Briana Buholm's Baby Projects

I admit it.  I love sewing baby things.  And so far I haven't had a lot of excuses to make little girl things.  But, I did recently.  I have also found that sewing really de-stresses me, which I have needed quite a bit this school year - not because of the kids, but because of the other things going on related to school. I completely disengage from my worries when I sew and focus just on what I'm doing - which is so helpful sometimes.  So, not only did I get to unwind a bit, but I got to finally sew some of the adorable girly things that I've been wanting to sew.  So, here's what I've been up to sewing for the yet unnamed Baby Buholm.

 First project is a little baby cotton kimono.  I had this fabric left over from a skirt I had made and already had the green binding.  It has a tie on one side, and a button on the inside to secure it.

 The second project is a flannel lined sleep sack.  It velcros along the side so you can easily put the baby inside for a nap.  This project actually was the second version.  I had made a mistake with the first one using the wrong marking pen (and then mistakenly sett the ink by ironing it) so I had to scrap the first version, but, I had the right fabric in my stash to make another one (and I actually like this one a bit better).  But again, I didn't have to buy anything to do this project.

Project three actually required that I go out and get fabric as my flannel stash is mostly little bits of fabric, nothing big enough to make a receiving blanket out of.   But, it did give me a chance to peruse the lovely flannel section at Pacific Fabrics.  The first one (far right) is a bright pink with little white lambs (and a few black ones) with flowers.  Then pink daisys (this one is sooo soft), then there is a cream background with little hats, dresses shoes and purses on it - so very girly.  And the last one I picked out because I had seen pictures of the baby room and it was pink with green accents - so I picked out this flannel because of it's green background and pink flowers.

This project is a pair of baby Mary Jane shoes with pink flowers  on the toes made out of felt with pink ribbon ties and pink embroidery details.  I stuffed the shoes with a bit of pink lace that I had around just so they could hold their form.  Perhaps not so practical for walking outside, but, really, how many baby shoes actually are used for walking?

Then there are the obligatory burp clothes.   These are a bit different from the ones I have made in the past.  This time I used prefolded cloth diapers as the main part.  Then I used flannel scraps to make them girly down the middle (just serging the edges to avoid raveling).  Finally, I used grosgrain ribbon that I had to  add embellishment and an extra little pop.  Flannel fabric used featured fashion accessories, polka dots and flowers. 

The last project, is actually the first one I created.  Every baby needs a special quilt made JUST for them.  I know Briana loves pink, and since she is having a girl I thought that would be a good starting point - something girly and pink.  So I thought and I thought and I thought.  And I looked at books and ideas, because I didn't want to do the same style I have used in the past.  For whatever reason, maybe because I knew Briana was going to basically be raising this baby on her own while dad is up in Alaska, or something else I wanted to do something special.  I decided on this modified 9 square quilt.  I ended up finding a charm pack that I really liked (pre-cut squares all from the same collection so they all go together).  The charm pack used a lot of pink, and I wanted the pink to pop so I decided to do the background, binding and accent color in gray.  Now, I didn't quite realize how hard it was to match grays.  Thankfully, the ladies at Keepsake Fabrics in Country Village were super helpful and they probably pulled every single plain gray and print gray fabric in the store so we could match the right color.  I do love that store - they are incredibly wonderful to their customers and know so much about fabric.  I decided on super soft bright pink minky for the backing as the front was more subdued and retro feeling.  My dear friend and co-worker Ruth did the actual quilting of the front to the backing in this lovely thread that changes from gray to shades of pink (I can't remember the name of the kind of thread at the moment).  

So those were the projects.  At least the ones that I had ready for the shower.  I figured though, that I needed some sort of indication that these were made by me.  So after some searching and creative thinking, I created my own labels.  I used a picture of a Newfoundland (because of Solomon the dog) and found the perfect font for my name.  I basically printed these mirror image on the special paper that you iron onto fabric.  I ironed them onto ivory satin ribbon that I had, melted the edges so they wouldn't fray and then sewed them onto the already finished projects.  I wouldn't do that again - the sewing the labels on after they are finished.  Next time I'll incorporate them into the actual sewing of the garment.

There is one more project to do, and this is one I couldn't do before the shower because it is a baby shower quilt.  I cut out squares of the cream fabric for guests to decorate for the baby at the shower.  The other fabric will be the binding, border and contrasting squares (going for a simple checkerboard pattern).  I'll probably go with fleece for the backing. but I haven't picked it out yet, I'll wait until the top is done.