It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a.....

Caped Super Hero!

I recently completed 4 capes for Leif's best buddies - two for superheros and two for princesses.

My original attempt looked an awful lot like a Dracula cape so, the night before the party, I scrapped it and started over using a combination of these two tutorials. I was so pleased with the results that I made the two princess ones a week later. And shhh....Leif will be getting one (superhero, not princess) for Christmas this year. Let's just hope it goes over better than the Kermit costume!

One for Ray.

And one for Ronan. Both were lined with blue.

Super Ray! Ro wasn't interested in wearing his at the party, but that's ok - there was a lot going on!

And for the two Princesses, I did flower wands with sparkly button centers and ribbons hanging down. Azure had to have purple, of course, with butterflies inside and I did a pretty pink with sweet peas inside for Julia.

For Princess Azure.

For Princess Julia.

Two pretty, pretty princesses.

Ahhhh, the Craft Fair!

Let it be known to one and all that I will never be a professional crafter! I recently participated in a Honolulu Mommies Craft Fair (in conjunction with our annual Halloween Party.) It was a lot of work and I learned that once you take something that you enjoy and do it for work, that's what it becomes: work. I learned a lot and am happy with what I was able to sell (I made enough money to be able to make Baby Boo a few quilts), but it is not something I will repeat. It was fun to work with my friends when we would get together to work on our goods and it was so fun to see what everyone created, but the fair itself was a bit of a let down. I won't go into details of why, but in the end it wasn't what any of us wanted it to be. That's ok.

I made I Spy Bags, Trick or Treat Bags and Crayon Pouches. Here are a few photos of my table.

I Spy Bags (and no, I won't make one for you!
They were a pain in the booty to make.
If you really want one, Etsy has lots to choose from, lol!)

Trick or Treat Bags

Crayon Pouches - some with elastic and some with ribbon.

A Gift for Erin

In keeping with my plan to make all gifts, I decided to make my dear friend Erin something for her birthday. The only problem was I had no idea what to make that she would use or appreciate. She recently started a Stroller Strides program and our friend Bethany suggested I make a water bottle holder. I found a great little tutorial and whipped one up for her. The bottle and caribiner were supplied by our other friend Lauren, and wallah!: a perfect gift.

The inside is green felt and it has a thin layer of batting in between
the outside fabric and the lining. Per the tutorial, I quickly quilted some
lines in a variety of thread colors to spruce it up a bit.

It is a snug fit, but I think it turned out really good.
The tutorial was very simple and easy to follow.

Let's Go Racin', Boys!

Several months ago my friend Sharon shared a link to a tutorial for a lap-sized race track. I knew I wanted to make at least one. It took me a while to get around to it, but thanks to some super cute race car fabric that was part of an amazing stash of fabric I inherited, I finally made not one, not two, but three race tracks recently. One was for Leif's buddy Max's birthday, another was for his friend Rayan's birthday and the third one was for Leif -finally. Sharon had given me a head's up that the tutorial was junk, so I didn't follow it at all and just went for it on my own after looking at the photos. I was very pleased with the results. Not sure if Max and Rayan love theirs, but Leif plays with his at home, on his lap in the car, at the doctor's office....

Here are a few shots:With the cars in the pockets. Leif's has 4 pockets large enough for 2 cars each.
The other 2 I did, had 5 pockets, but only room for 1 car each.

Here's a shot of the big race!

Close-up of the track and the handles.

A Kermit that Never was....

Leif was supposed to be a super hero for Halloween. Or a pirate. But 2 weeks ago he announced that he would be Kermit the Frog. No idea where that idea came from, but it stuck. For days he would ask me where his green frog suit was. He was so excited about it. He and daddy would look at pictures and videos of Kermit and the Muppets on the computer. We taught him to say, "It's not easy being green." And then I finally came up with a plan and a vision of how to create a homemade toddler Kermit costume. It took me a couple of days to finish, but it turned out great. I was so proud of myself.

And he wouldn't wear it. It was "too scary" he said. The closest we got was the hat for a little while on a couple of occasions.

So, here is the Kermit suit that wasn't meant to be. Oh and what did he end up wearing to the big party and Trick or Treating? His ghost suit from last year!

One of very few shots of him actually wearing the hat.

At our neighbor's costume party.
Mom was Miss Piggy, Dad was Animal and Leif was Kermit - sort of.

