Book Sling

The rooms in our house aren't as spacious as I sometimes wish the were so there's a need for creative uses of space. My son was going to need a place for his books and I wasn't seeing a lot of room for your standard options.

We just keep the books in my daughters room on top of her closet.

With the top and inside of his closet spoken for early on I was going to need to get creative.

I'd seen book slings on Pinterest and with a bare spot on one of his walls beckoning to me I felt the solution to my problem-to-be was obvious.

Because I had a woodland/farm type theme in his room I really wanted to keep to that. I found a gnome fabric I loved but at $38 before shipping for 2 yards I just couldn't swing it.

I stumbled upon this fabric at Outback Toys and it seemed perfect . . . until I kept searching the site and saw this

a brown haired boy like my brown haired boy? Yes please!

I ordered 2 yards but they only had one and were no longer going to be carrying that fabric. I ended up with the original fabric I'd found and liked on the site. That's the kind of "lose" I can handle.

During the first two weeks of my recovery from my C-section I had helpers staying with me. So during week two I went to Lowes with my husband to buy the hardware I would need to make this.

We had to ask where we could find the dowels.

I didn't see any dowels that I thought were thick or long enough so having seen pins where people used curtain rods we went to that aisle.

To make the sling I folded the fabric with the right sides together and sewed along the long side that wasn't connected. Then I sewed the entire way along one of short sides and a portion of the way of the remaining  short side making sure to leave a hole large enough for me to pull everything through.

Once you've pulled the entire piece through the hole and have the right side now on the outside, fold over the little bit that isn't yet sewn and top stitch all the way around.

Now you're ready to add the "pockets" to fit the curtain rods into. I took the curtain rod and folded over a piece of the fabric large enough to leave just a bit of extra space. Sew this into place all the way down one long side.

Set  this all aside for a moment.

Unwrap the curtain rods - ours had shrunk wrapped plastic on them.

Fix the curtain brackets onto the wall.

Slip your sling onto the curtain rods.

Place your curtain rods into the double brackets you've mounted onto the wall.

Et voila - you have yourself a hanging bookshelf and the same amount of floor space you had before. Or, you will - right now we don't because we're having bracket issues. The rods won't/aren't fitting the brackets we bought for them.

Now where is that receipt? . . . .

Must Dash Quilt

Nearing the end of my second trimester and entirely through my third trimester of my pregnancy I became worried and obsessed with finishing my sons nursery before my due date. This was something I didn't manage to accomplish to my satisfaction.

My pal Sweety Darlin remarked at one point that my son would never notice, know, or care that his nursery was finished. Right as she was, I remained a woman possessed. Now that he's here I've calmed way down and very few of the unfinished nursery items bother me.

Two weeks into happily co-sleeping with our newest addition I realized that I actually had months until it mattered how finished it was.

Once his umbilical cord came off I was happy that now tummy time could begin. I'd already seen this quilt on Pinterest but now I had that "my-son-must-have-this" feeling. So I set to work.

I had my husband print out the template from the source post and bring it home.

Began digging through my fabric to see what I thought might best suit this project.

Hit up WalMart and checked their fat quarters, took a picture of the ones I was considering, texting them to a friend and asking her opinion.

Going to JoAnns after I was once again unable to get someone to help me at the WalMart fabric counter. Get more fabric. Take pictures. Load them to instagram.

I had my husband cut fat quarters off of the half-yards I'd bought at JoAnns.

Then I cut the 10" blocks off as instructed.

Create a mustache template using some leftover cardboard. Cut myself with my rotary cutter. Bleed on the paper print out. Post the whole shenanigan to Instagram. Soldier on like a boss.

Cut the mustaches.

Cut out some mustache shaped fusible webbing. This I didn't do as well as I'd hoped so I ended up fusing the webbing to the mustache and then cutting off the excess.

No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the mustaches with the fusible webbing on the backs to fuse to my blocks.

I was able to cut all my template, the mustaches, the webbing, and sew the mustaches onto the blocks all in the same day.

Now to begin laying out blocks and figure out the most appealing configuration for the blocks.

Sew them together.

I chose to get more of this adorable mustache fabric from JoAnns to use on the back of the quilt. I hope to have this finished soon.

Meanwhile I'll still making other quilt tops.

Drawer Liners

Despite how much I was able to accomplish via Craigslist in preparation for our son there was still so much we needed and we didn't have the money to buy much of anything.

While lamenting to my mother-in-law about having the worst time finding a desirably dresser for the baby as well as my husband she mentioned she had a dresser out in one of her sheds. Free is pretty much always the right price so my husband and I went out and looked at it.

Getting the dresser to our house from my in-laws house was a minor battle but finally, the dresser was here.

It had a little mold inside the drawers from being exposed to the moisture outside. At her suggestion we sprayed the drawers with some watered down bleach to clean then and then left them to sit and dry.

Adding something to the drawer to protect from any possible yuckies leftover was something I felt compelled to do.

First, I pulled out a bit of wrapping paper I had. This was some limited edition, retro printed wrapping paper I had to order from England. I bought rolls of it around a decade ago. You really don't get very much paper in a roll, just a couple of sheets. I sat the sheets out with some items to weight the edges before I began.

Then, I did my best to measure the inside of the drawer.

I carefully cut the wrapping paper on my cutting mat using my rotary cutter and a ruler.

Before you get down to any gluing set the piece you've cut inside the drawer to make sure it fits.

Using some cheap brushes

I brushed a coat of Modge Podge (yes you can make your own but at 9 months pregnant and already making so many things I needed a break) over the area I intended to paper.

