Scrap Busters #4 and #5 - A Bassinet and Mattress Pad

I had a baby!  I figure if I start with that, no one can complain about a little lack of posts.  Though my baby is three months old and I haven't published a post since way before that, but hey, prepping for a baby is time consuming, too!  Anyways, as my husband holds our baby (both are actually sleeping, cuddled together.  It's how they bond) I get to write this post!

I made my baby's bassinet.  I really wasn't liking anything I saw online, I don't like frills and stuff (we didn't want anything too gender specific anyway).  I had looked into baskets, something we could line and put a pad down in, but they were so expensive.  I don't like expensive things, even if someone else would buy it for us as a group gift.  Sometimes things just shouldn't be that much money.  So since my mom came out early (because I started having fake labor and she's about a 14 hour trip away from us and didn't want to miss anything if it happened fast) we decided to make one ourselves.

Of course, she has all the pictures of the making of the bassinet, so I only have the finished product.  Every single piece of fabric in the bassinet is something I already owned.  Yay for using up fabric!  The outside is pieced, made from some heavier fabric, possibly duck cloth?, that I got for 50 cents at some thrift store.  We almost made it strips like the German flag, but thought that was a little too much, so we settled on paying homage to Germany through the colors and mixing up the strips a little.  (Those three colors are the only ones I had, they just happened to be the German flag colors and my family just happened to live in Germany, so that was fun).  It was actually quite easy to make.  We just sewed long strips together in the following order - black, red, black, orange, black, red - with the red and orange strips being 2.5" wide and the black 1.5" wide.  Then we cut them into strips 2.5" wide and flipped every other strip upside down and sewed them all together to make a huge loop.

The inside is an old rice bag that I had carried around forever and found out that my mother actually got it from Hawaii when she was young, so yay for finally using it!  We just cut it in half and used part of the back added above and below the two halves to make it long enough to fit the pieced outside loop.  The bottom is two layers of the same fabric as the outside, as are the handles.  

The inside and outside both have a layer of batting sewn to them and we made little pockets between the lining and it's batting layer to put 8 pieces of boning in to help keep the sides upright.  Then we stitched a bottom to both the inside and outside (leaving a space on the inside one to eventually turn it right side out).

We sewed the tops of the two layers together, adding the handles in as well.  We then did a little quilting, stitched in the ditch in the seams near the boning (sometimes it was right through the boning, other times it was the two seams surrounding the boning) to help keep the two layers together and not bow with the boning.  We then hand stitched the opening in the lining shut and Ta DA!  We have a bassinet for my baby!

It ended up being about 3 feet long and about 18" wide at the longest and widest points.  We also made the mattress pad using old fabric (every piece of fabric that I've stored for years and always hated but could never get rid of) and 4 layers of some polyester batting that I bought a while ago and never used.  It's all stuffed in a big oval shaped pillowcase, basically (also with ugly scrap fabric).  We made two sheets for it (we bought fabric for the sheets - shock!) and it was ready for a baby to be laid in it.  Which was good, because my water broke later that night and I had the baby the next day!

I really like this thing, even though it was a little bit of a pain at some points (always double check things are right before you sew them.  Unpicking stinks when your stitches are small and plentiful because it was on a handle that you wanted to be secure.)  My favorite part about it (and the reason I wanted something like this) is that when the child is old enough to no longer fit in it, we can use it as storage for stuffed animals, toys, blankets, etc., and it can become something the kids will play with (which was proven when our niece (2 yrs) and nephew (9 mo) came to visit and both immediately went and sat in it.

So there you have it.  An awesome bassinet for an amazing baby.  I hope you enjoyed this haphazard explanation of my project.  I also am counting it as my Scrap Buster projects Nos. 3 and 4, since it was the bassinet and the mattress pad.  Yay for progress!

See you soon....?

Maybe with another already finished project!

A Knit Baby Blanket

We are moved in to our house, but we are not unpacked much at all.  So I give you another previously completed project...the knitted baby blanket!

I don't know if I will ever knit a blanket again.  It takes a looooooong time.  I had planned on making it bigger, but I wasn't knitting fast enough to keep up with the growing baby girl I was gifting it to.  So at one point I just said - I'm done!

I love that it looks like a candy cane! (Yes, the girl was born around Thanksgiving and this picture is near Christmas, so it was time to let it go).  

I used this pattern, super simple, super cute.  The only fancy technique is doing yarn overs and dropping those stitches in the next row.  (And switching colors at the ends of rows, not too bad). It's also easy enough to remember the pattern, so you don't have to keep checking back to make sure you're doing it right.

Yay for cute babies!  I'm definitely sticking to smaller projects for them in the future!  Like these hats, or this blanket.

See you soon!

(...with some more recent projects?)

An older Project (as promised)

I finished 4 bags for my etsy shop!! I've been working on them for the past few days and I'm pretty excited.  I just finished them, though, so no good pictures yet.  I've got some plans to make a few more items before I start up the shop.  Just to make it more exciting to browse through from the beginning.  The whole process has been really fun for me, thinking of names, how to package things, what to make, shipping/return policies, banners/logos to have on my page, tags for my bags (yay rhyming!), I feel really businessy.  Even when I'm at home in my pj's at 5 when my husband gets home from work. 

This is the adorable baby quilt I made for my adorable niece (the first one born since I was married).  She was also born in July.  Don't worry, this was actually given to her shortly after her birth, which is why I only have these two, slightly smudged pictures to offer you!

I didn't realize how patriotic it was until right this very moment, but I have to say my favorite part is the cozy green backing.  It looks like someone had a bunch of green colored pencils and wanted to fill in a yellow paper, so they kept drawing line after line until it was covered.  The lines aren't perfectly straight, either, which is again what makes it look hand drawn.

I tied this quilt with some green embroidery thread (it didn't use much).  I think the finished measurements are about 25"-30" square.  (I think each square block is 5 or 6 inches).  And I made the backing a little larger and folded it over the top for the binding.  Simple and fun and made me feel proud and successful when I finished.

See you later!

(with nicer pictures, I promise!)

Baby hats! (For other people's children)

There have been a few births at my husband's work lately, and since I have a large stash of yarn that hasn't been used, I thought it would be fun to make some baby gifts.  I found this adorable pattern on ravelry and fell in love.  So I made a girl's first...

... and then a boys.   I altered it a little for the boy, doubling the front and back ribbing and folding them over for a thicker/warmer feel.  I added decorative buttons on the front flap and knit icords to tie instead of a buttoned strap.  

I just think they're adorable - they use short rows to get the <> shape on the top of the head.  And they are a fast project.  Completed in the space of one movie once you get the hang of the short rows pattern.   I think this will be my new staple gift.  (Sorry I don't have an adorable baby to pose for these.  Just guitars and chairs!)

See you soon!