Swaddled Baby Love

So - as promised - here is apic of my first finished quilting based project.

 

Despite the amount of swearing that went into getting it to the finished point I am quite pleased with how it turned out. 

The reason for so much swearing? I sewed the pieces together the wrong way no less than 5 times! I can barely believe it myself! I was having a serious case of baby brain that afternoon!

Then having never sewn on quilt binding before, I followed the instructions in the pattern book for sewing binding. It wasn't as hard as I had in my head that it was and I am a bit annoyed that I have never tried before. It has truly inspired me to go on a finish my other quilt project that has been sitting in the unfinished objects box for almost two years. 

So what is it you may ask? It is the "Swaddled Baby Love" project from the Anna Maria Horner book -  Handmade beginnings.

The idea is that it is a swaddling wrap for the sewn baby doll for an older sibling to be able to have their own 'baby' when the new baby comes along. This is a gift for H boy for when the new baby is born. 

The part that I can't get over is how satisfying is was to sew on that quilt binding!

Watch this space for the next UFO project!

Crazy Pregnancy Sewing

What on earth possesses us to become slightly insane and take on crazy projects when we are pregnant?

Last time I decided to make a quilt for the baby and hand quilt it - when I had never done anything like that before in my life.

That project is still sitting in the box of unfinished objects... I bought the wrong perle cotton for the hand quilting it seems and it turned into the most difficult thing in the world so I ditched it. The resurrection plan is undo all of the quilting done thus far and start over. That is in the pile for when I start maternity leave in 5 weeks and want to do not very much at all except sit on the couch.

There are a number of other things on the list of things to do in that time as well - as you might imagine! They include:

-Practice meditation and calm birthing affirmations
-Sew the remainder of my nursing nightgowns and hospital lounge PJ's
-Finish sewing the two pairs of baby pants that I started when my last baby was very small and by the time I had finished the first pair he had grown out of them.
- Work on some other UFO hand sewing projects
- Go and get my Serger lessons
- Swim
- make thank you notecards
-organise bag for hospital
- Oranise a 'present from the baby' for my big boy.

This last one is what I threw myself into last night. It looked simple enough - a toy 'Baby' with nappies (diapers) and a string quilted wrap for the 'baby'.

I dove into my scraps bin and found everything I would need, I made the baby doll last night, thinking I would finish the rest in H's sleep time today. Well it is now 11pm and I just finished pinning the binding to the quilted wrap.

I have decided that I am not a quilter - do I like the finished product - definitely - but I do not like the getting to the end part. I am going to blame the short freearm on my Sewing Machine and say that it has nothing at all to do with my lack of precision and my need for a finished product to admire. In my defense - my sewing machine does have an exceptionally short freearm and it can be difficult, even to sew  garments with.

But - apart from the hand sewing of the binding edge - it is done and it does look quite nice.

Binding is one thing that I have been scared of for some time now and while it could have been really bad  - it isn't it is just not perfect.

I will share pictures of the finished product tomorrow in the daylight.

In the meantime I think I will still go out and buy the H Boy a Zuzu pet as a present from  the baby. He is a boy after all - although I still think that the baby doll wrap will get some use.