Petal Knot Dresses . . . and little petal knot purses . . .

Have I mentioned that I sew for fabric? I came accross a request for some custom petal knot dresses on a forum that I frequent, and couldn't resist answering. It turns out that the person asking also happens to work at Joanne's Fabric and since we don't have any close by, I was more than willing to make the dresses in exchange for some fabric from the store. She picked out a great assortment of knits and flannels for me, and I'm hoping to get working on some projects with them soon! The pattern that I used for these dresses is Portabellopixie Claire and the matching little purses were made using the Luscious Bow Tote pattern (I scaled it in half and instead of a bow, I made petal knot straps and knotted them). It was especially fun working with someone else's fabric combinations; each one is so different but so cute! These little sets will be on their way tomorrow and I'm hoping that some little girls will get lots of wear out of them!

a baby quilt for Carter . . .

Another one marked off my list! This is for my sweet little nephew Carter. The fabric is from Riley Blake's All Star line (one of my favorite boy lines!), and the back is a soft flannel from the Shadowplay Flannels by Maywood . It's the same layout as Meagan's quilt, just alternating blocks with four patches, and free motion quilted in invisible thread.

I have been so impressed with the quality, prints, and colors in Riley Blake's fabrics lately. And especially LOVE that they make distinctive boy lines (check out Wheels and All Star 2 is coming out soon). They also have some beautiful girl lines and a bunch of their lines are available in flannels.

I'm linking this up to Sew & Tell Friday - go check it out for some sewing inspiration!

a little boy organizer . . .

So now that we've been blessed with a son, I have been on the lookout for cute boy fabrics. A thoughtful friend gave me some prints from a line called Traffic Jam and I've been admiring them for quite some time, trying to find the right project for them. I finally took the rotary cutter to them this week and created an organizer for Justin. For now I'll be using it for his cloth diapers, wipes, wetbag, and the zippered pocket is for his CJ's butter; but when he outgrows diapers, he can use it for organizing whatever a little boy might want to take with him. The organizer was largely inspired by this one I found on Etsy, I just tweaked the design to work as a diaper clutch. I've started to make a couple matching wetbags, and want to cover my wipes case with some fabric too - gotta get the most use out of the scraps, right?!
. . . linking this up to Sew and Tell Friday.

a baby quilt for Meagan . . .

Finally, a quilt finish! I've been wandering to my sewing room much more lately and am so pleased to have this marked off my list, especially since my niece is almost 8 months old already! The fabric is from Riley Blake's Bloom & Grow line, and the backing is a minkee with a heart design found at my local fabric store (it pulled out the shade of blue perfectly!). It's a simple quilt pattern, just alternating blocks with four patches; and it's free-motioned with invisible thread (and I broke 5 needles in the process! Note to self: quilt shop quality invisible thread is much better that generic fabric store brands!!).

the cloth diaper stash just grew . . .

So we won the fuzzibunz photo contest!! The prize was for 12 brand new fuzzibunz and one of my sisters and I split them (the other two moms don't cloth diaper). I decided to take inventory of my "stash" the other day. Mostly there is one-size and medium fuzzibunz (most were from a local seller that sold them to me gently used for a steal of a deal). The "girly" fuzzibunz on the left are for Alyssa (still uses them for naps and at night). The top basket on the right is some fun prints that I've accumulated, and the bottom basket are the ones that work best for overnight. Have I mentioned that cloth diapering can be addictive?

VOTING STILL OPEN and the other pics . . .

So, voting is still open on our photo that made it into the finals of the Fuzzibunz photo contest. All you got to do is "like" the fuzzibunz fan page and then "like" the photo. Anyone can vote, as long as you have a Facebook profile. THANKS so much for taking the time to vote for us!!

Here's some of the other pics from our photo shoot that day . . .

PLEASE VOTE!!!

This picture is a finalist in an online contest for Fuzzi Bunz diapers. The winner gets 12 fuzzi bunz diapers!! The babes in the picture are a friends's little one, my niece, Justin, and my nephew. Please vote for the pic by clicking on this link and "like" the picture. THANK-YOU!!!

yogurt making . . .

Well this is something I thought I'd never do, but I made yogurt this week! Since it seems that Justin has a cows milk allergy, and he's a big eater, I thought I should add goats milk yogurt to his diet. But it cost $5 for a small unflavored little tub. Then I came accross a blog of home cooking, and some simple instructions to make yogurt in a slow cooker. And it worked!

