Diaper & Wipes Case

This is the second part of the baby shower gift! I decided that when you are taking diapers and wipes with you everywhere, it might be handy to have a little carrier for them. I used two fat quarters for this project and got to use my automatic buttonhole thingy on my machine for the first time! It worked perfectly (that never happens to me)! So, I know this doesn't match the dress, but I didn't really care at this point, I just wanted to use fun fabric. So, here is Elise's wipes case. I used the tutorial from Feed the Dogs and it worked beautifully!
~Rachel

 

 

 

 

 

Baby Dress

There are many of you out there who may be feeling like EVERY SINGLE lady you know is pregnant. I'm feeling that way at the moment, so I decided to brush up on my kid sewing and make a few things for the first baby shower I was invited to attend. The first thing that I decided I was going to make was this dress. You get to make your own piping and tie little knots at the shoulders AND I had to add buttons. Couldn't help myself. I found the Itty Bitty Baby Dress Pattern. It was on the Made By Rae site and there was another version of it here. Read through both versions before you start, it'll help! You just print the top and get to work! Here is what happened when I made it, enjoy!
~Rachel

Aqua and Red Baby Afghan

Hello Everyone!!

I hope everyone is starting off their week on the right foot!! I have started a couple new baby afghans one of which I will be sharing today!! You would think I would just pick one project and finish it but you probably know by now that I can't ever just have one project brewing!! In my defense, I ran out of yarn for my watermelon afghan so I just decided to start on another!! I had been planning on making a blanket for a sweet lady I go to church with and thought I had more time. I was pleasantly surprised to see her and her brand new baby at church Sunday!! I decided to kick it into gear and start working on a blanket for her new little man!! This blanket is another fun and colorful one in Aqua Gray and Red. I hope that you enjoy it!!

If you follow Little Bits of Everything on Facebook then you already know what I got in the mail this weekend! I received some Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint products. I am going to try them out on the  hoard of furniture that is hanging out in my garage!! I have a couple pieces I have been hired to work on and I sent my wonderful husband out with my Father-In-Law this weekend to pick up a trailer load of pieces that I will be selling! Keep your eyes peeled for those!

I have mentioned before how much I love Craigslist and this weekend just confirmed it! The picture posted online of the furniture I bought was pretty crummy so I was crossing my fingers that it would be better than the picture showed and not worse! I was so happy when I finally got to see in in person! It has some incredible detail and is beautiful solid wood! You really cant ask for more! I picked up 4 colors form Miss Mustard Seeds Milk paint including Ironstone, Grainsack, Linen, and Shutter Gray. I have lots of pieces to try out all these new products on and will post them as they are completed! Be sure to follow our Facebook page if you would like a sneak peeks of projects we are working on!

For those who are interested the pattern I used for this crochet blanket is called the Larks foot. I mentioned it in my Pinned It Friday post last week and featured a blanket by a fellow blogger done in this same pattern. If you didn't see it go check it out it is beautiful! It is a very simple pattern and is entirely made up of double crochet and chain stitches! No funky twists or turns very simple and straight forward! I would definitely recommend this to someone who has a little crochet experience and has been wanting to make a baby afghan. Enjoy and talk to you all soon!

-Haley

Finished Baby Afghan and Some Antique Store Treausures

Hello there! Welcome to Thursday my friends! I always feel so awkward starting my greeting for each blog post.. I mean I don't even know who is really reading this! and it seems so weird to be saying hello to an open void... but I like to pretend that I have friends and that some of them even read this silly little blog and that perhaps you even enjoy it! So ignore my awkwardness and I hope when you read my greetings you know that I truly mean it!!

This week I planned to sew my heart out! But I never even plugged the dang thing in!! Instead I went crazy and decided I needed a sign for every nook and cranny of my house! I am always so inspired by all the amazing signs other bloggers create! I think the right sign can totally change a space and add that special touch to a room! Don't you think?? So I made up a few designs of my own and copied one from an Etsy Shop I will go ahead and confess which one. BetweenYouAndMeSigns. Go ahead and look at all their AMAZING signs. And please try not to drool, I know its hard. Amazing right?!! Ok so I don't have $125 dollars to shell out on a sign so I decided to use this shop as the inspiration for one of my signs. So when I say I designed some signs this week, what I really mean is I stole an idea and I am not even going to lie about it!! OK glad I got that off my chest! I am not going to tell you which sign I choose, I will just let you guess, until I can get it hung up and photographed you will just have to wait! I did however get it all finished up and I have a couple more signs ready to go! Thanks again to my amazing Sister in law for taking all of my orders and helping me fulfill my desire to create signs.. LOTS of them!

