Color therapy

So this blanket begins with a story.  Once upon a time, long long ago (we're talking 14-15 years ago), I started a random baby afghan.  Normal baby colors and all.  This is the "Lollipops" pattern, created by Diana Sippel of Diana Lynn's Designs, and was found in the book Afghan Splendor, put out by The Needlecraft Shop.

I finished all the "lollipop" strips and started adding the white edging, and then I either lost interest or ran out of time or something.  No idea.  But I put the pieces into a plastic bag and stuffed it into a box of UFOs.  Somehow this passed the purge test when I got rid of a lot of yarn UFOs on freecycle six years ago before our move.  I think at the time I thought I'd finish it for a baby gift?  At any rate, Thing 2 dumped out the UFOs to take the box last year around this time, and I needed a mindless project for a day-long CE meeting.  So the stars aligned, and I got to work on finishing the afghan.  I did run into some trouble, as it was not wide enough, and I wanted to add another strip (or two?  I don't remember now).  But I couldn't match the blue I'd used - apparently Red Heart discontinued it at some point.  That started a frantic search, and I ultimately matched it to a blue in a baby yarn (that really seemed worsted weight) in another brand, and I finished the afghan, with no idea who it would go to.  Then a month ago, I gave it to an expecting colleague - who just happened to be sitting next to me when I had worked on it last year.  Full circle, eh?

After all that, I sadly have to say that apparently I never took a picture.  Oh, well...but it did spawn an interesting next project.  So the pattern calls for 5 colors, and you make 4 repeats in each strip.  Finished size should be 30x38".  I had used 6 colors and 3 repeats in my baby version, and I don't think I ever measured it.  Anyway, I was in the fabric store, looking at yarn one day.  And I had had a bad day at work and just wanted some color therapy.  And I was drawn to the Red Heart blacklight yarn.  So I painstakingly picked out the five main colors that were in it, and I bought those and black to make myself an afghan.  I thought it would be neat to do the lollipops a little bigger for a grownup sized afghan.  And then I decided to rotate the strips so that the colors went diagonally across the afghan instead of straight across.  Ultimately it ended up almost the size of the top of my queen-sized mattress.  The Husband thinks it's weird that it's black, but I love it!

Ultimately, this is a great portable project, because it is fairly mindless in each phase and easy to remember what to do.  Also, until you're putting the strips together, everything is small and easily carried.  Worked out great for what I needed!  I have also since made a smaller, baby-sized version of the black light afghan - no pic yet, but it's for a friend who loves the colors and is hoping for a baby.

Baby gifts!

My brother and his wife are expecting a baby, so naturally I want to make baby gifts! I have a bunch of nursing pads cut out, but they're not terribly exciting to send pre-baby, so I had to work on other stuff first. I didn't send anything before now, because they were being very cautious with this pregnancy, but now that she's at twenty weeks, they're feeling better about it, so game on! The first item is the one that I've just sent, so hopefully they like it. When I cut out baby suit for my friend a few months ago, I had enough to also cut out a second jacket, and then I found enough leftovers from a previous project to make matching pants. This is from KS SFB, size M.
I've also been looking through my stash - because I'm trying to stash bust! - and I found two yards of a Winnie the Pooh cotton print and about a yard and a half of a Care Bears flannel print. I cut the Pooh print in half and used that and the Care Bears to make single layer blankets, just evening up the sides and then making narrow hems. These should be good for nursing cover-ups or for light blankets.

This piggy bank flannel print is one that my brother and his wife had given me for Christmas about six years ago, when I was pregnant with Thing 2. I finally used some of it to make myself PJ shorts (which I just realized never made it onto the blog - have to fix that soon) but still had enough for a baby blanket. I found a coordinating purple solid flannel for the other side and appliqued two piggies onto it, then bound the two flannels together with a sparkly purple nylon-lycra. I think it turned out really cute! (I thought the nylon-lycra would make a less bulky edge than my usual fleece binding, so it might be usable for swaddling.)

When I made the piggy banks and Care Bears blankets, it was before we knew that the baby would be a girl. I just thought that they'd be cute, and I could put them into my gift stash if the baby turned out to be a boy. But we just learned last week that she's a girl - my first niece! Woohoo!

What's coming up next

I haven't really been sewing in the last couple of days. My son went back to school after over a week of being in the hospital and at home due to pneumonia, so I went back to work. And now I'm starting to come down with something. It never rains but it pours! However, what's hanging out by my sewing machine is a stack of cloth napkins that just needs the final edgestitching. I have a friend who decided that for environmental and financial reasons, she wanted to try to get her family using cloth napkins. I cut a bunch out of a flannel sheet set last winter but never finished them. So during my time at home, I worked on them. Now the stack just needs to be edgestitched, and they'll be done!

