This past weekend an email was sent out from our Relief Society President asking for donations. A family {not members of our church but within our ward boundaries} were at the hospital welcoming their second baby boy into their family while at the same time, the house they had just rented and moved into, was on fire. They lost everything! Could you even imagine the highs and lows they experienced in one day.
Lady A is the right age that we could have donated some items for their older boy but her stuff is girly and pink. A lot of the new born items we have are items we will be using in just a few months when Lady #2 gets here. So, I went to my scrap pile and decided to spend the weekend sewing.
Luckily I had one blankie left and plenty of scraps that could be used to make other items.
I love these self-binding blankies, they come together so fast, are the perfect size and handmade items are so nice to receive.
These pouf squares are fun little sensory toys. Colorful patterns, soft fabric and ribbons with different textures. I like to leave the ribbons as loops and let moms decide if they want to cut them, they would simply cut then singe the edges to keep them from fraying.
This is our nephew thoroughly enjoying his square. It puts a smile on my face when I hear about my handmade items being loved.
And finally...burp cloths. These cloth diapers from Gerber make such great burp cloths, they soak up everything. They are not much to look at so I simply dress them up a bit.
Everything was not too matchy-matchy but they all turned out great. There is something about being able to serve others, I always get so excited. Knowing/hoping that I was able to help lift someones burdens is makes the late nights worth it!
At Church on Sunday there was a corner of the Relief Society room with stacks of bins. Families donated tons of items, clothes that their boys had grown out of, diapers and items for the new born, toys for the older brother and on and on. How wonderful that everyone was able to come together and help out. It will never replace everything they lost but hopefully all this will help take some of the sting away. All the best to this family as they mover forward.
In the coming few weeks I will work on getting up the simple tutorials for all these items so you can make and share your own.
The other night as we were getting ready for bed, Lady A decided that she needed to get her babies ready for bed. She went through the last of the wipes making sure the babies were clean then we spent a half hour putting diapers on and off ... on and off.
I love watching her as she figures out new things on her own and tries to copy things that Paul and I do....but....It's time to make some diapers for her babies so we don't use all of hers up.
Click here to get my template, it has three sizes.
Size 1: Small dolls
Size 2: Cabbage Patch (mine is from the 80's)
Size 3: Homemade doll
Decide what size of diaper you need and cut out the pattern {I used some scrap canvas material so it would hold up as I use it over and over again}.
I am going to add Velcro on but it was just a bit wider than the ribbon so I cut that down to size. The Velcro pieces ended up being 1" {inch} long.
I suggest cutting one piece from the fabric first {step 2} and placing it on the doll to check the size before cutting out all the diapers from the material.
Optional: Sew the ribbon to the the diaper {step 4}. I usually place it on the front of the outside fabric and this will be where I place one side of the sticky Velcro.
Get the opposite piece of Velcro ready by placing it on a piece of ribbon that is approx. 1.5" long. {step 5} Place the Velcro in the center so that there will be 1/4" seem allowance. Place on the back of the outside fabric with the Velcro up and the pattern of the ribbon down. Now place the right side of the inside fabric down.
Note: be sure to pin the loose pieces in place so they will stay where you want them until you sew.
Sew together with a 1/4" seem allowance leaving an opening approx. 3" wide along one side of the waist, trim off the corners so they will lay flat when you turn the diaper right side out {step 6 & 7}.
Not pictured~oops: {step 7.5} along the curved part for the legs make a couple of small snipes in the fabric {careful not to cut the stitches}. This will help it lay flat when you turn the diaper right side out.
Do a top stitch to help make everything look nice and crisp {step 8}.
Place Velcro on the front ribbon. {I placed mine in 1.5" in from the edge. It's not an exact science but I just placed the diaper on the baby doll and did a best guess.}
Trim down and finish the edge of the ribbon so it won't become unraveled {I used the singe technique}.
