Donations To God's Tiny Angels March 2012

Here are my donations to God’s Tiny Angels this month.

We were concentrating on Easter blankets for the babies and I managed to make 6 quilts and crocheted one blanket so I feel pretty good about that.

I don’t usually get carried away with any “fancy” quilting on my quilts. My sewing machine is pretty basic and I never got a good handle on free motion quilting, so I just do my basic up and down the rows quilting. At least that way it does get quilted, they don’t take as much time, and I can make more quilts quicker to help more babies.

Remember back in July when I got all those really great fabric deals at Wal-Mart because they were clearing out a bunch of their fabric packs? I finally got a chance to use some of them. Here’s the link for that post if you didn’t get to read it.

Wal-Mart Fabric Score

This is one of the blanket kits that I got for $2.20. It measures 36” by 44”. It ended up smaller than that after quilting and trimming it but still a nice size newborn quilt.

 I’ve been watching Hobby Lobby’s ad every week and when ever they have a 40% off coupon I’ve been using it to go buy a quilt batting so it only cost me around $3.00. So I only have a little over $5.00 wrapped up in this  particular quilt. The first picture is the front and the second is the back.

This one is smaller and is a preemie size. I thought it would be really cute for Easter since it has the cute little bunnies and chicks on it. I was really happy to find some solid pastel teal fabric to match the main color of the front so that is what the back of it is and I just bound it with some of the same solid fabric.

This one is also a smaller preemie size. The colors on the first picture are closer to the real color of it. I realize there are flowers on the squares but I’m hoping since it’s predominately blues it will work for a boy as we don’t get as many items for the little guys.

This one is another preemie size. I was having a hard time getting good colors from my camera the day I took these pictures. The colors are more of a pastel and not so washed out looking as this shows, but you get the idea :)

The print squares are actually pretty little purple flowers.  Quite awhile ago I got this huge roll of the purple flower fabric at Goodwill for next to nothing. It’s about 5 inches wide and there are yards and yards of it, so I’m sure you will be seeing more quilts with the purple flowers in it in the future. There is so much of it that I’m thinking about ruffling a bunch of it to make a ruffled dress for my grand daughter.

The teddy bear quilt is also a preemie size and it’s made out of fabric that I got a really good deal on last May at Hancock Fabric. Here’s the link for that post if you want to read about that shopping trip. 

Hancock Fabric Deal

I had plenty of that fabric so I backed the quilt with the same teddy bear fabric and bound it with white to match the other squares.

I call this one my zig zag quilt. It’s made from fabric from the Wal-Mart shopping trip and has Looney tunes characters and Winnie The Pooh on it.  It turned out in between a preemie and newborn size but it should work for a smaller newborn. I used strips of the same fabric with white in between for the backing.  It turned out pretty cute but I doubt that I will be making this pattern again for the babies. It took a lot of piecing so it took a lot more time to put together before I could quilt it. I like how it turned out and I like the pattern but I feel I could have made 2 simpler quilts in the time it took me to make just this one.

I did get one preemie blanket crocheted. It’s made out of an ombre cotton yarn. Can’t for the life of me remember what brand it is.  I THINK it’s the I Love This Yarn cotton that you can get at Hobby Lobby but don’t quote me on that. I do know that it’s really super soft and really nice to work with.

On to other stuff!

Aren’t these little preemie sleepers just the cutest things? My daughter found these at T J Max a while back on clearance and only paid $1.00 each for them. If they would have had more she would have bought them all. Got her trained ! I thought wouldn’t these be neat if someone had triplet boys? So I made a different hat to go with each one. That way you could tell the babies apart. At least that was my thought when I was crocheting them.

On a somber note, unfortunately there is always a need for burial items for the wee angels and I try to make at least one set with every donation I make if I can. Again I was having trouble getting pictures with decent colors, but this is a soft pink and white gown and hat I made for a tiny angel. As I have said before, I don’t crochet all that fast so I didn’t make a blanket to go with the hat and gown, hoping the family can find a pretty blanket to go with it. It has to be difficult to find anything tiny enough when the need arises, so I’m hoping my little set will help ease the pain for at least one family.

On a lighter note, I always make sweaters so I’m just posting pics of all the ones I sent this time. They are made from an assortment of yarns, whatever I happen to pull out of my stash each time. I did manage to get 6 of them done, even with sewing the buttons on, which is my least favorite part of making sweaters. Otherwise I really like making sweaters because they work up fast. I tried to make more boy colors this time as we never seem to get enough for the boys. The blue and red one and the orange and white one were hard to get good pictures of but you get the idea.

