Blog stuff

A brief non-baby/non-craft related post... as I am sure you have all heard, google reader is going away (or has it already?? I am really not on top of this).

I confess, I actually have not been doing a lot of blog reading of late - in addion to having had a few other things going on like creating another person, I have just been finding it easier to share and connect on instagram (I'm @needleandspatula) and since I so often read on my phone, I find the blog format harder to keep up with there.  I think I'm not the only one in this boat.  But I really do find that sharing and creating community by blogging and reading/commenting on other blogs is a deeper way to connect at least for me, and I am working hard to do more of both posting and reading others' blogs.

I am sure you are all way ahead of me on this, but as you know, if you want to keep following my blog (and I hope you do!), you'll need to subscribe elsewhere if you are currently following in google reader.  I have subscribe by rss and subscribe by email links in the sidebar and I am going to add a bloglovin button for good measure - for now you can click here to follow my blog with Bloglovin.

Can any of you give me advice on if there's anything else I need to do to make it easier to follow my blog in a new format?

Thanks so much folks!

And so this isn't a photoless post, here is a baby pic:

babies and quilts

Thanks everyone for your well wishes and nice comments on my last post!  As I mentioned, I really want to get back to blogging, but I have been continuing to have the challenge of having too big a backlog of things that I want to share.  So, I am going to just jump in, post whatever I feel like or in the order that seems to make sense, and try not to worry if there are things that just don't ever get blogged.

This particular post is one that I have been thinking about for a while.  Most of the quilts that I have made have been baby quilts, and so until I had a baby, most of the quilts that I made were gifts (in fact, I realized that Esther's baby quilt is the only actual quilt that I have finished and kept other than my very first small sampler quilt).  I know that many other quilters feel my compulsion to welcome new life with a soft, cuddly handmade creation.  But I also know that for me, I just love the process of making quilts, and while I put a lot of thought and love for the new baby into them, I also never worried too much about if/how they were used after they were gifted.  So it has been an unexpected joy as I have become a mother to see how loved those quilts are by those who receive them.

One lovely gift that we received before Esther was born was a joint present from a group of our friends back in DC - all of whom have small children that I had made quilts for.  Before sending us the gift, they sent pictures of each of the children with their quilt, holding up signs saying that they love their quilts but since their moms don't quilt they wanted to buy us the crib on our registry.  Honestly, seeing all the photos of the kiddos (some still babies, some older) with their quilts was as great a part of the gift as the crib itself!  It was so nice to know the quilts are being used and loved.

Later, at one of our childbirth/infant care classes, the instructor asked everyone by way of introduction to share a favorite gift that they had received so far.  I was amazed that at least half of the people said it was a quilt that a friend or family member had made for their baby - more than any purchased object, it was clear that these handmade gifts are cherished treasures.  Now that Esther is here, I have been joined a playgroup and have been going to other moms' houses, and there is always a quilt laid down on the living room floor for the babies to play on (or brought to the park, or put down on the deck or the lawn) - and there is always a story of who made the quilt for them, with love.  And as you can see from the photos here, Esther spends a lot of time playing on quilts at home too!

I just wanted to share these anecdotes as a kind of group thank you from new moms to all of you quilters out there - you may have realized how loved your gifts are, but in case like me, you didn't fully know, here it is.

So, on to the actual quilt in these photos!  I had a very hard time deciding what quilt design/color scheme I wanted to make for Esther's quilt, and didn't even start it until the last month or two before she was born... finally I had to tell myself that I would surely make her more than one quilt and not to stress out too much about this being her official one and only "baby quilt" that I made her.

The design was inspired by several quilts I had seen with a square pattern like this one by Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter - I thought it would be fun to make it with rectangles, though.  I also made it so half the white diamonds were wider and half were skinnier - I like the way it turned out, but I think I might actually like it better if they were either all the same width or the differences between the two types of diamonds were more striking.  I realized I haven't taken any photos of the finished quilt that don't have a baby in them, but I figured you all wouldn't complain too much!  Hopefully you can get a pretty good sense of the design even though you can't see the whole thing at once.

I foundation paper pieced the blocks with templates that I drew, so the sewing went pretty quickly (which was good, since I was really pregnant and pretty low energy by that point).  I picked the color scheme thinking of springy colors and then as it came together I realized it was pretty eastery.... not totally what I intended but I am OK with it.  I free motion quilted it with simple loops (it was really quick since its so small), and was actually finishing sewing the binding on in the hospital as we waited for my labor to really start!  Lawson said that he knew the baby couldn't be born until I finished her quilt, so I guess its a good thing I brought it with me.