I've also been prewashing fabric and cutting patterns! There are several birthdays coming up this fall, as well as of course Christmas! My siblings are getting PJ pants, and I've had the flannel for months or more. So I cut three pairs of PJ pants. And I've had flannel for more PJ pants for me for months, as well, so I prewashed that and hope to cut them out this weekend. I also prewashed flannel for three pairs of little boy PJ pants - those are going to be gifts for the sons of two friends. And two of those fabrics are long-time stash. :)

A woman at church just had a baby girl, and my cousin is expecting a baby girl this winter. So I pulled out some cute, girly flannel that's been in the stash forever ($1/yd at WM - I got it for crib sheets for the crisis pregnancy center but never got around to making them) and cut enough for 2 double-layer flannel blankets. I will bind these in complementary fleece. And my older son needs some more blankets that are relatively light but a little longer. I had found a pirate flannel on clearance at JAF this summer and paired it with a tie-dyed red flannel from my stash (Black Friday deals!). Unfortunately, I didn't have red fleece to bind it, so that one is waiting until I get to the fabric store. ;)

I think that about sums up my current sewing queue.

And the next three....

These are the two new blankets for the Things. Thing 1's is the top blanket, the pirate parrots on one side and pirate kids on the other, bound with black fleece. The lower blanket, tractors on one side, solid green on the other, bound with blue fleece, is for Thing 2.

This one is for Thing 1's kindergarten teacher, who just had a baby girl last week. Hopefully she'll like it. I pulled five or six prints out of my flannel stash and let Thing 1 pick which he preferred - he chose these bumblebees! So I backed it with a bright yellow flannel and bound it with a fuschia fleece. I hope that she likes it.

Right now, all three blankets are in the wash, getting the spray basting washed out before the first use. And can I just say how much I'm liking the Shout color catchers? I used two in one load last week, when I was prewashing some of these fabrics and wanted to be absolutely sure that they didn't bleed on each other. Today I just threw one in - no way do I want this blanket stained before it's given away! - and it came out stained bluish-green. I'm so happy to have excess dye on the sheet instead of on the new blanket!

The first completed blanket!

So the first blanket is complete - yay! The next three are ready for the binding, so maybe I'll get those done tonight....unless of course I work on the shoes first, which are more needed. For that matter, I'm also on call, so....we'll see. Let's just leave it at that.

I like to make my baby blankets big, so I buy 1.25 yards of flannel for each side, spray baste them together, and then use the ruler and rotary cutter to straighten the sides and curve the corners. I don't really try to make them square, usually, but they should be pretty close. In this case, there was only 2 yards left on the bolt, so I had to work with less than I wanted. And I didn't have a good matching solid in my stash, and I didn't want to buy any more fabric for this. So I made this one approximately 1 yard wide and 44-45 inches long. It'll work. I did like the yellow fleece I had to coordinate for binding. I think that really makes it pop. DH liked the combination, too!

I have a whole lot of flannel that I bought last year to make baby blankets, and most of it is still sitting here. If I want to have the fun of buying more flannel this year (and I do! - I've seen some really cute flannel at JAF lately), then I need to move some of this off the shelf in the next ten days. In the next couple of days, I should get the next three blankets done, and that will help - about twelve yards gone.

A baby shower!

I helped host a baby shower for a colleague earlier this week! We had a good time - made it about food and gifts, no shower games. (The three of us hosting did it the way we would have wanted it!) So, of course, I sewed some gifts! The baby is expected to be a boy, and the mother is crazy about Jeff Gordon. So I made a Jeff Gordon flannel baby blanket, using a Jeff Gordon camo print I found at JAF. Woohoo! I was planning to get a dark background NASCAR print for the reverse, but by the time I went back with the next available coupon, it was gone. Sniff! But I used a plain black flannel from stash instead, and I think it was just fine. I used a matching Jeff Gordon fleece print from Wal-Mart as the binding.





But the real hit of the gift bag was the corn bag, much to my surprise. Oh, sure, she loved the blanket, but the corn bag was for her! I used muslin for the bag itself, and it is stuffed with dried corn. Then I used remnants from her Jeff Gordon scrub shirt to make the outer cover. Once I explained what the bag was and how to use it, she got pretty excited! And she told me at work today that she's used it and it's great. Hmm....guess everyone else at work will get one for Christmas. :)

Next up, hopefully this weekend, will be the next shoes for Thing 2 (they're cut but haven't had a stitch put into them yet) and possibly the new blankets for both Things 1 and 2. We'll see...