And that’s my haul for this time.

Sewing For Miss P

Ever since I got a different sewing machine I've been on a sewing binge. What could be better than sewing for your wee grand daughter??
I've been haunting Pinterest looking for ideas and designs for clothing for Miss P. (Now there's a place to waste a WHOLE lot of time :)
It amazes me some of the ingenious ideas that people are able to come up with. I've been sewing for many a year but would never call myself a really good sewer, but I try.
I got a chance to go see Miss P last night so I took all my sewing goodies for her to try on before I make anything else. Want to make sure my measurements have been good and things fit.
I love the pillowcase dresses for little girls! I suppose that idea has been around for many a year but it's new to me. So simple and so easy.
I will state now please excuse my terrible pictures. I really need to invest in a newer digital camera. But for now with Photoshop I've enhanced my pictures the best I can.

Here is the first pillow case dress I made. Goodwill has been a great place to find pillowcases on the cheap. How can you pass them up for $1.38 each?
A lot of the pillowcase dresses I've been seeing on Pinterest have ribbon for the ties. My thoughts about that was maybe the ribbon would fray easier than material and it probably doesn't hold up all that well for repeated washing and wearing. So I decided most of mine I am making my ties out of the same material as the pillowcase. I made this dress on the longer side with it hitting her about mid calf. Also made longer ties. My thought is it fits her good now as she is only 2 1/2 years old but it should grow right along with her and maybe she will get more than one season out of it.

Here is another pillowcase dress I made her, but I changed it up a bit. Isn't the ruffle on the bottom cute? It came that way, what a time saver!

Instead of doing the tie straps I made a casing on the top and put elastic in it. Then I made little ruffly sleeves for it.

She really liked this one and wanted to try it on over and over.

The material on this one is a light weight flannel and is really soft.

This is my frog dress that I made her. She really really liked the frogs :) It is made along the same lines as a pillowcase dress with an elastic casing on the top and just straight straps. I was afraid the straps would be too short after I made it. When she tried it on for me, it hits her just under the armpits so it probably won't last her as long as the other dresses. Live and learn, but it does fit her. The length makes it either a long top or a short dress.

I think this is going to end up a favorite of hers. It's what we are calling her twirl dress. She loves to spin around and around as fast as she can, so this should fit the bill for her. 

Remember all the great fabric deals I got at Wal-Mart last July? If not click HERE to read about it. 

This dress is made from some of the fabric I got from that shopping expedition.

I changed this one up a bit too. The top is an elastic casing and it fits up under her arms. Then I added a little bib type piece on the front with ties so it fits like a halter top would. My thought on that idea was as she gets bigger or it gets cooler, she can wear a white top under it and wear it like a jumper.

I procrastinated making this dress for awhile because there is a lot of gathering on the three tiers. The bottom one is 90 inches around. I've never had much luck where you sew a long basting stitch on your sewing machine and then put the thread to gather it up. Never fails, the thread breaks on me.

Then I found this awesome link on Pinterest that shows you a super cool way to easily gather your material. Read about it HERE . What you do is lay crochet thread (it's more like a light weight string) on your material then sew a wide zigzag stitch over the thread. Then you pull the crochet thread to gather up your material. After you pin everything up, just pull out the crochet thread. Ingenious!

I tried that for the first time on this dress, and I have to say it made gathering so......much........easier!!

Gosh, sure wish I had know about this years ago! Love it.

Made some other clothes for her too but didn't get pictures taken before giving them to her. Maybe later on I will get pictures of her wearing some of the stuff.

Look who had to help while I was sewing! Baby decided she needed to do acrobatics on the leg to my card table while I was trying to cut out material. She kept wobbling the table enough that I finally had to shoo her away before I ended up cutting something all wonky.

That's it for today, need to sew some more :)

Great Fabric Score And A New Pattern

I've been in a sewing mode lately and have been trying to make clothing for my 2 year old grand daughter.
While out running errands today I stopped at Hobby Lobby so I could pick up some more elastic.
I had a coupon for 40% off  one regular priced item. I couldn't let it go to waste, right? So I broke down and bought a new sewing pattern. This is what I got. But oh my goodness, I obviously haven't bought any patterns for quite sometime because I about choked when I saw how expensive they are anymore!
$11.95 for a pattern for a 2 year old, and an easy sew one at that. All I can say is wow.
I've been haunting Pinterest for blogs with free patterns and have had quite a bit of good luck there, but I was still hankering for a commercial pattern so I could be sure I was getting a fairly accurate sizing.
Even after my discount I still paid $7.19 (plus tax). BUT, I did get patterns for a dress, a top, shorts and pants so all in all I guess the pricing wasn't all that bad, especially after the discount. And it does include sizes 1/2 to size 4.
The tissue paper the patterns are on nowadays are recycled paper and it sure is flimsy.
So here is what I decided to do.

