baby blanket in progress

Here is an amazing baby blanket I found on Ravelry.com that I am currently in the process of making:

I am using Stitch Nation yarns by Debbie Stoller (available at JoAnn's) in the following colors:

(left to right: Clementine, Little Lamb, Espresso Bean, Honeycomb, Aquamarine, Meadow & Mediterranean)

I love these yarns! The colors are so vibrant and they are a nice quality but aren't too expensive. I hope to finish the "Meadow" (green) stripe this evening and begin joining and finishing the edges soon. Hopefully in a few days I'll have it finished and ready to show off!

recovered cot

Last week I came across a project someone had done where they recovered a cot with cute fabric (now I can't find the blog to save my life - grrr) and I wished that I had an old cot I could do the same with. Well, lo and behold if I didn't go to the thrift store and there sat 3 vintage nursery cots just dying for a makeover :) yippie! I am not as impressed with mine as I was with the one I saw online but here it is.

The cot before:

It was a steal... and in the end I bought all three... why?! I don't know.

I decided that I wouldn't waste "good" fabric seeing if this endeavor would work so instead I used an old IKEA beadspread that our dog Scout had nervously chewed holes in when she was a puppy (that's Scouty and the fabric there).

First I ripped the seams of the existing (n-a-s-t-y) fabric and laid it out flat on some butcher paper to trace my template. Then I traced my template onto the new fabric and cut it out and sewed it up.

The hardest part of the whole thing was taking apart the cot to put the new fabric on. The screws were old and tough and it wasn't an easy job to do by myself (there may have been cursing involved. I may have scared Scouty.) but in the end I got it done.

Voila!

BIG NEWS and tiny shoes

I am going to try to get back to blogging now that I have a new reason for crafting and being thrifty.... I'M PREGNANT and we are due to meet our little boy in early October! YAY!

(yes, all of these say positive... and no, this isn't even the tip of the iceberg of how many tests I actually took!)

I'll be honest and say that crafting/sewing for a wee boy seems harder to me than doing the same for a little girl... maybe it's all those vintage flowered sheets that I dreamed of making into crib sheets and dresses for so long. But now I get to search for and buy *new* boyish fabrics and that is fun on a whole new level. :)

Today I've spent the entire day sewing little shoes and a bib to match:

The pattern for the shoes can be found here and I just traced around a bib I already had and free-styled this one by adding a pocket. There will be many more crafts and money savers for this mama-to-be... let's just see if I can keep up the blogging until the wee one comes!