Handmade Gifts- Soft Block for Baby

For Christmas this year I'm hoping to go as homemade as possible. Store bought gifts are fun, for a while, but homemade ones are heart to heart! Homemade gifts are sentimental, personal. They just mean more. :)

My nephew just turned 1 and I made him one of these for his birthday. He had a ball (pun intended) tossing it around, and since it is soft there were no bonked noggins and no sad faces. :) Now I'm thinking of making these for Christmas for all the babies on my list.

Step 1. You'll need to cut out 6 squares of your selected fabric.

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Make sure they are as close to perfectly square as possible. You will have to zigzag or serge the edges of each square so it doesn't unravel if you do not use pinking shears. It doesn't really matter how big your squares are, as long as they are all the same size. You probably want them to be at least 4" though. 6" would make a nice big block and be easier to work with.

Step 2. Sew ONE side of each of 4 of the squares to EACH side of 1 of the squares, leaving the 6th square unattached for now, as shown:

The square in the middle will be the "bottom" of your block and the 4 attached to it will be the "sides."

Step 3. Sew the SIDES of the SIDE BLOCKS to each other to form a box:

Remember to always sew with the right sides of the fabric facing each other so your pretty seam is on the pretty side of the fabric.

Step 4. Now you're going to put the "lid" on. You can press open the side seams to make it easier to work with.

Now sew your 6th square onto your "box," leaving one side open:

Step 5. With block right side out, iron all the seams as shown to make the block more square.

Then iron under the edges of the open side to make it easier to sew up later.

Step 6. This step is optional, I just like to do it because it helps the block to be more block-y looking and then I can use the machine to sew the hole closed after stuffing instead of hand slip-stitching it closed. It also re-enforces the seams to help prevent them from coming unraveled with rough play.

Sew as close to the edge as possible along all the seams as shown in the picture above. Do not sew the block closed accidentally or you won't be able to stuff it! ;)

Step 7. Stuff your block with polyfill, making sure to arrange the stuffing in the block with your fingers as you go in order to make it most block-like. Don't stuff it too full if you plan to machine sew it closed! In fact, if you plan to machine sew it closed, leave enough room near the hole for the block to fit under the sewing machine's foot. You can pinch and squish the polyfill around to "fix" the empty spot once the block is sewn closed.

Step 8. Pin the hole closed and sew it closed as shown.

If you skipped step 6 then you'll want to hand slip stitch it closed instead.

This was only my second one so the seams are not real pretty... I need more practice! ;) It didn't help that my 2 year old kept reaching up and pushing buttons that would adjust the tension, needle placement, etc. as I was trying to sew. Lol! I'm sure it would look a lot fancier if I didn't have any "help"... hehe... But it's cute in a handmade toy sort of way anyway I think.

This post is linked up to the following where you can find more handmade gift ideas:
4 Moms, 35 Kids; Christmas Craft Linky
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Raising Homemakers; Homemaking Linky

My newest crochet project- Can I do it?

I confess, I have taken on yet another crochet project! It's a good one though I promise! ;) Those of you who have known me very long know I tend to take on too many projects at once. Right now I'm due in 12 days, having regular contractions for at least a couple hours a day daily since the full moon, and working on TWO baby blankets. Yes two. You see, I never finished Buggie's baby blankie before he was born. I got a little carried away and made it a wee bit big when I started and it was only about 1/3 of the way finished when he was born. Now, he DID get to use it in a way. You see, I'd wrap him in the finished end while I crocheted on the other end when he was a little bitty fellow! Lol! So he did get snuggled it alot as a newborn, but when he got too told to hold still while I crocheted the blanket got shelved. And by the time he was old enough to not need me hovering over him trying to counteract his deadly sense of adventure every blessed moment, well by then I was good and pregnant with this little bun in the oven. So now, not only do I have to finish THIS baby's blankie, which is currently about halfway or almost, BUT I also have to finish Buggie's baby blanket. I am very thankful now after the fact that I got carried away with my starting chain because now it will come out toddler sized so when I DO finish it, it can move to the toddler bed with him and he'll get lots of use out of it. Provided I DO actually ever finish it... Been working on it for over 2 years now, since we saw the hotdog on the ultrasound! So those are my two current and pressing projects and I REALLY need to get the new baby's blankie done before she's born because this time I did NOT get carried away on the size and it would fit her best as a baby and not a toddler! LOL!
So I've been trying to be so good and concentrate only on those two blankies and not add any other projects. But then I saw this:

