And now we are five...

Here's what we've been busy doing this week. By far my littlest baby! We love him already.

The Diaper Bag Revisited

I've been sewing for about 25 years. Ever since I was a young girl. Sometimes you'd think I'd have it together. In my last post about the diaper bag, I talked about the yellow bias tape and how I didn't really like it. After a comment, I went back and reread the instructions and thought I figured out why it wasn't coming together right. You're supposed to turn the bias tape to the inside of the bag.

So since I needed thread anyways for a baby shower gift for this weekend, I went into the little bridal shop/gift store/5 and dime store to pick up some thread and figured I might as well change the bias tape since I thought I had it figured out. Apparently still not thinking very well, I grabbed some brown bias tape and the thread I needed and came home. Ripped out two seams and opened up the new package of bias tape. Oh drat...it's single fold, this will never work. Hmmm, hmmm, OOHHHH!! Ah-ha!! That's what the whole issue was the entire time, I was using double fold bias tape and I needed to use SINGLE FOLD BIAS TAPE. Came together like a breeze.

I'm so lovin' this bag now without the yellow bias tape across the top.

Have a blessed day,
Lisa

Diaper Bag

I made the diaper bag yesterday. I spent most of the day on and off working on it. I don't know if I like it. I love the shape and size but I am not a fan of the yellow biased tape on the top or the blue on the sides. I would have preferred brown, but this is what I had on hand to work with. I could have gone to the store but it's cold. Really. Cold. Right now it's minus 17 degrees. So it's not really the type of weather to go trudging to the store. And it's just biased tape, something that's easily replaced when I have the time. And it's warmer.

I used the pattern for the Here We Go bag from Anna Maria Horner's book Handmade Beginnings. I really love this book. I want to make every single project. I love her style and also want her other book Seams to Me but will have to wait. Sigh. Being a grown-up is hard.

All the fabric was again from my fabric stash. The two prints are from a line called Wild Thyme. The fabric is *at least to me* quite retro looking and I think the yellow bias tape adds to the retro look. Which could be a reason I'm having a hard time falling in love with it because retro is not typically my style. Around here, we more fun-loving, country-romance type of people...if that's a type of style.  :)

I also apparently was over zealous when cutting out material and ended up with extra side panels so I whipped up a quick apron for Em, our little cook and baker.

She wants a pocket so I'll need to add a couple of pockets but she's already been wearing it while pouring over cookbooks deciding what to make. She also wants Daddy to have an apron and thinks it should be pink and yellow. I love my little girl.  :)

I'm off to work on the sleep sacks. I realized last night that time was running short before we have this baby and it fueled my desire to sew. And Clean. I think it's called nesting.

Have a blessed day,
Lisa

The Ballerina Girl Bag

Em loves dance. She's actually too young to start where we live but the teacher allowed her to start a year early because her teacher recommended that she was ready to start. She's been in Early Education since she was 3 when her hearing was fixed. So when she started dance a couple months ago, she wanted a bag. Which I wanted too because if I start a new organizational technique from the get-go, it's easier to get the entire family to follow it. When you try to start a new organizational technique otherwise, you have to break old habits while trying to establish new habits...needless to say, I prefer to start new old if at all possible.

We found this material at Wal-Mart and being the sparkly thing that she is, she also wanted to rhinestone letters to put her name on it. I used this tutorial from Simple Modern Mom with a couple very slight variations. The only thing I'd do differently is that it could probably use some light interfacing to give it a little bit of structure. When she comes home from dance, her clothes go into the wash and the bag gets hung up on a peg. When her dance clothes are washed, they go immediately into the bag. That way, everyone knows where the dance clothes are and we're never scrambling at the last minute to find tights or tutus.

I finished my tasks from yesterday. Well, when it comes to the one about starting the diaper bag, I state that loosely. I picked out the fabric and it's finishing up in the dryer and it will have to be ironed...but, I'm one step closer and will work more on it today. So today, besides laundry and dishes, I want the bathroom needs to be cleaned for the week and if I have the gumption, I want to get Em's quilt put together. But that means I need to go to my mom's because I don't have enough floor space to lay it out so that's where the gumption comes in!

I also added snaps to the closure on the boppi pillow. I should have made the overlap, overlap more. I love my snap pliers. I think it was one of the best investments in sewing notions I've made. I bought mine here. I have colored and white snaps and use them so much in place of buttons on kids clothes.

