows

I'm thinking about doing opposite colors for the backs of the pillows. What do you think? Also I'm looking at the leftover fabric from making the quilt and believe it or not I bought the same yardage of fabric for all 4 colors. Somehow they are now all different sizes. It's just funny how projects work out that way; especially looking at the leftover orange fabric. It's just long enough to make the back to the pillow. Apparently I have an unconscious affinity for the color orange. :) But I'm sure that doesn't come as much of surprise to anyone. LOL!!!!

Baby Quilt -- Another Opinon?

I was thinking about backing the quilt with orange fleece but Andrew thinks that the orange will overwhelm the blanket. He thinks that green would be a better color, but I don't have any green fleece. I took a picture of the quilt on top of the orange; what do you think? I was also thinking that if the front is flannel and the back is fleece that I don't necessarily need batting in the middle.

Cute Pillows Too

I think I'm going to do fun pillows to match as well. Obviously the pillows and quilt aren't going to be in the crib while baby is there. I already had the squares cut out and I don't know what I'll do with them in the future so I figure while I'm in this sewing high I will do as much as I can until it wears off.

What About This Design?

I took out most of the blue and rearranged the colors. What do you think about this one?

Baby Quilt -- Your Opinon Please?

I had some extra fabric after cutting out the pieces for the crib ruffle and I decided I would make a baby quilt to go along with the rest of the bedding. I cut the squares for it and now I'm piecing it together and I would like your input on the design. I like it but I'm not sure if I really, really like it. Take a look and tell me what you think.

Baby Bedding So Far

The 2 fitted sheets and the bumper are done. Hurray!!! It was a bit of a pain to cut the pieces out because in the move I lost my clear quilting ruler, which makes using the rotary cutter and mat more difficult especially with larger pieces.

This is my great idea to cope without the clear ruler. I used Andrew's laser level instead; it worked pretty well if I pulled the fabric up so I could see the line.

This is the underside of the completed fitted sheet.

The sheet on the mattress.

The sheet on the mattress in the crib.

The bumpers and the sheet on the mattress in the crib.

The inside of the crib with all the bedding on. It kind of looks like a pond.

Now all I have to do is make the ruffle. It will be easier to cut the pieces for this since I got a new quilting ruler and a larger (24" x 36") cutting mat; I love JoAnn's coupons.