I'm tracing all of the pattern pieces onto heavier paper. That way I can trace the size I need now (which is a size 2 for the top and dress and size 3 for pants and shorts). Then as Miss P grows, I can trace them again in the bigger sizes and I haven't cut up my original pattern pieces!

So, this pattern should last for quite awhile and believe me, I will really get my money out of it. Sure, it takes extra time to do this, but it will really save me money and time in the long run.

The paper I'm using is actually from a roll of exam table paper that I had. It's just thin enough to see the pattern piece through it but sturdy enough that I should be able to cut from it more than once.

I cut all the pattern pieces apart and took just the ones I want to use first to trace. I taped the pattern piece to my card table then I taped the exam table paper on top of that. By taping them down they didn't slide around on me as I was tracing.

I used a fine point marker to trace just the size I need for now, which in this case was the size 3 for the shorts.

Now the fun part will begin when I get to cut out the fabric and sew!



Now here is the other great part of my day.
I decided to make a pit stop at our local Goodwill to see what might jump out at me and say BUY ME!
I really lucked out!

I got all of this fabric for the grand amount of.............
$2.38!!!!!!!
Can you believe it? I sure couldn't. Now granted I might not use the second one from the right, don't know yet, still thinking on that one. BUT all the rest of it is looking more and more like becoming some cute clothing for Miss P. There was a total of 8 1/4 yards which comes out to just under 29 cents a yard, woohoo!

Here is a close up of the sage green and sage green stripe material. There is 1 1/2 yards of the solid and 2 yards of the stripe. I'm thinking the solid for some shorts and the stripe for a top with material left over. They both feel like a polyester/cotton blend.

The navy blue with white dot material is 4 yards and feels like a seer sucker type of material to me. Maybe a dress?

The flowery one on the right is a black background with multi colored flowers and is more of a knit type of material. There is 1 3/4 yards of that. Might be kinda dark for a 2 year old, but maybe if I did one of those cute dresses I've been seeing on Pinterest where you use a tank top shortened up and add layers of ruffles to the bottom to make a top or a dress it would be ok. Then it wouldn't be the prime material.
There is 3 yards of the second one from the right. Not overly fond of it. Maybe it will grow on me and I will think of something to make out of it, but don't really think I like it for Miss P.
So, there are all my goodies on my jaunt out today.

Cats, Snow, and Good Neighbors

The other day we got some really heavy wet snow. I have a hard time shoveling anymore and my hubby had just got home the night before from being in the hospital for 5 days. He had to have emergency small bowel surgery and an appendectomy. So he sure wasn't in any shape to be shoveling.
But....we have the best neighbors ever! I was only able to get a picture of one of them but here is a HUGE shout out to our neighbors that live on each side of us. Here's to Bill G. who always comes along and shovels our walk, and to Ernie F. who snow blows whenever we get more than a bit of snow.

Here's Ernie being the good guy that he is and snow blowing our driveway.
Just sorry I didn't get Bill's picture too. He is usually out and about really early and was all done before I got a chance to take his picture.
Many of us in the neighborhood are retired, and we all try to help each other out when we can.
We try to keep these guys and their families supplied with deer meat and catfish as out way of saying thanks for all their help. Guess we are all bartering in our own way hey?

Here's Baby (on the left) and Rocky (on the right) doing what they do best whenever we get a good snow. It's pretty unusual to see the two of them sleeping this close to each other and I just couldn't resist the picture. They were both passed out pretty good on the love seat because neither one of them even cracked open an eye when the flash went off.

That's my post for this weekend. More to come later in the week.

'Bout Time Huh?

Sorry I have been absent for so long.
Blogging just hasn't been anywhere near the top of my list lately.
A lot of days I just haven't had the energy to do much of anything. Period.

Many of you know I have diabetes and it's just been kicking me in the butt a lot. Too many really low low's with my blood sugars and too many highs on the rebound.
Some days it seems like no matter what I eat the blood sugars just do whatever they darn well please with no rhyme or reason. And some days the meds work great and other days not worth a darn. If you have diabetes, I KNOW you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm working with my Dr. trying to get a handle on things, but it sure seems like my body has a mind separate from my brain at times.

Plus any of you have allergies? This weird mild winter we have been having sure has kicked them into high gear too. How can one body produce so darn much snot?? The allergies sure contribute to being super tired all the time too.