Now carefully set your wrapping paper down over the "modge podged" area. I thought that pressing out wrinkles and air would be easy but it wasn't. Once it begins sticking it's not really easy to press out. You're better off just carefully pulling up what you can and attempting to lay it back down.

Like I said there really isn't a lot of this wrapping paper so after I did the bottom of the drawer I only had enough left to do the back or front of the drawer. I figured when you pull out a drawer you rarely see the front I'd do the back.

I still kind of wanted something to be done to the sides as well.

I was really going to need more wrapping paper and something that would allow me to be able to continue lining this drawer with the same paper I preferred to use.

The wrapping paper was buried in our cavernous shed. I did my best to look one day but got nowhere. Then I sent my husband in to look where I thought it might be, I have no idea how far he got but he didn't come back with any wrapping paper. A few days later, feeling full of determination I decided to dig as far as I could handle despite the freezing weather, my being dressed inappropriately for said weather, and being 9 months pregnant. The wrapping paper ended up being on the opposite side of the shed than I remember it initially being put in, but it was, of course, all the way in the back. I cleared a pathway that usually I would be able to fit into to get to the paper but wasn't able to get in. I tried using a shovel to knock down the paper and bring it closer - this too failed. Finally, I went next door and borrowed my neighbors slender daughter and she was kind enough to get it out for me and put it into my house while I put things back into the shed.

I was back at work within the half hour.

Finished measuring, cutting, and modge podging your paper into drawers and allow them a fair amount of time to properly dry.

Here's what it all looked like when I had only one drawer left to line.

Once everything has been lined you're ready to add the contact paper to help protect the paper from ware and tear.

Then you're free to just go fill up those dresser drawers! 

Turning A Fail Into A Win

My friend Trina is one of the ones vaguely mentioned from the Pregnant Lunch post. She too is a crafter, and she made some really amazing wonder bumpers.

With less than 30 days left until my due date I decided to try my hand at another version of them. I thought I could just make a semi-no sew.

I drew out a plan.

Picked out my fabrics.

Cut some strips.

And made two different test bumpers. The first of which failed miserably (and I realized I didn't have enough of my second fabric to make it reversible so I had to buy more) and the second

I was pretty unhappy with.

Which didn't leave me 100% thrilled I now had seven and a half yards on this fabric.

It needed more padding

and I didn't feel confident about all those ties on the back staying put.

Having seen this pin about a jelly roll strip quilt and kind of wanting to make one I decided to turn a lot of these strips into something more useful.

I took some of the smaller pieces and cut them into even smaller strips and began arranging them to see how this might work out.

Once I finally had a test swatch I was happy (well as happy as I was going to be) with I got to work on a larger scale.

I laid down my first set of strips

and then started weaving pieces in and out of them.

This whole situation took tons and tons, and tons of pinning. If you follow me on Instagram, Twitter, or on my Facebook Fan Page - you may remember seeing pictures of me having to repin

. . . and repin.

I tend to pin pretty meticulously so the fact that this needed to be done at least three times was a particular annoyance.

 Eventually I got everything sewn together.

I used a set of decorative stitches for everything I sewed vertically

and another for everything that was horizontal.

Here's what a block generally looks like.

With all the other things I still had to / planned to sew - I asked my husbands grandmother to quilt the rest of it for me once I had the top finished.

Woodland Rug

When I saw this rug on Pintrest,

I knew I had to make one for my little boy. In fact, it may be the reason I decided to go with a woodland theme.

This was truly a labor of love and not a super fast sew, particularly not with all the other things I regularly have going on.

Once I'd had my husband print out my templates for the animals and purchased fabrics I was just about ready to begin. Pay attention to the dimensions recommended. The listed dimensions are for a smaller rug and I'd wanted a larger one.

I carefully cut out two pieces of every animal I was going to need.

The reason for this was that I planned to put the second piece over embellished pieces, top stitch around it, cut the center of the top piece, and flip it back around to the back. The purpose of this was to leave me with neater, less raw looking edges.

 What you see in the above picture is fabric cut for a smaller sized rug. It's how I realized I needed a new piece to use for the back.

Another trip to JoAnns was in order.

I had a yard of black fabric that I was planning on using as my stabilizing piece to sew everything to.

Because I had accidentally purchased enough "sky" for a small rug instead of the size I really wanted I had two, instead of one piece of fabric. I pinned the two pieces of sky blue fabric to the black and just planned to place a tree over the offending open space.

Pin a layer of green at the base of your sky and sew it down as well.

Begin adding a layer of trees and then add another layer of grass. I only cut one slice of grass instead of two and just zig-zag stitched closely to the edges.

I wanted my rug to be as close to the original as possible so I did my best to place things where they looked like they went on the original. Sewing down the bunny felt like a really nice change after making so many trees.

I couldn't wait to add the fox, he must be my favorite element.

With the last layer of grass also came the beginnings of the tree with the owl in it.

I really liked how the original poster added initials to one of the trees so I did the same. Hers looks far better than mine though. This was really only my first attempt at lowering my feed dogs and "drawing" something onto fabric.

Finally to add the hedgehog.

Then I went back in and added more details like the deer and an eye on the bunny.

I cut off the edges that weren't really going to be needed, laid out the rug on top of the headliner fabric I would be using on the back, and then cut the general outline of the rug.

Once your headliner and bias tape are sewn you're in business!

I'm happy to have managed to have gotten this finished just in the nick of time! The rug is now happily sitting in the floor of a nursery I still don't consider finished quite yet.

For the pin that inspired this all and the info on how to make this.