Bag of Jelly Beans

Our little friend Lilea just had her first birthday and since I am attempting to make all gifts right now, I decided to make her a bag of Jelly Beans. I got the idea from the Purl Bee and used their tutorial for the beans and the super cute, gussetted drawstring bag.

I thought they turned out great. I also made a second set and instead of a drawstring bag made a little backpack. This set is for our other friend Makaela who is having her 2nd birthday in a few weeks. I have a set to make for Leif as well.

So, I am doing pretty good with all the gift making, for now at least. We have about a million birthdays the next several months, so I am up to my ears in crayon pouches and I Spy Bags. Not to mention the fact that I am preparing a modest inventory for a holiday craft fair next month. Quilting, is that what I do? Oh I forgot. I've been so sidetracked by all the other projects...

Birthday Gifts

With the state of things at the moment, I have decided to make gifts as much as possible. We had three birthdays this weekend, so I had a lot of work to do. I made a monster and these cute little gifts for two of our neighborhood friends.

An I Spy Bag for Cailynn's first birthday:
My mom made one for Leif's first Christmas and although he wasn't really into it at the time, he really enjoys playing with it now and it makes it into the chruch bag of quiet toys every week. So, using the one we had as a guide, I made this one for Cailynn. I was able to find enough little things just around the house and had some leftover ladybug flannel and red felt for the front and back. For the plastic windows, I cut the back off a view binder and used that.


A Colored Pencil Pouch for Carissa:
I was able to use fabric and ribbon from my stash and just had to get a pack of pencils. I was going to include a coloring book, but wasn't happy with the selection at the store, so I skipped that. The pockets for the pencils are large enough to accommodate one or two pencils. I also embroidered her name on a piece of yellow felt and attached that to the ribbon, but forgot to take a picture of that before we gave her the gift last night. Oops. But trust me, it looked really cute.

Might Be A Monster....

"Might be a monster..." This is what Leif says whenever I ask if he knows who did something. For example:
Mom: "Leif, do you know who dumped out all these blocks and didn't pick them up?"
Leif: "Might be a monster, mama."

So anyway, this little creature I just made for our friend Belle's first birthday might be a monster. I used a pattern from Revoluzza, which a fellow Honolulu Mommy, Sharon, had shared with me several months ago. I think she turned out pretty cute, but the next ones I make will be a bit bigger I think. And I think she looks a little owl-ish. But that has inspired me to try to make one that is, in fact, an owl.

A little monster tooth.

Brown satin bow and polka dot pants.

And a little heart heart on her bum.

For big sister Sofia

Since baby Charlie was getting all kinds of fun stuff in the mail (see previous post) I couldn't forget about his big sister Sofia. So I made her a little ladybug crayon pouch.

For Charlie

My friend Tish is about to have her second baby - like next Monday I believe. His name is Charlie and I'm sure he is going to be just the cutest, sweetest little thing in the world (taking after his sister Sofia, of course.) Anyway, Tish lives in San Diego and she is decorating Chrlie's room in retro cowboy style. I, of course, wanted to contribute to the decor, so she sent me some fabric and I whipped up a couple of things for him. They are in the mail and hopefully will arrive before Charlie does.

I made a "bunting." So I had no idea that is what these pennant banner things were called. But after much perusing of the world wide web, I found myself very well educated on the various types and construction methods of buntings. Who knew there were so many possibilities or that they were so popular these days? I had seen them in a few magazines and blogs, but it wasn't until my friend Shelley blogged about the one she made for her niece's wedding that I felt truly inspired. Then, my friend Lauren sent me a link for one she found and thought it was a project I might like to try. She was right! When I found out Tish was doing the cowboy theme, I thought this would be perfect. And now that I have a machine does does applique - bingo!

This was a super fun project to put together and I now have mounds of ideas floating in my head for more to do in the future. For this one I used red, denim and cow print for the background and yellow felt letters (which I printed from my computer and cut out and traced on the felt) which I appliqued with yellow thread and finished it with yellow double fold bias tape. I didn't use any interfacing or batting and they seemed to be heavy enough without it. There are definitley a few things I will do different the next time - like appliqueing the letters before sewing the front and backs of the trianlges together. Here are a couple of close-ups:

Since I had some leftover fabric I couldn't resist making one more thing. I asked Tish if she wanted a wall hanging or a decorative pillow. She chose a pillow, so I did this one with denim and red on the front and cow print on the back. It was supposed to be a bit larger, but I had a hard time with my measurements for some reason and kept screwing up until this was the size I was left with. Oh well, still cute. My favorite part is the sheriff's badge with "Deputy Charlie" on it

Now every baby needs a special sofite, right? Leif loved the ones I made for him when he was a baby, so I couldn't resist making one for Charlie. While not in his cowboy theme, I still had a bunch of this cute zoo animal fabric. I put buttery yellow satin on the back and loops of colorful ribbons around the perimeter for him to play with.

