Sewing for Baby

I haven't been blogging much lately but I have been sewing for my granddaughter. Here she is at 4 months. I haven't made clothing for little ones for a long time but it definitely is fun to do it again.

I was turned onto the Children's Corner Patterns http://childrenscornerinc.com/wp/ by an online friend and bought the Taylor pattern. So far I have made 2 in size 3 months which fit my granddaughter now at 13 pounds.  I know I will make this little summer romper next year again in a bigger size. There are no exposed seams once it is turned and  looks so well finished. Plus it takes only a few hours to make.  I have embroidered on both that I made.  I used the Babyville snaps from Joann Fabrics and they were quite easy to install.

I also made an outfit from McCall's, # M6303.  This dress also is turned and has no exposed seams. However the panties with it really are oversized and I would probably use another pattern for the bottoms next time. I really love the crossover back of this dress. The smallest size of this pattern is small which is too big at present but should fit when she is around 16 pounds.

 

Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad

 

I needed a dish to take to a potluck Fourth of July party. I had seen some posts about Buffalo Chicken Pasta  that sounded different from other pasta salads. So I looked over various recipes and this is the variation I came up with for my first try.

1 lb Rotini
1/2 cup Franks Red Hot
1 1/2 cup chopped celery
3/4 cup chopped red onion
1 cup Hellmans Mayonnaise
1 1/2 cup Kraft Chunky Bleu Cheese Dressing
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 lb shredded cooked chicken


First of all I cooked my chicken breasts and then shredded it. I actually weighed the pound after shredding.  I generally put my chicken breasts in the crockpot on high for four hours and then shred. I don't add additional liquid to the crockpot.

Cook the rotini according to package directions and rinse with cold water and drain well; next time I will use the tri-color. Mix the mayonnaise, red hot, salt, pepper and Bleu Cheese dressing with a whisk. Add the onion and celery to the chicken and then mix with the rotini. Chill the chicken mixture and the dressing for a few hours before serving. Up to an hour before serving toss the chicken mixture and the dressing. Sprinkle paprika over the top. I don't mix the chicken rotini combination with the dressing too far before serving so that it remains creamy.

If you like more heat to your pasta salad increase the Franks Red Hot sauce. The bleu cheese dressing tends to cut the heat of the red hot sauce. Also next time I will toss in a jar of pimentoes to add a little more color.

Twas The Night Before Easter

On February 21, 2015 our first grandchild Cecilia Grace was born and has become the most important person in our life.  So of course I had to make her a little softie bunny for Easter.  Having an embroidery machine allows me to personalize everything and anything for her. I made her a few personalized burp cloths. Then I realized that they really needed functional burp cloths so I brought out the serger and made her a stack of tri-layer flannel ones that I just serged around.

Here she is at one month.  Her expressions are priceless!

My Version of the Hanging Kitchen Towel Topper

I have always liked those kitchen towels with a topper to hang onto the kitchen drawer handle. Now I know that it isn't that hard to make one with the sewing machine but I wanted to do most of the work with the embroidery machine. Heck I have a couple of embroidery machines so I might as well use them!

First I digitized the topper so that while it is hooped I stitch down batting, then the front fabric and quilt it, next the embroidered name and lastly, stitch on the back.  Once it is removed from the hoop it is turned right side out.

The kitchen towel gets cut in half and it is used to make two of the hanging towels. I took one half and pleated the cut edge to fit into the topper. You can just gather it but I decided to make pleats. Once I pinned the pleats I ran a straight stitch about 1/4 from the edge to hold it in place.

Now I put it inside the topper and topstitched it in place.

Next I made a button hole in the tab.

I sewed a button on and here is the finished product.

This was my first attempt and then I added quilting to the body of the topper. I definitely like the quilted version better. 

This is definitely a great hostess gift.  It only takes about 8 minutes to do the topper in the embroidery machine and depending on how adept you are at making buttonholes, the whole project is done within a half hour.  Below are some that I made.

Makeover of a Glider Rocker

So my son and daughter-in-law were given a glider rocker for their nursery but they tend to like a classical look more than a country style. So we took off the cushions and were left with the wooden skeleton. We perused some sites on the internet and got some great ideas to redo it.  I don't do upholstery or slipcovers but agreed to attempt it. From reading a few blogs I decided on 5 yards of upholstery fabric but honestly could have used another 1/2 yard but I managed to make it work.

So here is what we started with.  We bought 2 yards of 3 inch high density foam to provide structure.  By the way the foam is really expensive so try to get it on sale. I also wrapped batting over the foam on the arms to keep the wood from jutting out.

Next I made a muslin sample out of some old fabric I had. It fit pretty well so I cut into the good fabric. To figure out how to cut it I followed Slipcovers for Dummies http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-make-slipcover-patterns.html. If I were to do this again I think I would like to take a class to learn some methods for measuring and tricks for sewing it all together.

I am pretty happy with the end result. It is not perfect but it looks really nice in the nursery and is exceptionally comfortable.

Another Baby Quilt

Here is the latest baby quilt  I have made.  I digitized the birds to match the wallpaper in the nursery and embroidered some woodland appliques to go with their theme.  It is pretty simple but will go well with the white furniture and theme of the nursery.  Below is a pic of the wallpaper and a closeup of the birds I digitized.  Notice with the birds that one of them I used a satin fill but the other I used a motif fill.  I liked the difference in the texture.  I free motioned a stipple design to further add texture to the quilt but maintain its simplicity.

More Baby Items

These are a set of baby items that turned out so great.  This all started when I was on vacation last fall and visited the quiltshop Granny's Quilt Fabric and More in Ridgeland, S.C. http://grannysquiltfabrics.com/home If you are traveling near Hilton Head or Savannah you need to seek out this shop. They had a kits made up for the full body bib shown above. What a great bib for a little one eating spaghetti.  I did not like any of the fabrics in the kits but I knew I needed the 2 fabrics above. So I asked if I could buy the pattern and the gracious clerk went and got freezer paper and made me a copy of the pattern and just gave it to me. What service! I bought 3/4 yard of each fabric and was able to make all of the items. Oh yes I did buy quite a bit more fabric but I won't go into that now. The burp cloth, baby wipe cover with zipper and the bib were all made in the hoop on the embroidery machine. These designs are all from Five Star Fonts  http://fivestarfonts.com. At the shower the full body bib was one of the most talked about gifts!

Oh My I am Falling Behind

Yes it has been since Thanksgiving for my last post.  Somehow the Holidays got in the way and now I have been prepping and sewing for the expected first grandchild. YES I SAID FIRST GRANDCHILD! So I have attended one baby shower a few weeks ago and have another this weekend.

Of course I am making quilts and some cute baby items.

Here is the Sock Monkey Quilt.  I actually bought this fabric 2 years ago when I went to the Lancaster Quilt Show.  My DIL loves sock monkeys and I purchased and held onto it for this exact occasion.  I wasn't sure what design to use until a lady came into the sewing store and was showing me her quilts used to highlight a special fabric - a light bulb went off in my head and I knew this was the layout I needed for this fabric.

 

Yep I Know that center block looks a little scary! For all you quilters out there, I did not do free motion quilting all over this quilt because I did not want to take away from the focus fabric.  I just did stitch in the ditch on the railfence squares and a diagonal X on the monkeys and was quite happy with the results. And here is how I wrapped the gift; I actually made an embroidered gift tag.