Okay I bit. :) I clicked (and you should too if you want more info!) I signed up! You have to admit it's a great cause and I really want to help! I'm probably yet again biting off more than I can chew but I just couldn't NOT give it a try.
So here's the million dollar question; Can I finish 2 baby blankies before I give birth (remember I'm due in 12 days) and then how many hats can I make by October 15th with a newborn in my lap? ;)
If you want more info, click the button in this post. If you decide to join in I wouldn't mind if you mentioned that you found it through me. ;) And if you're not into the yarn arts or crafting for charities, perhaps you could just cheer me on, and/or pray for the project and the orphans? :)

Crafty Saturday: Chicklet's birth afghan

I have been working on more leafy dishcloths this week so nothing new to post, so I thought I'd show you an old project of mine. :) This is my Chicklet's baby afghan that I crocheted for her. I used a pattern from the Terry Kimbrough Baby Afghans pattern book - I think that's what it was called. It's a wonderful pattern book if you're looking for baby blanket crochet patterns! I highly reccomend it!
I made Chicklet's blankie out of 100% cotton and it's a good thing I did because she was so sensitive to synthetic fibers the first couple years! This is the blankie she was wrapped in in the carseat on the way HOME from her birth! Aww sweet memories!

No it's not actually yellowed or stained, it's just a pic I took a long time ago in my old dark house and it didn't come out very good quality after being lightened and transferred to a photo hosting site. :p Sorry bout that.

Crafty: Giveaway SNEEK PEEK!

For Crafty Saturday (yeah I know it's Sunday- sorry I'm late) I'm giving you a sneak peek of my latest WIP (Work In Progress), which also happens to be the big prize for next week's giveaway! Ready? Here you go:

Brand-spankin'-new cotton dishcloths! The one on the right is just a ripple but it's not finished as you can see by my crochet hook still in it. Can you tell what the one on the left is? Shhhh! It's a secret! Oh, well okay, not anymore... the cat is out of the bag. Or the lawn rakings as the case may be... So go ahead and tell all your autumn-loving friends to check it out! Giveaway starts Wednesday so come back then to sign up! (Don't sign up on this post- this is just a sneak peek. Oh but do feel free to tell me if you like them! *wink* ) If you are in the mood to enter a giveaway right this minute however, please do feel free to enter my current giveaway HERE. Have a wonderful weekend!

Skirt pictures finally!

Skirts, kids, books, and burnt meat.
So I'm sitting here procrastinating becuause I don't feel much like blogging right now, but I won't be here later and I know that once I get started I'm on a roll and it will be hard to STOP so here goes... ;)
Last weekend I posted about some pretty new fabric I bought to sew myself a new skirt. Well after making myself a skirt, there was enough left to make Chicklet a matching one. Here's the fabric I used:

Pretty isn't it?
And here is the skirt I made for myself:

And here is a pic of the one for me along with the little one for Chicklet.

See how cute and matchy? Lol! You can read about how much she loves her new skirt in this post.

I'm currently reading the book "Only the River Runs Free' by Bodie and Brock Thoene. I'm still on chapter 1 so totally lost on the plot! Lol!

Friday night I was reading blogs until late. Yeah yeah I'm getting addicted to blogs, I know! ;) Well I had thawed some ground beef and was cooking it to refreeze in 1 pound baggies for future convenience, and it was cooking away while I was in bloggyland. Yeah you guessed it- I started to burn it:

Yummy. That's what I get for not paying attention, eh? :p

The kids are both being so difficult sleep-wise this past week! I don't know if it's the sudden change in weather or what! I would say Buggie's teething again because he's drool city, but there are no little bumps in there yet so it could be a while. He currently has the front 8 teeth. Chicklet could be teething too... she's got a molar that's halfway in and growing slowly. She has been biting her hands all the time now when she's tired or upset. I have to keep reminder her to stop biting her hands and when I pull her hands out of her mouth they are pruny from drool. Icky!
Schooling Chicklet is going about like I expected; good but slow. We are working on the learn to read in 100 Easy Lessons book but I have to break it down a LOT because she's not yet 3 and has an attention span of almost 3 minutes to coordinate with her age. So we started about a month ago and we are on lesson #2. Yeah. Really slow. But that's okay, I'd rather do it at her pace and have her love learning than push her and have her hate it and be difficult to teach! Right now she loves learning everything and asks me questions all the time. She is really a joy to teach! :)
Bug is still not walking, but he's letting go and standing on his own for nearly a minute at a time now. ;) He's loving being in the walker again and zooms all over the place. He's a little speeder like his daddy... Oops did I say that out loud? *wink* No seriously my hubby doesn't speed anymore now that he has kids. He loves us too much to do that. :)

Speaking of my wonderful amazing awesome husband... did I tell you he brought me home a frappuccino not too long ago? :) I love my Starbucks but it's 45 minutes to the closest one. Well on his way home from work he grabbed me one and when he walked in the door I melted (pun intended)! It was deeelicious! :D

Well that's all I can think of on the update front. For now at least. Let me know if there's something you want to hear more about. :) Have a great rest of your day!