So, here's my math:

2 cups of store bought goats milk yogurt = $5

8 cups of homemade goats milk yogurt = $5

My girls all like yogurt too, but it gets eaten up so fast around here that I rarely buy it. So I thought, why not? and made a batch for them too.

3 cup tub of cows milk yogurt = $3

8 cups of homemade cows milk yogurt = $3

The goats milk yogurt didn't seem to set properly, but after being in the fridge for half a day, it changed consistency and gelled up. The cows milk yogurt gelled up in the slow cooker already. I still have to add fruit and/or sweeteners because this is just a plain yogurt that it makes, but it's still a huge savings (and you can only buy goats milk yogurt unflavored anyways). And I did use the tip of adding the unflavored gelatin - I didn't want to take a chance that it would be too runny. So my kids are all happy, they can have yogurt everyday now if they want!

Blogger's Quilt Festival . . .

This is the quilt I'm submitting for the annual Blogger's Quilt Festival (some of you may have seen this one before). It's Alyssa's toddler bed quilt. I made it because she was outgrowing her baby quilt and I seem to take a loooong time to finish twin-sized quilts, so this seemed doable.

This quilt is full of firsts for me:

My first time doing an online quilt-along.

My first time using my scallop ruler for the border.

My first time cutting bias binding.

My first time labeling a quilt.

My first time quilting with minky for a backing.

and My first time getting complimented on a quilt by the fabric designer herself. (okay, so it's the only time - but I just had to throw that in there :)

This is probably my favorite quilt that I've completed; it was a great learning process. And this is one of my favorite fabric lines ever (Sandi Hendersen's ginger blossom). I'm hoping that my daughter will love it one day too - she still prefers her baby quilt with her feet sticking out.

publishing my blog . . .

So I've been blogging since 2006 and besides this blog, I don't have any photo albums or much scrapbooking to show for these past years. So I decided to print my blog posts so I could have a hard copy to look back on. There's different ways of doing this and depending on the program you have, your computer skills, and of course your time, you can make it yourself. However, I don't possess any of the above, so I went to a website called sharedbook.com and used their blog2print program. What can I say - but EASY! It took me all of 10 minutes to produce a book over 200 pages long complete with index and page numbers. I chose to buy the pdf file for a whopping $7.95 and emailed it to a local printer who printed it off for me. Less than a day later, I had this wonderful book in my hands. I encourage every blogger to print their blog as a keepsake (and it makes me feel better about being a scrapbooking slacker).

Winners!

There were so many great suggestions - thanks everyone! Some of them that I really liked were already taken, but I really like the one that I settled on - Our Busy Little Bunch. I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to stay similar to my old title, but well, it just works! So I'll be switching everything in the next little while and my new blog header is in the works!


The winners are . . .
Misty Creek (for being the first to suggest the new name) and
Mary Janes and Galoshes (by random number)


Thanks to everyone for participating! If you'd like one of these bags for yourself, check out the tutorial - it's a quick and rewarding project!

May Giveaway Day - Rename My Blog!

It's the "Sew Mama, Sew! Giveaway Day!" My giveaway is for a reuseable shopping bag that nicely folds and snaps up into a little pouch that can be thrown in your bag or purse (tutorial found here). What I'm asking for in return is a new name for my blog!

Here's some facts to help you out:

- this started as a family blog

- it's evolved a bit to include my sewing and quilting projects

- and since we now have a son, the pink has got to go!

I'll be drawing two names on May 20. One bag will go to the first person that suggests the name I choose and the second will be a random number winner. So you get two chances to win one!

Thanks for helping me out! Will ship to US or Canada.

a Summer outfit for Alyssa . . .

So I got in the sewing room quite a few times this week - yay! And made a new Summer outfit for Alyssa. Once again, I was a pattern tester for the Handmade Dress and this is the new Miss Olivia Paige pattern for the top and the Miss Claire pattern for the skirt. The red sunflower fabric had been sitting in my stash for probably ten years and the yellow fabric was from a box of fabric that was donated to me by a thoughtful aunt. I think this outfit is so stinkin' cute and my little girl was more than happy to wear it until bedtime (which is a big thing around here, because she usually changes back into her pajamas every time we turn around, or walks around in her underpants).

I'm linking this to Sew and Tell Friday. Go there to find some sewing inspiration!

Miss Mary dress (again) . . .

So this is my second time with this pattern from the Handmade Dress and I was a little more creative this time ~ mostly due to the fact that I only had one yard of the Andalucia fabric and made a couple dumb mistakes with my cutting (I shouldn't cut late at night). I love the way it turned out, my favorite part is the ruffle along the neckline and most importantly, she loves it!
I'm linking this to Sew and Tell Friday. Go there to find some sewing inspiration!