I also want to share a wonderful quilt that my friends in the do.good stitches love bee made for me, and another quilt/play mat that I made since she was born... but since this post is already way too long, I will save both of those for later posts.

Welcome Baby Esther!

I have been meaning to stop back in here and share the news of our baby Esther's birth pretty much since she was born in late March, but it has been so hard to tear myself away from snuggling her!  She is a total cutie and we are loving her to pieces... she is already growing up way too fast.  I'll keep this post short but plan to be back soon to share more baby-related crafts.  Here's a quick selection of some favorite photos from her first two and a half months (sorry I couldn't limit myself to fewer, but hey, who doesn't like cute baby photos, right?).

Sewing Maternity Tops

Being pregnant has been a great excuse to try my hand at sewing myself more knit tops - something that I have wanted to do but hadn't prioritized. Having more of a deadline to get things done for them to be useful while I was pregnant helped me get in gear!  I have been lucky to also get some nice maternity clothes as hand-me-downs and bought a few things, but I was having a lot of fun sewing these up too.  I was tempted to make more but realized it would be kind of ridiculous - but hopefully I can keep that energy going to make more clothes for myself and the kiddo in the future!

I made a few out of upcycled tops that I had found at thrift stores - I found that starting with a top that was a 2X size or larger was good to make sure that there was plenty of fabric to use and particularly that it would be long enough to cover my growing belly.  For the aqua colored top above, I reused the original neckline and the sleeve and bottom hems.  I traced a maternity tee that I owned for the basic tee pattern (sleeve/armhole/sides), and added the gathering below the bust before I cut out the pieces. (To add the gathering, I just sewed a piece of elastic on the wrong side of the shirt, stretching it as much as I could as I sewed).  I sewed everything together just using my regular sewing machine, using the knit stitch which is kind of a slight zigzag (the symbol looks like a lightning bolt on my machine) and am very happy with how it turned out!

This v-neck tee is even more basic, but was put together basically the same way (minus the gathering at the bust) - I used the original neckline and hems again.  I really like the color of this one, it has been a nice basic to wear.

I also made some tops just starting with knit fabric that I had on hand.  I honestly haven't worn this one too much both because the fit is a little off and it's not really my color... but it was fun practice at least.  I had remembered seeing Anna from Noodlehead's t-shirt tutorial where you make a t-shirt with kind of dolman-style sleeves where they are just part of the front and back pattern pieces rather than inset at the shoulder.  I didn't actually look back at the tutorial before I sewed, which probably would have helped - I think a looser fit in the bust/shoulders is definitely more flattering for this type of tee and it's not what I did.  It's not horrible but like I said, it's not my favorite.  Definitely piques my interest to try this style tee again though!

See how there's just a seam down the top of the shoulder?  Definitely easy construction.

The last two things that I sewed were based on one of my favorite styles of tops/dresses, where you have a gathered cross front.  I made a top as practice (and because I wanted a top) and then I made a dress with the same basic style and pattern.   I was pretty proud that I was able to figure out how to make the gathered cross front based on modifying a regular t-shirt pattern and that it turned out so nicely!

I didn't have the energy to take photos and write up a tutorial when I was making these, but this style shirt would also be great for non-maternity so if I make another I may write up a tutorial.  I'm hoping that both this top and the dress still work for non-maternity wear (and it certainly would be easy to make a non-maternity style using less fabric/gathers for the lower part).  When I made them, I intentionally designed them to be fairly low cut and intended to wear with a tank underneath - I figure that after baby is born, I can wear them with a nursing tank and they'll work great for that too!

(Ahem, pardon the jeans under the dress.  We took all these photos one day and I didn't feel like changing out of my jeans when we got to taking the photos of the dress.)

The back for the shirt was also similar to the back of the dress, with some gathers/pleats but not as many as the front.

As you can tell from these photos, I'm definitely in the home stretch of this pregnancy! We actually took these a few weeks ago so I think I look even more pregnant now. Our baby is due next week so she could come anytime in the next few weeks! I have already started my maternity leave from work and am taking advantage of the time to rest and also do some more crafts, so hopefully I'll find time to come back and put up another post or two before baby arrives (unless she comes sooner rather than later).