newborn baby gift

i've said it before and i'll say it again.....i'm a little snobby about baby clothes. i think i like them to look like miniature adults.  that being said, i think newborns deserve to spend most of their time in soft, comfy clothes.

here's a baby gift i made for a friend's newborn daughter. i can't wait to see these striped legging/sweats on those skinny little baby legs.

also, i love this long sleeve tee...it has the look of a onesie....without any snap setting necessary. also thought the subtle contrast with the polka dot turned out cute.

wrap

my parents and i went in together on a graduation gift for my husband, andrew (who just graduated with his masters in accountancy!)  we got him a camera--which i'll have to feature in another post.  but here's how i wrapped it.  i used the pictureline bag it came in to wrap the lens filter in.  

my dad said he thought it was too obvious...ha ha. i liked it.

laptop case

disclaimer: sorry, the pictures are terrible.

 i made this laptop case for a friend's birthday.  it was pretty easy and really fun to pick fabrics to put together.  

 detail of the stitching and lace

 i was kinda inspired by those envelopes that have the closures with two circles that you wind the string through (do those have a name?) and did the same with buttons.

 these are my signature buttons. i love them

 the front

action shot with the laptop in it.  (it fits i was just showing the laptop going in).  now i need to make one for myself!

tangent:
and i really do need one, i know from experience.  a couple semesters ago i was working in the university preschool. all of the student-teachers had to do a literacy activity where you read the kids a book and then they did an activity that related to the book.  so i read "the very hungry caterpillar" and then we made a lifecycle of a caterpillar on a long strip of paper, starting as an egg...yada yada.  the "chrysalis" stage was a big pasta shell that they glued down.  anyway, i had to make one as a demo, and then i shoved the whole paper in my backpack later on to take home.  the pasta shell cracked into a ton of little pieces and i didn't really think about it to vacuum out my backpack.  a little while later i noticed my disc drive was making really funny noises and then found a piece of that cracked pasta shell in my disc drive! needless to say it's never worked since.  a little laptop case could have saved me the trouble.

gosh, aren't you glad you read that story?

a wedding present

i am big on these two things lately.  

at the beginning of this year, my brother-in-law got married to a girl from madrid! the wedding was there so all of my husband's family got to go to spain to be there, and it was such a great trip.  i will have to post some pictures when i get around to it.  anway, for my wedding present to them, i thought i'd incorporate both embroidery and maps in a "quilt"--a map felt appropriate since this was an international union.

some of my preliminary planning

i don't pretend to be a quilter.  this is actually more of a pieced blanket.  also, the pictures aren't the best because we had to take them quickly in a cramped spanish apartment while the bride and groom weren't around.

 the breakdown:

i used mostly muslin for the main parts and then pieced some nice thick cotton solids in navy and green. i  filled it with 2 layers of thin cotton batting.  to get it to spain, i put it in a vacuum bag in my suitcase.

i sewed the layers together with a chevron pattern.  it took a bit of measuring but the result was cute.  i bound the edges with a striped seersucker that i love.

also, you can barely see it in the photo above, but in the upper left hand corner of the blanket i embroidered their names and the date.

i embroidered a world map on a separate piece--this is what i worked on for most of the plane ride.  i highly recommend this project for the plane (if you can sneak the needle and tiny scissors past security like i did) because the time went by so fast.  it was relaxing and almost mind numbing.  after i finished, i ironed all the edges and then slipstitched it onto the quilt by hand.

i absolutely love how the embroidered map turned out.  i am definitely going to do this in future projects.
 if you look closely, you can see where i made little x's in both texas and madrid (their homes) and connected them with a little dashed line.  there are also x's where both of them served full-time, 2 year LDS missions (this was long before they met each other). brian's was in ukraine and noemi's was in utah.

and here is the back.

i hope they enjoy it as much as i loved making it!

stork part II

as promised...here is a baby present i made a few months back.  it was so much fun.  my favorite part? cute baby clothes with no character or cutesy saying on it.  i am a little snobby about baby clothes ha ha.

i made a little hoodie, t-shirt, and pants.  they all had the same detailing and striped seersucker accents.

close up of the hoodie

close up of the pants with contrast back pocket.  it was my first time with snap tape, and it turns out it's pretty easy to work with.  i also finished off the hems with the same striped binding so the pant legs can be cuffed and still look cute.

close up of the t-shirt. i just stitched some stripes on for interest.

so there it is.  i love sewing for babies.  i kinda wanted to keep it.  but the mom liked it, so i was happy.

a stork delivery

i went to a friend's baby shower this week.  i usually like to make cute baby presents...but i just didn't have time, so i got some things she was registered for.  since i felt lazy about the gift, i at least had to wrap it cute.

i think this may be my new formula.  kraft paper gift bag + glue stick on a doilie + some japanese tape...

easy enough.  tomorrow i will post a baby present i made a few months ago for another friend's baby boy.

quickie

a quick invitation i made a few months ago...

i would love to do a series on paint can lids.

ps. i am so intrigued by this "happy mail" idea at giverslog

...a paint can lid is 13 oz. or less!