New Arrival

After a 3 day on-again, off-again labor, Jack Douglas was born at 2:21 AM (just a little over 2 hours after we arrived at the hospital) on Sunday morning. We surprised the nurses, doctors and ourselves by being so quick. He was 7 lbs, 14 oz and 19 1/2" long. He's perfect!

Crib Set

I finally finished my crib set yesterday. Not that it was that difficult to finish, but its more like I had a hard time getting myself motivated to finish it.

I skipped making a crib sheet, since it is so darn cheap to buy plain sheets. Someday, though, I'm going to try making crib sheets. It looks easy enough. There's a tutorial here from Michael Miller Fabrics, should you want to try it. There are also instructions for making a crib set here (at J. Caroline Creative) as well.

Anyway. The dust ruffle is easy. There is a pleat in the middle of the front and the back. You could skip the back, since no one will even see it, but that didn't occur to me. I just measured how long each side needed to be and sewed on the grosgrain ribbon and hemmed the bottoms. Then you attach them to the rectangle that is the deck (the part that goes under the mattress). Easy enough.

I bought bumper batting at JoAnns, cause I wanted it to be a little thicker than just a quilted bumper, but not too thick. I just sewed on the two ribbons and extended them out 15" for ties. You sew the rectangles together and then hand sew the bottoms shut. That's what I've been procrastinating about - sewing the bottoms shut. I didn't do a terribly neat job on that and I'm not sure why, but whatever. It doesn't look that bad and it is the bottom of the bumpers, after all. Oh, and I used Fray Check on the ends of the ribbons and that seems to work great.

The only problem that I have with the bumpers is that they are a tad too long, but you can make them fit fine. The other thing is that there is an even number of posts on the front of the crib, so there is no "middle" to tie the bumpers too. What's up with that? Also, there is ribbon on both the tops and bottoms of the bumpers and only the bottom one can be seen. Oh well!

I like how it turned out overall and I like the gray bows on the outside. I am tempted to make up a dust ruffle in brown as well for another sheet that I have, but I don't think I'll do any more bumpers. Technically, you're not even supposed to have them anymore.

So there it is. Very simple. We'll see if we can keep it clean.

Simple Baby Quilt

I finished a little baby quilt this week. It isn't necessarily made for this baby, because it just isn't quite what I'm in the mood for. It was something I wanted to try with some fabric that I already had on hand. I wanted to see what I'd come up with out of what I already had. So its very simple.


I am annoyed because it is not my best work. I'm not sure why, but perhaps its just the mood that I'm in. But its okay and the colors will work. That's a pale blue stripe, by the way. The color just isn't showing up well in the photos.

Diaper Bag

I have been slowly making myself a diaper bag and some accessories to go along with it. I don't really have any idea what I need/want in a diaper bag, but I made something I think I like and there's no reason that I can't just use it for something else if I want. I just liked the fabric. Its dry clean only, which may be dumb on my part, but its what I wanted. I bought some Scotchguard to spray it with and hopefully that will help keep it clean.

I made it 6" wide and put some nice deep pockets on the sides.

Clip for hanging keys

Lots of big pockets in the inside for who-knows-what?

The changing pad I backed with iron-on vinyl and added ties to the end so it can be rolled up.



This is probably unnecessary, but I used the leftover fabric to make a diaper and wipes bag. I was thinking that perhaps it could be carried instead of a diaper bag occasionally. It didn't quite turn out exactly how I pictured it - perhaps because the lip won't lay flat for me and velcro looks dumb. I haven't thought of a better idea for it yet, though. Pretty buttons?

I must admit that I am looking forward to seeing the

tiny bum that fits in such tiny diapers. They're cute.

Brocade Home

Found this duvet at Brocade Home the other day. I wouldn't mind having one. Is it wierd that I would like a collection of duvets? I like bed linens, I guess.

Crochet-Edged Flannel Blanket

I decided to try something new and put a crochet edge on flannel blanket. I washed the flannel, hemmed it and then punched holes about 1/4" apart around the edge of the blanket.


I've read that you can just poke your crochet hook through, but I can't really see how. So I bought a small hole punch (I think it was the 1/16" hole punch) for it. It worked fine, but sure makes your hand hurt after doing an entire blanket!


Then I used the remainder of the yarn from the little afghan and did a simple edging around it. I think I like it. It wouldn't hurt to use a finer yarn for it - this might be a little thick, but it turned out fine. I even washed up all the blankets a couple days ago and they all came out just like they went in.

I may even like this better than the other flannel blankets that I put the binding on, but perhaps its just the gray that I like.

Martha Stewart Baby Shower Show

The other day Martha had a Baby Shower Show and the part that I liked was their idea for a Bird Mobile. I thought they were rather cute. If I had time or motivation, I would be tempted to try to make one. I am very quickly running out of both, however....
Still cute though. I'm filing this away for future inspiration.

This Week

So I have reached the point where we're going to be seeing the doctor every week from here on out. I was surprised to be told this week that we've actually made some progress. Yikes. The doctor asked if we'd washed the clothes and picked names and I had to say no to both. We still don't have a pediatrician either, so I was told to get on that and nevermind washing the clothes.

What can I say? I'm a bit slow and might still be in denial. So this week, I washed clothes.

Can you tell what we're having ??

Yeah, still no pediatrician, but The Man asked his buddies and got some recommendations, so we'll need to get on that this coming week. He installed the car seat too, so we're not doing too bad, right?? We're under 30 days now. . .

Salad Boxes Follow-Up

So, I got my husband to make me some of the salad boxes that I posted about awhile ago. I think that it was probably about a month ago that we made them and planted the lettuces.

Well, here they are today. I think they are ready to start cutting, although we haven't done that yet. Perhaps tomorrow we will try it! I'm curious to see if they will grow again or if we'll need to reseed. I've never grown lettuce before, so we'll find out.


The smaller plants in the back of this box are spinach. Those don't seem to be quite ready yet. Anyway. The boxes seem to have worked very well! The Man has enjoyed watching his lettuce grow too, so that was fun. I think he was munching on it the other day as he was checking them out. Cute.

Shabby Apple Baby Dresses

Photos from Shabby Baby

Saw these mentioned on With This Ring.

Some of these dresses at Shabby Baby are so adorable that I almost with that I was having a little girl. How cute! I love the gray one.

And Another Baby Afghan

This one I really like. I wasn't crazy about the color in the store, but I wanted to try it and I couldn't find any other grays that I really liked. I am really liking it now. I think it may be my favorite.

Its actually the perfect color for my currently gray-obsessed mind. Oh, and it matches nicely with the crib set that I'm working on (almost finished - will post pics soon).

This one is Lion Brand Cotton Ease in Stone.

Another Blanket for Baby

I finished another little afghan for the baby. I thought that this yarn would be more gray, but its nearly black. Oh well. I did a more lacy pattern for it to make up for such a dark color.

I think I have more blankets than I know what to do with at this point, but I guess I just enjoy making things that I can work on in the evenings on the couch with my little dog snuggled in the lap. We both enjoy that.

This is Lion Brand Cotton Ease in Charcoal