Today I am however going to show you some lovely blue jars that I found while visiting Rachel. Rachel was ever so kind to take me to her local antique store while I was there I found these amazing jars! and at a great price! I also got a few more white ceramic plates to feed the monster inside me who cannot have enough white ceramic junk. and I got some weird but pretty cool wood lace hangy things.. I don't even know what to call them. I also have no idea what to do with them or where they will end up. But they were cool and I took them home.

I also have some pictures of the baby afghan! In all its chunky crochet beauty!! I just love this little guy and I cant wait to make some more!

 

A Turtle Quilt

Okay, my husband and I went and watched Iron Man 3 on Saturday night and it was the bomb! So I'm definitely recommending it (if you like that sort of thing). It was a nice day in Yuma, probably one of the last actually, so we went to a church function in the West Wetlands for a carne asada dinner and some good chatting. Then we left and saw two different families from the dinner at Iron Man... Great minds?!
Last week was a little challenging for me, project wise. I finally bought a real quilt frame and OH MY GOSH, it's huge! Like, I can barely get into my bathroom from my bedroom huge. We put it in the master bedroom because it's the only spot big enough! I can't wait till we move so I can set up a new sewing area and NOT have a quilter in my room! Would you like to know what projects I have going? I have a half painted desk, an unfinished appliqué quilt, an unquilted pinwheel quilt, a mis-cut new quilt (I still haven't figured out what I did wrong), a graduation present quilt with WAY too many pieces, and a baby quilt in pieces on my sewing room floor. This week I also got a custom order for a quilt, pillow, and curtains for a boys room! I love it when people want me to make them things! I'll be describing all of the projects in detail as they get finished, but right now it seems like I have too many "irons in the fire!" This post will get one of my projects into the "finished" category, so I'll stop complaining!
As some of you may notice, I really like fabric. That may be an understatement, so on with my post! I pick up this waytoocute Aneela Hoey fabric on the way home from my Disneyland trip a bit ago. It's from the Little Apples line and is printed with little adorable turtles, snails, apples, and weeds. I love that the print is small and that you get to see lots of those guys! I decided that I couldn't be so heartless and chop it up for blocks, so I used it for backing and decided on a plain chevron design for the front. This little guy was quilted on my Bernette and I made the binding and hand-stitched it on. Lastly, i made a turtley label for the front with my Etsy quilt shop's name, Ellita. Check it out here and feel free to buy it ;) I hope everyone is having a good Monday!
~Rachel


Piecing the top

Getting closer!

I finally managed a "stained glass window" picture!

Quilting....

Adding the binding

 

Finished back

 

Finished front

 

My Ellita tag

 

Chevron quilting

 

Too many pictures?

 

Ok, I'm done now!

 

 

 

 

I hope you all enjoy this turtley cuteness as much as I have!

Baby Posey Quilt

Hello all! Recently I was at my LQS (local quilting store) and happened upon charm packs of Aneela Hoey's Posey line of fabrics. Now, there are usually not many designer fabrics around Yuma, so I snatched three packs of these lovlies! I had my eye on this cute fabric since I saw this post introducing it on Aneela's blog. Anyway, I only used one set of the squares for this little quilt and for some reason, I couldn't bear to cut them, so I opted to find a cute layout that was plain squares. Sometimes less is more, yes? With the other two packs, I promise that I'll do something a little more bold! However, I'm happy with this tiny and sweet little baby quilt that I don't know who is going to get yet. Sometimes I like to make them really small so that they don't overpower the tiny baby that they are for! I decided to use a purple chevron flannel on the back to make it super soft (and to incorporate chevrons!!) and then quilted it in a basic way. Maybe one day some cute chunky kid will get to enjoy it! Until then, it's going to hang out in my completed projects area :) I also found some other great projects that others have done with this fabric! Amy from made During Quiet Time made this ridiculously cute table topper. I love dresden plates and this fabric, so it's a win-win. This dress is by Sarah Lou, and is on flickr. Don't you love how sweet it is? Then, there is a tumbler quilt by Fairy Face Designs that is extremely cute as well. I just love this fabric (and I love that I can see how others use it too)!
~Rachel

Amy's Table Topper

Sarah Lou's dress

Fairy Face Designs Quilt

So, those are the other people's Posey projects that I really like! Go check out thier pictures and other projects too! Now I shall find my own pictures and add my own little bit of Posy to the world :)

 

 