Janome felting machine . . .

Some time ago, I came across the ReVamp contest hosted by Janome. The idea was to submit pictures of something you turned from unuseable to useable. Since I already had the pictures on my computer, I uploaded before and after pictures of a ladies blouse that I turned into a baby doll top. I had made this some time ago and Alyssa's worn it many times.

So I had forgotten about this contest up until a month ago, when I was contacted by Janome to let me know that I'd won a judges choice award! And last week a beautiful new Janome felting machine was delivered to my door!

I've played with this machine a little bit and the idea is that it meshes fabrics or fibers together. I experimented on a pair of jeans (that Elayna refused to wear) by putting ribbon above the hem and punching it from the top side. Then I cut some different shapes of fabric and punched them through from the wrong side. It's definitely a fun machine to work with and so easy to use because there's no thread, bobbin, or even tension, just needles punching anywhere you choose. I hope to get better at this and use it more often for embellishing. I think it would also work great for patching up holes in the knees of kids jeans, but in a fun way. And even though I need a lot more improving in this skill, Elayna loves the jeans now. :)

hooded baby towels . . .

So I was in need of a gift for our sweet new niece and since she already has enough quilts, I went to Etsy for inspiration - after finding over 1000 listings for hooded baby towels, I headed to our local fabric store's sale for some terry cloth and flannel. These came together super easy and there was just enough fabric to get out some matching washcloths. And I think this is my first sewing project for Justin since he's been born, so it was about time!

a bit of sewing . . .

I managed to get in the sewing room today to work on a birthday present for one of Elayna's friends. It's a little art tote, filled with gel pens, pencil crayons, markers, stickers and pads of paper. Elayna loves it and we hope the birthday girl does too.

annual quilt retreat . . .

Last weekend was our second annual quilt retreat. The organizers did a fantastic job again, the food was yummy, and the group of ladies was fun. It is so inspiring to see what others are working on and such a treat to have time away from all the mommy-duties for a day (although I did take Justin along, but he was very well behaved). I managed to get a baby quilt top done (which I'll finish up before I post it) and this quilt top for Elayna's bed.

how far this cloth diapering thing has come . . .

So this is my post to admit that yes, Justin is a full-time cloth-diapered baby. I haven't bought disposable dipes for him for about three months - and I still have a handful left from that last package. (I do make the exception that I still put him in our church nursery with disposables on Sundays and for Tuesday morning bible study).

I still find the whole cloth-diapering thing a little out of my comfort zone; my circle of friends and family does not include many that have tried it. Thankfully there's a lot of online sites like DiaperSwappers and personal blogs that offer reviews and advice. And I never cloth-diapered my girls so this is all new to me, but it was my baby that made me decide this - not the "green" factor, or even the money saving factor; those just both came as bonuses along the way. And I'm excited to report that Justin hasn't had any diaper rashes or eczema on his belly in months now!

So, just for fun, here's a pic of my "stash" to show you what's in our rotation right now. Most of these were bought new and a handful are from DiaperSwappers.

first row - Fuzzi Bunz one-size pocket dipes (except the dark blue one is a size medium)

second row - two bumgenius one-size pockets, and three bumgenius one-size organics

third row - red and green are size medium Thirsties (bought for half price on a daily deal at babyhalfoff.com), two Crazy Critters size large in ooga print, and a Mommy's Touch one size in Dump Truck print

fourth row - these are Alyssa's - two pull on Kushies trainers, and three size large Fuzzi Bunz

*picture of Justin at top of post - TwinkleToes one-size in blue flame print

I do want to say that the dipes I use are EASY - I'm not really interested in folding or pinning, or even putting covers over top of fitted diapers. So there are more options to be more frugal or natural than the way that I've been doing this.

And I've been trying to convert Alyssa to cloth-diapering with very little success. She is so against it, that even after getting some special purple ones just for her, she refuses to wear them. Hopefully if I keep persisting, she'll just decide to potty-train instead. This is a pic of her during the ten minutes that I got her to wear one today (I'm pinning her legs down).

little aprons . . .

Chantel is going to a birthday party today and was quite impressed with this little apron for the birthday girl. I used this tutorial, only I put elastic in the neck strap so it can just slip over their heads. She was pretty excited when she woke up this morning to one wrapped up for her friend, and one for her. One of my new goals is to make something for the girls just as often as I give things away - and that way I can enjoy them too!