If you're pregnant, or have a baby, or know someone else who is pregnant or has a baby, don't forget to check out my giveaway this week!

Guess what I got today...

Happy Sunday! It's 1:00 in the morning as I'm writing this. I know I know... I said the other day that I was going to work on the whole actually sleeping at night thing. I will! Starting right after this post. *wink* I have tried lots of times to just go to bed earlier but if I do it too much earlier at once I just can't sleep so it's pointless. I have to go to bed just a little earlier, an hour tops, each night until I'm back into a healthy schedule. So 1am (or 1:30 when I'm done posting?) in the morning is not really bad if you consider that last night I was up until 3:30am! So if I can get my body to fall asleep anywhere this side of 3am it will be a miracle. Plus I had caffiene today and I love my Dr. Pepper once or twice a week but I'm one of those people who can't even look at caffeine or I'm wired for a week.
So here is my goal;
Tonight (or rather this morning) to sleep by 2:30am.
Sunday night (monday morning?) to sleep by 1:30am.
Monday night (Tuesday morning?) to sleep by 12:30am.
Tuesday night I should be able to go to bed on the near side of midnight if all goes as planned! :D Woohoo! I really love to stay up late but I just don't have the boundless energy to do it anymore like when I was 17! Especially not with my dear children thinking it's grand fun to wake up at 5am. What are they thinking?! Morning people! :p They didn't get it from me, that's for sure. ;) I'll bet it's my mom's morning person genes. They skipped a generation or something because *I* sure didn't get any morning person genes!

So now you're sitting there wondering if I had a point to this post or was I planning on just rambling on about how I should go to bed but don't... Yeah my main goal was just to yap about my sleeping habits but now that I've sufficiently bored you I might be able to squeeze in something a little more interesting... Hmmm.... *thinking* What shall I talk about? ;)

Okay okay I can't hold it in anymore... I went to WalMart today! Okay well not today actually since it's 1:21am now which means it's technically Sunday, hence the "happy Sunday" comment. So that means it was technically yesterday we went to WalMart even though that was a few hours ago but that is neither here nor there so... *takes deep breath* I bought fabric "yesterday" (aka a few hours ago, Saturday, today that is technically not today, you get it...)!!!

Woohoo! I am going to make myself a simple skirt so I got some fabric and am all excited now. *big grin*
Okay I'm done now. I apologize for having wasted 10 minutes of your life reading this that you cannot get back, but I was just so happy over the prospect of brand new fabric that I couldn't contain myself. :D You see, I've been living off someone else's castoff fabric stash that was given to me of scraps and remnants for the last... oh... 10 years or so. It was wonderful generous of them and I have loved every scrap! But after 10 years, what little I have left is rotting now. :( So when I got new, fresh, picked out by me fabric today, I was kind of like a kid getting ice cream for the first time or something. Although I about fainted when I looked at the prices on the bolts of fabric and saw that most were about $4-6 per yard. *feeling a little fainty again* Is fainty a word? I don't think it is. Hmmm...
Anywayzies I'm going to go to sleep now so that I will wake up and then I get to make my pretty new skirt. And I will try to post pictures so stay tuned! *wink* Now that you're totally intrigued and can't resist.

Sew tired!

So today my sis came over and brought some sewing supplies. She's preggo and due in a week. She doesn't have a crib, just this family heirloom cradle of her hubby's which needed a new mattress. Well I'm sure you can guess how easy (impossible) it would be to find a mattress the right size for a handmade cradle that's been handed down through several generations. So she brought an appropriately sized chunk of foam padding and some fabric and we sewed. And by we I mean mostly me since she was intimidated by my sewing machine and was going so slow it would have taken all week. Hehe... So I took over and she took her cankles for a break on the couch and verbally corraled the kids (mine 1 and almost-3, and her son almost-5). I finished up the cover for the foam pad, tried to cut out a makeshift sheet for it but messed up so I got out my fabric (I had a nice bit of some lovely light buckskin colored soft flannel) and made a whole new sheet, one which actually fit this time. Then I made a burp cloth for her out of the scraps and she edged a waterproof pad for the mattress. It took us 5 hours! Bleh! I'm exhausted. I can imagine with her being pregnant she is probably totally exhausted too.
Speaking of which, I have a bone to pick with her! Her midwife threatened to put her on bedrest at her appointment this morning. So instead of going home to nap she came straight here to sew all day. :-/ I should call her and make sure she's chilling at home now with her feet up. If she doesn't take it easy I'm gonna have to pull rank and give one of my big sister lectures. (which, if you know me, consists of giving a dissapproving look and sarcastic "uh-huh's" because I'm too much of a doormat to actually out with it - especially to my fearlessly verbal sibling.)