Have a blessed day,
Lisa

Ginger Chicken and New Babies

I accomplished my goals yesterday. I did the dishes, laundry and wrote my paper. Okay, well I didn't finish the laundry but in our household laundry is never-ending. Today my goals are to start the diaper bag, dishes, laundry, and clean my sewing/computer/work table. I also need to go into town this morning to go to the chiropractor since my arm has been numb (since I'm retaining a lot of water, it's pinching my nerves).

We often get stuck eating the same things and I'm trying to change that up. Last night I made what I call Ginger Chicken and served it with brown rice. It was a hit. I always know how my Dad likes dinner by his response and action after dinner. If it's good, say an everyday meal we have, he'll say thank you for supper. If it's something new and he wasn't quite sure, he'll say, thank you, it's always nice to try something new. If it's something new that he really liked, he'll say thank you, that's definately a new one for the books and clean the dinner table. Last night he cleaned the dinner table!

Ginger Chicken (Served with brown rice and steamed vegetables)
1-2 pounds of chicken cut into pieces
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
Bread chicken with 1/2 c. flour (I used whole wheat), garlic, black pepper, and salt (approxiamtely 1/8 to 1/4 tsp. each).
Bake for 40 minutes.

Glaze
2 1/2 tsp. honey
2. tsp. lemon juice
1/4 c. melted butter
1 tsp. ginger powder
2 tbsp. onions, finely chopped
1/4 tsp. garlic
2 1/2 tsp. soy sauce

Pour glaze over chicken, increase oven to 400 degrees and bake 10 minutes.

7 days until we meet our newest baby! We've been having a countdown at our house. This morning Emily asked if they were still going to "cut" the baby out of me and if I don't go into labor before next Wednesday, we will have another C-section. So while she was eating breakfast, we looked at pictures on the computer of when her and Connor were born. I love some of those first pictures that were ever taken of my children.

Emily about 15 minutes after she was born.

This was taken the morning after he was born.

Have a blessed day!

Curtains

I have not done much lately. I'm exhausted. I know it's time for the baby to come out. I don't sleep, I hurt, I have horrible heartburn, I want to throw up, I have no patience, I could cry for any reason at any time, my throat has been dry and I literally drink water nonstop all day, etc., etc. At my appointment yesterday my stomach measured at 43 centimeters (I'll be 40 weeks on the 20th) and I've lost weight again...the third week in a row which gained me a lecture on eating since I'm also retaining water. I do eat, I eat alot, even DH confirmed this...I'm just burning a lot of calories at the end of this pregnancy. Oh this is just starting to sound like a pity post!!!

I have a gift to sew for a baby shower next week along with still having to make a diaper bag for us. I have no gumption to do either. I did finally finish the curtains for the living room. The pictures did not turn out but trying to take pictures in Wisconsin with the glaring snow through the window does not make for good lighting...at least the sun is shining even though it is near zero degrees outside!

I have some beautiful Amy Butler Love fabric in my stash. You know, some of that material that is so gorgoues you just hate to cut into it. Isn't that how we end up with fabric stashes? Our material becomes art we hate to destroy by creating new art with it? These are very simple valance curtains. A double hem on all sides and I used hem tape to create the casing for the curtain rod. Actually I used blue hem tape on 1 1/2 curtains and the other curtain was finished with hot pink blanket binding (pregnancy and math do not mix when you're standing in the notions department with a 2 year old and a 4 year old).

It turned out wonderful since the color of the wall paint we mixed up ended up matching the vines and leaves on the material.

I have three goals today. To write my paper on the effects of population density and noise, to do the dishes, and to finish the laundry. Tomorrow I want to start on the diaper bag since I'll be in the hospital during the baby shower I can always send the gift afterwards.

Ramblings...

I didn't paint today but then I'm exhausted and didn't have the energy. But I do love to paint. I love how easy it is to transform a room with a little bit of paint. The only thing that bugs me is the leftovers. There really is no safe way to get rid of paint. When I bought my first house, I wanted to redo the spare bedroom using blue. Blues must be calming to me because I'm drawn to them. However, I can never seem to find the right shade of blue, it's always too bright, too childish, or too brash. I had just finished remodeling my bathroom (HUGE HUGE accomplishment considering I'd never held a hammer before buying a house and I did 82% of it on my own!). But during the painting process of the bathroom, I had 6...yes 6...different colors on the wall. This was at midnight and I finally called my girlfriend and asked her to please come take the paintbrushes away.