Butterfly Bliss

"Butterfly Bliss"
Size: 37" x 37"

Pattern: original design using 9" Snowball Blocks

Completed: April 2009

Made in: Hawaii
Machine pieced and quilted on a Janome 6600

Given to: Mary Hirose for baby Jacquelyn

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The story: I just finished this baby quilt for my friend Mary - well for her baby Jacquelyn, who will be arriving in a few short weeks. Mary's husband Keaka does not like pink, so I chose to use purple for the sashing and binding. The blocks are 9" Snowballs with triangles of bright flowers in the corners. I used a pink and purple tulip fabric for the backing. This was a fun quilt to make and I think she really liked it. The best part was the binding, which went on like a dream once I figured out I had to adjust my needle position when using my 1/4" Accufeed foot. Oh the joy of learning a new machine!

The butterfly block. The other blocks were just a mottled print of the same colors, but no butterflies.

A close-up of the quilting and the corner triangle.

A close-up of the butterfly cornerstone. I had to fussy-cut to get 4 good butterflies.

Something Girlie

"Flowers for Fiona"
Size: 41" x 50 1/2"

Pattern: Yellow Brick Road by Atkinson Designs

Completed: April 2009

Made in: Hawaii
Machine pieced and quilted on a Janome 6600

Given to: Erin Giaretto for baby Fiona
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The story: I just finished this one today. It is for my dear friend, Erin who is about a month away from welcoming baby Fiona to the world. Erin is Ronan's mum (Ro and Leif are best little buddies and have been since they were about 7 months old.) As soon as Erin announced her pregnancy I knew I would want to make her a sweet, girlie quilt. Erin picked the shabby chic look for Fiona's nursery and loaned me the crib bumper to take to the fabric store. I had a lot of fun selecting the fabric for this quilt - well as much fun as one can have fabric shopping with a two yeard old in tow - "No fabric store, Mama!" After one or two misses with the fabric selection I ended up with a pretty good balance of lights and darks and greens and pinks. I chose the pattern "Yellow Brick Road" by Atkinson Designs for this because I thought the it lent itself well to the shabby chic look. I had previously made this pattern two other times and it is quick and fun. I machine quilted it with a wave stitch every 2" all the way to the center and machine bound it with the green and pink stripe that I also used for the backing. I can't wait to see how it looks in the nursery!

Here are a few more pics:

Here you can see some of the three different blocks.

You can sort of see the quilting in the dark green.

Here you can see the backing and the binding.

Zoo Pals for Armando

"Zoo Pals"
Size: 28 1/2" x 32"
Pattern: original design
Completed: April 2009
Made in: Hawaii
Given to: Desiree Diaz for her soon to arrive little one, Armando
Machine pieced and quilted on a Janome 6600
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The Story: Finally a current project to post about! And the first quilt I've completed on my new machine. I just finished this one today and can take it off my list on the sidebar.
I made this for my friend Desiree who is about to have her second little boy. I wanted to do something fun and cuddly. I decided to make a cuddle quilt instead of a full-on quilt. I made a similar one for my friend Richelle's little boy, Casey, several years ago and she said he loved it! (BTW - I still need a pic of that one Richelle - if you're reading this.)
After piecing the top I just sewed the top and the backing right sides together and then turned it right-side out. This meant no batting and no binding. But I felt it needed something on the edge so I used a rainbow verigated thread and an "X" decorative stitch right along the edge. This also closed the opening I had left to turn it right-side out, which means I didn't have to hand sew it closed. Yay! For the quilting I used another decorative stitch just where I joined the strips. See below for close-ups of the edge, the quilting and all the fabrics. The green polka dot fabric is flannel and the rainbow fabric is an ultra-soft brushed cotton. Put it all together and I think it's super cuddly. And the perfect size for snugglng up with momma.