A Surprise for Me + Baby Quilt Sneak Peaks

This week I am determined to do these two little baby quilts and get them up and online. These are a couple of shots of the works in progress that are hanging around my sewing area. I love to use half square triangles and then watch a movie while I iron them! I finally had to break down and get a new ironing board cover, mine was so old and toasted that it was nearly useless. So this new silver one is lovely and fluffy in comparison and my iron and I can be friends again. I thought I had killed my 3rd iron last week, but it only turned out that I was plugging in some paper lanterns and NOT the iron. Don't judge me, they both had white cords :) Linwood and I spent the weekend in Tucson and I got to see my lovely neices and nephews as well as in-laws and Haley! She gave me the most amazing birthday present! When we bought the Quilting: From the Little Things by Sarah Feilke, we both loved the cover quilt. I started making a quilt for Haley (still not finished) and she made a quilt for me! I didn't have any idea whatsoever that this gorgeous quilt would one day be mine, and it means that much more because she made it! I was even with her when she picked out the fabric and we dubbed it the "nightmare quilt" because the instructions weren't perfect and there were so many tiny pieces that it has taken a long time to do. I'll share better pictures later, but this is just a little snapshot of it (held up by my helpful husband). Isn't it GORGEOUS?! Yes, yes it is! She is coming to visit this week with Scarlett, her cutie baby. Stoked am I? Definitely.
On another note, I dropped my iPhone and busted the screen! Curses! I use my phone for EVERYTHING. I probably depend too much on it, but it is my calander, my reminders and notes, I blog from it some, I use Etsy and Pinterest and Facebook with it too. Not to mention using it as a phone and a text machine! Anyway, to say that I feel crummy about it is an understatement as I still have a whole year left on my contract. I'm going to have to go to Verizon and check out what the dealio is with getting a screen fixed. With that, here are some pictures and some hope of a productive week!
~Rachel

Tuscon botanical garden, the butterfly exhibit was the bomb!

Aneela Hoey fabric and HST units

Pirate fabric and the makings of the front on my new ironing board cover!

Disaster strikes!

Ruffled onesie

I think I've mentioned that I love my Janome sewing machine... Once or twice :) Anyway, another cool thing that I tried on it was the serge stitch. It totally worked and so this ruffled onesie was a good tester project! When sewing on ruffles, you don't want thick seams on the top and bottom of each strip, so people usually serge the edges for a finished edge that won't fray. I don't have a serger so I tried this and am pretty happy with how it turned out (I know it got a bit crooked at one point, but hey, it was my first attempt)! First I "serged" the edges of a couple strips of fabric and the pulled the bobbin thread to get the ruffle effect. Here is a good tutorial for how to make this in case you'd like to try it too! And, doesn't the name of that blog AND project just make you smile? It's exactly how I feel about my own work. Now for some pictures!

Serging the edges

Applique bow on front

The sun was sooo bright!

Just a shot of the back so you can see better. I haven't stitched around the two bows yet, and I don't know if I will, I'm curious to see how well the Heat N Bond will hold up!

Well, that's it for now, I'm off to clean my house and get projects all put away so I can have company. I mean, I have to clear at least a small place for someone to sleep... Geez. My life is so hard ;)

~Rachel

Onesies

These are two little onesies that I'll probably be selling on Etsy.. I cut the tie and bow-tie out on leftover fabric I had from my brother Ethan's quilt. I used the silhouette of course and then my awesome Janome to machine appliqué them on! I used heat n bond which would have been fine alone i think, and also put Fray Check around the edges but I felt like they needed something more: hence the blue stitching around the edges. I finally got around to buying onesies to put them on! The baby section is not my usual area! So just in case you haven't noticed, I'm really enjoying my new machines! It's fun to have so many possibilities around. Life has been so busy though, it's hard to find a moment of peace to sew in. I counted and I am currently working on six projects (they are all laid out in various locations around the house). My poor husband is having to step around things on the living room floor, not eat at the dining room table, not use the computer desk, and of course I took over the guest room too. Did I mention that I do, in fact, have an actual sewing room? Yes.. Maybe tomorrow i'll get to transfer some of my project stuff up that way. By up, I mean upstairs. It's so nice to have projects everywhere though, because whenever I go anywhere in my house I can just work on whatever is closer :) Oh, I just found another thing I'm working on. Embroidery, so make that seven projects! Picture time.
~Rachel

Blanket Stitch

Most of the people I know and love have babies, so I'm always making blankets and quilts for them. One of my favorite things to have on hand, is a lovely and colorful stack of simple flannel blankets for all the newbies! I'm no crochet-lady yet, that's more of Haley's area, so I do a simple blanket stitch around the whole thing and leave it at that. One day I'll get ambitious and really figure out how to crochet! All you need for these blankets is basic sewing supplies and two, one yard pieces of flannel, or one piece of flannel and one of regular cotton. Square these up, sew them (right sides together), turn it the right way out, and stitch up the hole after you iron it. Easy and cute!
~Rachel

A little crochet

These are several receiving blankets that I crocheted several months ago. These make the perfect gift for a baby shower and are perfect for swaddling newborns. You can either serge the edge of a piece of flannel or, if you don't have a serger you can buy a pack of pre finished receiving blankets. These were a package of four that I bought. Enjoy!

-Haley