Do you sometimes giggle to yourself when you are so pleased with how a project turned out. I am uber please with these and showed them to everyone. My MIL's boss asked for some too for her grand-daughter so I have to get working on the next set.
And now we have enough diapers to fill her little hearts content.
Well I have to apologize right off the bat today. When I was making this quilt I was just trying to get it done before I had to pack it up to move and so the pictures I took were just for me to remember how I made it for future blankets.
I
made this blanket during this past summer and have not had time to post about
it with the craziness of moving and trying to get settled. But here we are now.
Classes have started for my Husband and I am at home with Bentley
anxiously awaiting the arrival of our little angel.
But I can not keep it to myself, I LOVE how it turned out and so I wanted everyone to see it, and if you want, to make your own. I sure hope it's my little girls favorite, or at least one of them, she has plenty of hand made blankets from family that love her!!
Since
things have calmed down a bit and before they pick up again {my due date is in
TWO weeks} I thought now would be a good time to post the baby blanket and
list the tutorial.
The tutorial is going to be a bit long and wordy, especially since I don't have pictures for every step. If something is not clear or if I left something out, be sure to leave me a comment so I fix it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First thing is first. You need to pick out your material.
I had picked out this material with a different type of blanket in mind
but then changed my mind on what type of blanket to do. To do it as I have my
blanket you will need:
Five pieces of flannel, if you get the 44” you
will need 25” cut. {It’s always a good idea to get a little bit more} Try as
they may, we all know that material does not get cut straight at the cutting
table. This will give you a little room to work with when you take it home and
lay it out to cut your squares.
Obviously I was not planning on using this as a tutorial so the next
step I didn’t take any pictures of but hopefully I can explain it well enough.
Leave your material folded and lay it out vertically, one at a time, and cut
five {5} inch strips, you should get five {5} strips from each piece of
material.
With the strips I squared up the edges by
cutting the ends off. Keep your material folded in half {this will help so can
cut two squares at a time}, turn it so it is horizontal, and cut out 5” {five
inch} squares. By the time you are done cutting all your material you will have
80 squares from each of the five {5} different materials.
The
hardest part for me was the layout of all the squares. I finally took out a
piece of graph paper and sketched out the design. The blanket will be 10
squares by 10 squares.
I went through and ordered the squares from left to right for each row.
{This made it easier once I started sewing. I could just pick up the next piece
and go, I didn’t have to keep looking back at my pattern.}For the back to turned my graph paper a quarter
turn and ordered the squares from right to left {I wanted to try and make the
pattern more random and not have the same piece of material for the squares
line up on the back that were on the front.}
Now to start all that sewing!! This is where it can get a bit confusing, if I had pictures it would make perfect sense, so I will do my best to explain it.
Take the stacks of row one for the front and back. With the first
squares from each stack put the two wrong sides together. Now take the second
squares from each stack and put them wrong sides together. Now you will stack
all four pieces together and sew a straight down one side leaving a ½” {half
Inch} seem. Open up and separate the first squares from the second squares.
Continue with the third squares from each stack and put them wrong sides
together. Place them under second squares from that row and sew on the opposite
edge from the first seem {make sure that when they are sewn together, the ½”
{half inch} seem is facing the same way as the first one.} By the time you are
done with that row you will have 10 squares across.
Follow the same steps to make the next nine
rows.
Now you are going to sew the rows together. Make sure to stack row one
and row two with the back sides together. Do this for all 10 rows.
I also sewed a ½” {half inch} straight stitch
around the outside edges of the blanket to keep the outside squares from
opening up. Now you will snip the ½” {half inch} seam allowance from each
square to help fray the edges.
Wow,
that looks like a lot of work once it is all typed out. You can definitely tell
I was not planning on making a tutorial out of this one.
Finally you need to take a pair of scissors and snip all of the
½” {half inch} seams so that it will fray {also trim off the excess thread from sewing all the squares together.} Now all that is left to do is wash it to get all the loose fray off of the blanket.
AND Ta Da!!! A wonderful hand made quilt full of love.
