Thursday, October 11, 2012

Checking Off the Nesting To Do List: A Baby Blanket and a Pillow

My nesting projects have been going on with the energy boost I'd been waiting for in the first two trimesters finally seeming to arrive!  Last night I finished a (gigantic) baby blanket I'd been working on.  

This blanket shows my mind's complete inability to create something with a random look.  I cut out all the squares for this quilt and sat down without an idea of how it would turn out and started sewing.  The plan was to just randomly grab fabric and sew it together.  But then I started alternating minky and flannel on the front... and from there the random idea became a total fail.

However, I am happy with how it turned out!  It's very soft and warm.  I used the $2.99 flannel that was on sale at Joann's a few weeks ago and while, at the time, I wasn't thrilled with the selection of boy prints that our store had, I do like how the fabrics turned out when I put them together.  I wasn't planning on making it quite as big as it is, but when I alternated each sports fabric one time it ended up being about 50 inches across (and I made it square).

Here's the front:


And here is the back:


I also picked up three $2.50 pillows at Walmart last week to lean against when I'm on my birthing ball and to bring to the hospital.  I've been stalking the minky section in our local fabric store (as you may be able to tell from my most recent creations) waiting for minky sales.  If minky is on sale AND I have a coupon that works with the sale, I'll stock up.  I had minky set aside for the pillow cases, but since I bought way, way too much flannel, and still have quite a bit of minky squares left over from the blanket, I decided to go with sports pillow cases that could be used when The Boy is older and moves into a big boy bed.  

I pulled out one of the pillows and started sewing strips, making two overlapping panels for the back with plain flannel.  Then I sewed it together, hoping the pillow would actually fit.  

It does:


And here's the back, with the edges overlapping by almost a full square:


I'm planning on using the soccer fabric with green minky and the football fabric with the brown minky to make two more pillows tonight after bedtime, before getting to work on my next "oh-my-goodness-the-baby-is-almost-here-and-there's-so-much-I-want-to-do!!!" project.

And so that's what's been keeping me busy at night here while Paul's reading assignments have picked up so that he's reading late into the night.  I cannot believe how quickly October is going by.  That last month hasn't seemed to drag quite like it did with my first pregnancy, for these last two!  Instead I find myself hoping baby stays put while I get things ready!

4 comments:

  1. They're awesome. You're such a good sew-er

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  2. Wow! That looks amazing! I normally don't really like sports prints but I really like the ones you picked out and the way you incorporated them with the other solid fabrics. Learning to sew is on my very long-term list of things to learn. You kind of have to be "in it to win it"..otherwise you can (read: me) end up with something that looks "homemade" as opposed to "handmade." Have you thought about selling these? You could take custom orders because I'm sure they take an incredible amount of time. Also selling the car seat covers? I don't know how different various car seats are shaped though, if you'd be able to make a generic pattern.

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  3. Thanks Maria! I didn't really like the prints individually, and I felt like I was kind of taking a risk buying them hoping that they'd look the way I thought they would when I put them together!

    I've thought about selling them, but it took so much time to make (and the minky fabric is so expensive even on sale) that the price would be kind of ridiculous to make it worth while. It took about 20 hours altogether and when I see them at craft fairs they're around $30, which seems so inexpensive!

    I want to make a car seat tutorial, but I'm not sure how I'd work out selling them with the different sizes and shapes of car seats. But those ideas have definitely been on my mind while I've been sewing!

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