On a positive note, I have continued to crochet and quilt as much as I can for the needy babies. I have quite a few projects done, just need to get up the gumption to take pictures and post about them. And get them washed and bagged so I can send them off to Danette at God's Tiny Angels. Will try to get that done this week as I am due for a donation.

For my finale today here are a few pics from Christmas.

Peyton loves her hats and here she is wearing her cowboy hat for us as we are getting ready to leave.

She snagged Grandpa's hat and put it on (she's such a ham).

This is my stepson Shannon's family around their Christmas tree after we all got comfy and had our tummies full.  Shannon, then his son Chase, his special lady Melissa with her son Tanner next to her, and Shannon's younger son Landon sitting in front.

 

I will work harder at posting more often, even if it's only one picture and a bit of news. It will take me awhile to get caught up, but thanks for hanging in there and staying with me.
Hugs to all,
Susie

GTA Christmas Donations November 2011

I don’t crochet as fast as many people, especially with the carpal tunnel and a pinched ulna nerve, but I do what I can as I truly enjoy making items for the babies.

 

 

 

 

Here are the little Christmas hats I made. I tried something different for the pompoms on top. I am TERRIBLE at making yarn pompoms. So......remember when I was making Peyton’s Elmo hat? I had a light bulb moment when I was making the eyes and nose for it. I decided to use the pattern from those to make stuffed pompoms for the baby hats! For me, making them that way took a lot less time and I wasted a whole lot less yarn. When ever I try to make them where you wrap yarn around cardboard and trim it up.....I kept trimming and trimming and never was satisfied. By the time I would get them done, they were pretty stinking puny. So, I tried the stuffed eyeballs route this time and I think they turned out pretty good. At least I am satisfied with how they look.

  Here’s my first little blanket. I got this really pretty yarn at Goodwill! The red and green are made by Caron and they are called Victorian Christmas Gold. I suppose the gold is because of the metallic thread in it. The green is called balsam. Not sure about the red because it didn’t have a label. I’m not sure if they make either one of these anymore.

 

My picture didn’t turn out very good, but this diaper shirt is made from the green that I used on the blanket above.

 

 

 

This blanket is just a rectangular granny square.

 

 

 

This is just half red and half white. I made the border using a strand of each color. Just pretty basic but kinda cute.

 

 

My cat picture this time for this post is Rocky again. He just seems to like getting his picture taken more so than Baby. He was sprawled out on the love seat, getting his afternoon nap in. He was out, big time. He didn’t even flinch when the flash went off.

Sure looking pretty chunky in this picture. I obviously don’t feed him, ha ha.

That’s it for this time. Take care all.

Halloween

Just a quick post about Halloween (I know, it was almost a week ago). Story of my life, a day late and a dollar short :)

Here's a picture of Peyton wearing her Elmo hat I made her while going trick or treating. For just turning two, she got the trick or treating thing down pretty good. She figured out real fast that you say "trick or treat" when someone answered the door, and "thank you" after she got her candy.
Her mom and dad, and Grandpa and I took her out in our neighborhood, and of course Grandma puffed up like the proud grandma I am every time someone oohed and awed about how cute she looked.
I see now that I should have done the face a bit different on the hat. If I ever make another one, I will move all of the face pieces farther down on the hat, and put the eyes closer together. It didn't turn out bad though for the first time ever making something like this and winging it on the face.
Just had to share the picture of the little sweetheart.

Peyton’s Second Birthday

Now that the birthday party is over I can post pictures!

Peyton is very into Elmo right now, so for her second birthday I crocheted her an Elmo doll. I got the pattern here at The Craft Frog: Elmo Pattern . I changed the mouth just a bit from her pattern but otherwise did everything else the same. This picture is of him outside and the second one is in the house which is actually more the color he is.

Then, using the eyes and nose from the same pattern, I made an ear flap Elmo hat for her and a matching scarf.

The rest of the pictures are from her birthday party today.

A good friend of the family works as a pastry chef and cake decorator. She made this awesome Elmo cake for Peyton. Great job Lacey!

Checking out her cake.

  

 

 

 

 

Getting ready to blow out the candles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blowing out the candles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See my cake? :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cake pops aren’t bad either!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t know where they got it, but they even had an Elmo piñata.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peyton had fun smacking Elmo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She was even laughing at him after smacking him :)

He was made pretty tough and it finally took some of the adults to pull him apart before the kids could gather up the candy.

Here are pictures of her opening up the box with Elmo and her hat.

I took some other pics at the party too, but these are the ones that are important to me.