Saturday, July 14, 2012

Baby Shower Hand-made Gifts By Me!


So! We had my sister's baby shower last weekend and even though not many people showed as I had hoped, enough did that my sister got a lot of great stuff! Some of that stuff was from my Mother and I! Of course! And I have PICTURES!!!! Ha ha!

FIRST! This is my first quilt ever and I was so proud of it! Obviously!!! LOL I had to post all the photos of it that I had so that you could see all the neat details! The materials I got to make this blanket were all fat squares, so I got them for a great deal! There was Blue, Orange, Green and Yellow for the solid colors and then I found some assorted fat squares that just so happened to match! They had alphabet letters and gators and helicopters on them but they were all different! This was also made when we weren't sure if the baby was a boy or girl and I am glad that it worked out that the quilt looked slightly more boy. The backing is a minky style backing that I still have some left over to make a Mombo cover with and some extra material as well. I also have extra after that I can make other things with! (If my sister makes me a pattern for her nursing pillow I will be using some of it to make a cover for her as well, she has a different nursing pillow) And then I got silky binding for the edging. I absolutely love this quilt and I now have enough material (Thank You to my Cousin) to make more quilts! And a super Thank You to my Mother who was there helping me create this quilt for my sister (pouring her sweat and blood into it, blood literally as she randomly started bleeding after being poked by a pin) and bringing me wisdom from her Mother and Grandmother that without her help I would never have! I hope everyone enjoys the photos... There are several! My 4 year old even made it into one!









NEXT, there is the "wet bag" I made for my sister! I figured that I know how it is to have to run out the door with a baby and be going fast and not want to forget anything. So, I made her this bag to hang by her door with a couple cloth diapers and wipes plus any other things she sees fit inside of it. (I also made cloth wipes for her, 20 of them, I hope to show those here too! LOL) 

To make this bag I took 2 different types of yarn and began to make them on my largest knitting loom. The base color was a pale yellow (6 weight) and the other yarn was a multiple baby color (2 weight) yarn. I simply used them at the same time to create this beauty. Once I got the bag to the length I felt it needed to be I ended it and closed one end and turned it inside out. The second picture shows that it was "supposed" to look like, but I liked the other side better. Then, I took my smallest loom and created a " double pocket" just smaller than the bag itself, in height, and attached it to the front. (I actually attached it at a slant at first so I had to detach it and then had my Mother pin it in place and reattached it.) After the pocket was on there my Mother attached the strap and the lining (she did those with her new sewing machine we had to get because her old one broke mid project on the 4th of July!) and then all I had to do was fill it with baby goodies! My sister really seemed to like this gift. It was the first one she wanted to look at again after the shower was over! He he he... I am really glad I was able to get this finished (with lots of help from my mom) in time for the shower. It was the first gift started, but the last thing finished! Eek! 

Outside of bag, still on the knitting loom!

Inside the bag!


Interior of the finished bag! I love it!
Finished Bag with PUL liner,
strap and pocket both attached!


THIRD, we have the cloth diaper wipes I made for her and baby. This was a really neat idea from a website I will provide the link to at the end of the post. On the site you are supposed to use chenille, but that stuff costs $15-20 a yard!!!! Yuck! So I chose to use terry cloth instead, only $9 per yard and I think they are extra cute! I fell in love with these other 2 materials as soon as I found them in the store too! In any case, I took my 4 materials (white terry cloth, green terry cloth, green with owls and blue with barn yard animals) and cut them into 8"x8" squares each and ended up with 10 of each. Next up was putting them together with the printed material on the inside of the project. My Mother was nice enough to pin all the squares in place so that all I had to do was sew them together with leaving a 1" or so gap so I could turn then inside out and have the print on the outside so it could be all cute! Once I had them sewn together, the corners cut to avoid bulking and flipped right side out my Mother was kind enough to go around the edge using various different stitches (this would be what we were working on when the old machine decided to stop working properly so we had to drive to town and buy a new sewing machine!) to make them flat (and cuter! LOL) I then placed them into a new "wipe container" (the cute decorative kind that HUGGIES now sells and that I "stole" the disposable wipes out of for my little guy so I could have the container for this project!). My sister has this Make Your Own wipe solution that she is making for her baby (we have some that I need to use on the baby, I just keep forgetting it is here) and I figured she could soak the cloth wipes I made her in that and be good to go! I was super tempted to keep some of these to use on my little guy, but I wised up and gave all 20 of them to my sister! I ended up having some in almost every gift I gave her. In the bag above was also a travel wipes container (funny thing is that it is also a HUGGIES container) and inside of it there was, I believe, 2 of each design.  I was so happy to have been able to make something for her that I am 98.8% sure she will use! I have 2 extra small ones here that I plan to use on my guy once I relocate them! (they were my first 2 and they ended up being half the size of the ones she got and I plan on using them as face wipes at the table with meals!)


Barn yard and white terry cloth

Owl and green terry cloth

Semi finished owl cloth

Total of 10 Owl clothes/wipes

Total of 10 Barn yard clothes/wipes
My Mother sewing the edging of one of the wipes

Folded wipes in container
(with matching dots on the side)

For the fourth project I am posting here we have the Travel and Home bathroom totes I made for her. You use a hand towel or a wash cloth for the main part of it. I chose the green color because she is thinking of doing greens and browns in her little man's bedroom. Then you need the rick rack and ribbon (2 types if you want it the way I did, I have a decor ribbon and the tying ribbon) and thread to match the main part (towel or cloth). 

First things first, attach the ribbon and rick rack to the cloth so that it goes down just one end. then you want to pin the cloth in place so that you can sew pockets to hold all the goodies inside of it. I actually put all the stuff on top and pinned on either side and then sewed where I had pins. Then I sew in one last piece of ribbon (about 16" folded in half to make two 8" pieces, do not cut it, that will make this harder on you!) at the last closing pocket stitch. Now you can load it up, roll it up, tie it and you are good to go! I did the 2 different ones because I wanted my sister to have both. I also ended up putting snaps on the smaller one to ensure that all of its smaller goodies stayed inside of it.

All the supplies!

Ribbon side 1

Ribbon side 2

White Rick Rack

1 wash cloth and 1 hand towel

Rick Rack and ribbon attached and folded and pinned in place


Finished and rolled up and tied in place!
Finished and unrolled to see all the goodies inside!
(See some of the wipes made it in there too...)

Lastly, here are the gifts all wrapped and set out for the party along with the "Jar O Gifts" that was not only a huge gift, but it was a party game as well! My Mother and I had a ton of extra stuff we had made and put it all into this giant glass jar that we had and went everyone came into the shower they got to guess how many items they thought were in there. Everyone was shocked to find out that there was only 49 items in the and not the 100s they were guessing! LOL. It was a fun day and I enjoyed seeing my sister get all her gifts and I also enjoyed seeing some family. 



And here is that LOVELY site I got so many great ideas from and some I am still looking at making. Not only for my little nephew but also for my little guy too! Go here! And enjoy your own crafting!

~TTFN!

No comments:

Post a Comment