Traveling Handmade

Last year when QuiltCon (Feb. 21 - 24, 2013) was announced, I was so excited. I hadn't been able to make it to either of the Sewing Summits. So, I made tentative plans to go. I even told my mom about it (she's a quilter, but not necessarily plugged in to the online world of quilting or "modern" quilting). I've never been to Austin, but heard it's a fun town and I thought it would be a great chance to see some of my favorite quilters' work, up close and personal.

But then, something more wonderful happened: I discovered that I was expecting - on Feb. 21! So, no QuiltCon for this quilter. But I know it will be a great success, so I am looking forward to going next year, with my one year old in tow (or maybe I'll be ready for a little mom-alone-time by then!).

I've seen so many great Traveling Handmade posts from people attending the Sewing Summit and maybe we'll see some for QuiltCon, too. Then, I thought, "well, can still travel homemade!" I may not be traveling all the to Austin from Wisconsin, but I'll be traveling 25 minutes to the hospital and the infinite distance from being a non-parent to becoming a parent :)

So, in addition to my hospital bag and nursing pillow and burp cloths, I put together a car seat cover and a nursing cover this weekend. I used this tutorial for the nursing cover from Made By the Mama Monster, but there are a ton of tutorials. I was going to use the Groovy Guitars print from Michael Miller but some of the tutorials suggested using a print more suited to mom, rather than baby. I actually agonized over which print to use and finally cut into my precious Tula Pink Birds and the Bees print (see above). I have some silly mirror/self-portraits of me wearing it in my Flickr photostream and I used a few flannel leftovers for corner pockets.

For my car seat, I used this tutorial from Wannabe Crafty for the car seat canopy/cover. There are also a ton of tutorials for these, but I liked this one because it had little window. 

I used a Michael Miller flannel print and I backed the canopy with minky in a lovely color called "Tiffany." It's a little lighter than the hippos, but that's the challenge of picking colors online.

Minky is a PITA the sew with. I've done it several times. But this time, I thought I had cut the flannel and the minky to the same size but when I started to pin, it quickly became apparent that they were not the same size. Or, the minky stretched out of shape. So, it could stand to have a couple inches or so towards the top. But ultimately, I am pleased with it and it should stand up to a Wisconsin February.

Here are my Text Me swap fabrics already cut in fat quarters and ready to be sent! There are so many great fabrics in this swap and I can't wait to see what gets sent back. Anyone who wants to join in can - just have your FQs to Jessica by Feb. 15!

Moving Right Along

I got some baby projects checked off my to-do list! I used this tutorial and pattern for the Boppy cover. I think it could be a little more snug, but since I added the piping, I didn't want to go back and rip it out to fit it better. I used 1 yard from the Ed Emberley Happy Drawing line from Cloud9 fabrics, but since my fabric is directional, I probably needed more like 1.5 yards or so. So, I added some green Kona solid on the back (maybe Jungle?). I also have the lions and tigers, so I might fiddle me around with the fit a little bit, before adding the piping when I do that version.

I made a couple fast and easy flannel receiving blankets from the awesome hightop fabric. I TypeB'd it a little because I left the selvedges, so I could keep the width. I did a proper hem on the cut sides, though. I just wanted them to be large enough for good swaddling.

Then I took some of the soft fabric remnants/scraps I had lying around and turned them in to burp cloths! I was so happy to use up some of my larger clothing fabric remnants, which were too small to be turned into an actual article of clothing. I even made a couple from a thin cotton slip I took out of a dress (those are the white ones at the end).

I often use Cloud9 tutorial for contoured burp cloths for gifts. But I had a variety of sizes of pieces and so I just did rounded corners. (I wasn't even going to do that! My poor baby - everyone else gets the fancy burp cloths! At least she'll get rounded corners :)) These are to catch baby puke, after all, but they can still be cute!

 This is lawn and some upcycled sweatshirt material.

This is some cotton sateen and cotton knit.

This is lawn and flannel (I love this Children at Play print for making a paper hat!).

Left on the to-do list: second Boppy cover; a nursing cover - fabric, notions, hardware ready to go; and a car seat cover (it's been so cold here in Madison!). Then, I think we're good to go with the homemade stuff.

My Bee a {modern} Swapper churn dash blocks have started to find their way to my mailbox and they are awesome!

Here are a couple from Heide:

Aren't they great?! I've received them from Whitney and Carolyn already, as well. Can't wait to see them all together. Thank you so much Hive 4!!

I'm obviously a little crazy, because I also just signed up for the Text Me text fabric swap - fabrics due Feb 15, baby due Feb. 21...

But, how could I resist?! I can definitely  cut up some fat quarters. These are the two that I picked out:

 
So, I have 7.5 yards! I'll keep some, but then I'll hopefully be getting back a really nice bunch of texty goodness. There are some really great prints in the Flickr group! It reminds me that I need to get back to my Labyrinth quilt.

I don't when I'll be getting back to quilting. It seems to be all baby, all the time right now and I doubt that it's going to get any better, anytime soon. I've also really been enjoying seeing the Scrappy Trip Along blocks and quilts. And the to-do wishlist keeps on growing :)