another niece another baby book

It has taken me a while to write this as my new niece Ciara is now a couple of months old now. As usual I didn't have it done in time for her birth but I did manage to get it done a little quicker than Jaspers book.

Kind of a farm yard animal theme this time, I had fun with the pig and cow tails.

another baby book

Another baby in the family means another book, this time for my great nephew Jasper. Despite having a good 7 months warning I still didn't have it finished in time for his birth. And with Grace about I only managed to get it done at all because Mark took her out most mornings on his week off. I hate to think of the hours these books take to make, they are a real labour of love, and I am particularly proud of this one.

Jasper's book has a day and night theme and I used some crazy quilting on the pages as well as the cover. Finishing the edges has always been tricky so I this time I used Made-by-Rae's cheater quilt bind off tutorial over at Prudent Baby. It is a bit lumpy but I really like the way it brings the cover inside.

mark two

I've been thinking about the bookmarks I made earlier. Mark suggested covering the stitching and thought I had missed a trick by not using eyelets.

I made a few new bookmarks and this time paid attention to the size so I could easily stick a piece of card on the back once I'd sewed the material on. I was a bit dubious about sticking two pieces of card together, it wouldn't look good if they pealed apart. I decided on PVA glue and smeared it out with my finger so I didn't get any gloopy bits squishing out the side. A few hours under a heavy pile of books and they were great. Much more sturdy than my first few where the card stock was a bit thin.

I think the coloured eyelets really finish them off nicely. In fact I liked the them so much I did the same to the earlier batch.

bookmarks

I love to make as many christmas presents as possible but this year I am running out of time and energy, it's halfway through November already. Luckily the Sewing Dork got me inspired with her bookmarks.

I had a some time whilst Mark took Grace out and the hardest part was finding some plain card stock. Turns out I have lots of twinkly, shiny card but not much plain cream. I wanted the material to stand out not the card. I used pinking shears to cut the fabric and cut it just short of the top as my hole punch was not sharp enough to cut through fabric.

I like them, I wonder if you could put fabric on both sides of the card? They are all blue because I had blue thread in my machine and the blue fabric was at the top of my stash!

blanky

A project I have had on the go for a while is to make a blanky. I've seen similar things with ribbon around the edge and thought they would be good for little hands to play with. To make it more interesting I wanted to use lots of different texture fabric so I thought I'd try my hand ad some quilting. I knew I wanted it to be small and thought it would be a great way to use up lots of my small scraps of fabric.
I know nothing about quilting. I did find a trick to make nice triangles so thats what I used. Cut lots of squares, draw a line across the diagonal, pin right sides together then sew either side of the line. Cut along your line and there you have it, 2 pairs of triangles.

For some reason I have lots of red fabric and red ribbon. I didn't do anything silly like measure or plan, I guessed a 6cm square would give me a good size triangle, I just went through my fabric cutting one or two squares out of everything I liked. Then I cut the same number of cream squares and made them up into triangles. Once I had done that I laid them out and realized that I had enough for two blankies. I tried to arrange them so that the different fabrics are spread out, then sewed them into strips, then the strips together. Because I was a bit rushed cutting out the squares, Grace was helping by shouting loudly, and a bit hap hazard about sewing them together the whole thing is far from perfect. I have new respect for anyone, like my sister in law, who makes the most perfect and complicated quilted things.

I lined the back with fleece to make it nice and snugly and added the ribbon. I didn't use any batting as I decided it was thick enough. Then I top stitched it following the triangles.
Grace loves them and as we have two, one lives in the nappy bag and keeps her entertained when we are out. It's also quite absorbent - which is useful!