Sewing for Mr. Peanut

Good morning!  We had a rough morning here with my little one, so I'm up and in a quiet house at 9 a.m. which is very rare!  She woke up at 4 a.m. with a bad dream and my husband ended staying up with her in the living room all morning.  She's asleep beside me on the couch still, so I have some time to share with you some of the projects I've finished these past few weeks for our little man who's arriving in February.  

I have been on a massive sewing book kick.....I'm pretty sure that I'm Border's favorite customer.....and this first project come from the book, "Simple Sewing for Baby" by Lotta Jansdotter.   This book has some neat projects in it and there are several more items that I am planning to sew soon.  I made the baby snuggler and the author has actually shared this pattern for free on Craftzine blog here.  This was a pretty easy to sew together and if I hadn't had my 3-year old helper with me, I could have finished it in a day.

Just some cute fabric I found at Hancock for the outside

And some snuggly flannel for the inside.  I am planning on making several more of these!  Especially since we're having a winter baby and it's frigid here in the Heartland during the winter.

The next thing that I made were these burp cloths.  I just couldn't resist.  It was the chenille that lured me into this project and just the pure snuggliness of these cloths.  The tutorial on how to make these can be found here at the Craftaholics Anonymous blog.  GG was playing well while I was making these, so I got four of them done in an evening.  My only recommendation is to use your walking foot, if you have one, to sew these together.  It's pretty much like sewing a quilt sandwich together (2 layers of fabric and one layer of batting) so my fabrics wanted to shift and move around a lot when I was using my regular presser foot.  As soon as I switched to my walking foot, the problem was pretty much solved.  Once again, saved by my walking foot!  I tell ya, it's the best sewing purchase I have ever made and worth every penny!

I used some super cute flannel that I found at our local quilt store for the front and light yellow chenille for the back.  I bought the chenille at Hancocks, because it's very pricy ($12.99 a yard!) and I'm a sewer on a strict budget.  It was kinda stiff when I bought it and not cuddly at all, but as soon as I washed it, wow, it's soft and I can't wait to make some more of these!

The last project I want to share with you is this car seat blanket/cover.  I was so excited when I found this tutorial at the Make it Do blog.  This is our 5th child and we have gone through many severely cold and blustery winter days toting around a little one in their car seat with a blanket draped over the top.   A lot of times the wind would blow it off and it was hard to hold the blanket in your hand as it was laying on top of the handle while you carried it.  Well, this great blanket attaches to the handle on your car seat with Velcro!  So, no more blanket flying off or hand full of fabric.  Plus, it's just super cute! lol

I lined mine with red fleece.  The tutorial calls for cotton fabric or flannel, but I know that two thin layers of cotton fabric is not going to keep out the horrible winter winds we get here.  So, I went with fleece.  I am planning on making another one of these in lighter weight fabrics for the spring and summer months. GG loved playing with the car seat and putting her babies in it, as you can see. lol

Besides adding the top-stitching around the outside edges, like the tutorial states, I decide to top-stitch on both side where the two different fabrics meet.  I think this makes it look a lot more finished, plus it helps keep the cotton and flannel layers from shifting.  I am just swooning over this vintage cowboy fabric, too!  It's another find at a quilt store.  The horse shoe fabric was a perfect surprise find at Hobby Lobby.

Well, that's all that I've sewn, for now. lol  I have a very long list of things that I'm hoping to complete before Mr. Peanut arrives.  I need to get busy, too!  These last three months always fly by, it seems.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you have been able to do something creative, too!

I'm linking up to all of these wonderful blogs link parties!  Be sure to visit them and all of of wonderful people who are sharing their projects this week!

Take care and God Bless!

di