So when I was planning on redoing the bedroom, I finally took all the already used paintcans and dumped them into a 5 gallon bucket and I ended up with the most beautiful shade of deep dark blue I've ever seen. So, in hoping to repeat the success, I rounded up all of our paintcans and dumped them together and ended up with a soft moss color. I still have a small can of blue that I used to paint the vanity when I redid the bathroom a couple months ago and I may end up dumping that in the can tomorrow morning and see what I come up with but right now the color is perfect. I also think I have some material in my stash that will match perfect so if everything works the way I want it to, the project will cost me nothing (although that's not counting what I spent initially).

As I've gotten older, my decorating tastes have become more subdued. I want calming, soft colors in place of the deep, bold colors I used when I was younger. Although that may have something to do with having kids and sometimes needing a soft and calming environment!

I am now exactly 14 days away from my scheduled C-Section. It seems like so far away but I'm sure the next two weeks will fly by. Although I'm still hoping this little one is the exact opposite of my first two and comes early with labor starting on its own, and I have a nice easy labor and a nice little baby. Daddy laughed at me and asked me if I'd been drinking juice that had been left in the refridgerator too long!  :)

Homemade Baby Receiving Blankets

I finished three receiving blankets this morning, well actually this afternoon.

I made all three blankets flannel on both sides because I hate tucking babies into flannel receiving blankets and seeing the odd-colored backside. Plus, we live in Wisconsin and it's cold in the winter! Daddy's favorite is of course the helicopters because...well...he's a helicopter mechanic. I love the machine embroidery on the two red backed ones. But oh man did the stars take FOREVER and use alot of thread.

I have two weeks left before my scheduled C-section and a couple more projects to finish. I'm saving the diaper bag until dad gets home from traveling because it involves having to think and with foggy pregnancy brain and the kids, that's something I haven't been doing a lot of this week.  Plus, for some reason I decided the living room needed to be painted and have new curtains so that's my project for tomorrow...yeah, I know, it's the hormones...

Boppi Pillow Cover

Finished another baby project this morning. It feels good to be getting items crossed off my to-do list! Our boppi pillow was looking a little tired looking so using all fabric from my stash, I made a new cover. Right now, it's supposed to close by overlapping the fabrics in the back but once I got it on, I think it may need a couple of snaps or some velcro to help it stay closed.

The fabric on the front is Dick and Jane fabric (I think from Michael Miller) and is a cotton woven. The fabric on the backside is minky leftover from Con's blanket.

A Sleepsack for baby

I've finally gotten around to do some sewing for the baby. Because, well, he'll be here in about 3 weeks. Awhile ago, I bought Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings books and fell in love with just about every project in there. There other night I made the Sleepsack using material I had on hand...some blue ooga booga and some plain white flannel for the inside. I also used snaps instead of velcro. Only because I love love love my snap press and hate picking lint out of velcro.

I loved how fast this went together. It was really a quick and simple project. I even made the bias tape with some cotton woven I had in my stash.

The only thing that confused me was putting the lining and outside pieces together. For some reason, I couldn't wrap my head around how to sew the fronts to the back at the shoulder seam and then still have the shoulder seams turned in. After cutting the front pieces twice and still not getting it, I left it with the shoulder seam being exposed on the lining piece (but I'll be the only one who ever notices it!).

I also added 4 inches to the length. The pattern dimensions are 22 inches and well, my last baby was 21 inches so we need the extra length.  :)

Now off to finish a couple more projects before the baby is born. For sure I need to finish a diaper bag because I sold our at a garage sale before we knew we were pregnant!

I was also able to finish a cover for the changing pad. When we were cleaning out the "new" toy room, we found the changing table pad in there but it no longer had the cover. I looked for a new cover on the internet and found one at Target for $19.99! $19.99!! For a piece of material 35" x 23" and some elastic!!! I made one today in under 15 minutes. I could have spent more time on it making the contours and cutting out the corners but this was so quick and easy. I had a fleece blanket from one of the other kids I had put into the diaper material bin that was 36"x24" and simply tacted down elastic around the outer edge.

But I think it will easily serve it's purpose of keeping baby from having to lie on the cold vinly during our chilly winter months!  :)