I'm in love

Have I ever told you how much I love Fabric.com? Oh the fabric! Oh the deals! Oh the temptations! Oh how I love you, let me count the ways...
1) You allow me to shop from the comfort of my home.
2) Your regular prices are cheap($7.98US/yard or $8.98US/yard for designer)...especially because I live in Canada and quilting cotton is on average $15CDN/meter(a yard and an eighth), but more like $18.99CDN/meter for designer cottons.
3) When I spend $35US you ship my package to me(well to my friend) for free(anywhere in the US). And since I live 10 minutes from the border and have a wonderful friend who lives just across the line, I ship my packages to her. It is so very easy to spend $35US.
4) You send me emails informing me of your even bigger and better deals and sales.
5) Your latest sale was to fabulous to resist, 30% of all clearance! I bought nine 1 yard pieces that would have cost me a whopping $41.99US, but I saved 30% so actually I only spent $29.37US. That my friends, is a whopping $3.26US/yard.(Do you know how hard it was to ONLY buy 9 yards of fabric?)
6) Bonus, since the Canadian dollar is almost par with the US dollar the exchange is next to nothing.

Check out these fabulous fabrics that have joined my stash.

One baby project complete...oh so many more to go.

A couple of weeks ago my Sister-in-law posted about the bouncy chair she had recovered for here baby that was due in about a weeks time. I thought to myself, "why haven't I ever thought of that?". So I got busy looking through my fabrics trying to decide what fabrics would be the perfect fit for the bouncy chair and the baby/toddler rocker that I have (both of which I had bought second hand). They were functional, but not what I would call "to die for cute". They did the job that was expected of them, and that must be why I have never thought to spruce them up at all. I didn't think to take a before picture, but here is a picture of the covers that were on them...just all pulled apart.

I decided to use some of the fabric that I have recently acquired free(full story here), a five yard piece of super soft Debbie Mum quilting flannel in neutral colors(and I only used up about a yard) . The black broadcloth that I used as the lining was also from this stash of free fabric. I then recovered the toy bar with a scrap of black crushed velour. I had everything I needed on hand...should I be so surprised? I was so pleased with the end result. I can't wait to have a baby to put in it.

For the baby/toddler rocker I decided on some of the fabulous fabric that I haven't been able to decide what it was destined to become(the full story here. I only used about 1/2yard of the 1 1/2 yard piece...plenty still to make something else with). I used some orange broadcloth that I had as the lining. The only thing that I had to go buy was the blue bias tape to finish the edges. I reused all of the clips from the old cover. My girls love it. My 2 year old thinks it is "so pretty" and loves to sit in it...it is already getting well used.

I have to say I think the new covers are a huge improvement over the old ones. I'm so glad for the inspiration from my sister-in-law.

I'm already working on another baby project...with others lined up waiting to get done...after all I now only have 2 months to get it all done!

Some of the best news a pregnant lady can hear...."We'll have to move your due date ahead by 3 weeks".

When I woke up this morning I was in the mind set that I was 28 weeks and a few days, but I knew that baby was measuring about 3 weeks ahead. This is no surprise. I've always had biggish babies(8lb 2oz, and 8lb 10oz). Although you could just plain say that my youngest was HUGE at 10lbs 13oz(born 100% natural). I had little hope that anything would actually change. I was prepared to plead my case....simply that I did not want to deliver another HUGE baby.

The first thing the nurse said to me this morning when I walked into the examining room was "So it looks like we'll be changing your due date. Baby is measuring larger than expected." Is it any surprise that my blood pressure was then a little, a lot high? That will get any pregnant lady excited!

Here are the facts as presented to me today.
1. At my first ultrasound on Jan 21 baby was measuring almost 3 weeks ahead, putting the due date at May 24th.
2. At my second ultrasound on March 18th baby was measuring a full month ahead, putting the due date at May 11th.
3. Because my cycles are as irregular as...(why can't I think of some great simile here?), keeping track of them is very difficult so the original due date of June 12th was based on my best guess as to when my last cycle was(which I thought was pretty accurate).
4. Because the three dates vary so much, it is best to go with the most accurate one, which is the date that we get from the first ultrasound.

So hooray for me!! In a matter of hours nearly a whole month passed by! However, if baby actually comes on or around May 24th I will be surprised. But on the other hand, I know that  baby will be born before June 12th, and since I have been planning on that for the past 28 weeks, I'll be pretty ecstatic with that result.

Free fabric can be sew much fun

My almost 3 year old has decided that she is concerned about getting dirty while eating and insists on wearing a bib. The only problem is that I really don't have any bibs big enough to sufficiently keep her (relatively) clean. This morning I pulled out this apron to do the job.
My sister made this apron for my oldest daughter when she was about 2 years old. It has been well used and is starting to fall apart. After breakfast I decided that I would cut it apart(which required cutting a total of two shoulder seams) to use as a pattern to make more apron/bibs for all of my daughters. After all I have all of this free fabric that I could use. I took the girls down to the piles of fabric that have taken over my basement and let them choose two fabrics that they wanted me to make an apron/bib out of.

Here is what the apron piece looks like folded in half.
To cut out and sew six aprons took me about 2 hours. These aprons are super simple, I could have made them fancier, but really considering that they'll end up being used as a bib, a craft apron, cooking apron, and paint smock I decided that they would be very basic. All I did was serge around the edges and then hem up all edges with a narrow hem...after sewing the shoulder seams together of course. They fasten in the back with Velcro.

Here are the finished products.
I am not normally a fan of licensed fabrics like Disney and Dora, I would never actually spend money on them. But when they are FREE I'll keep them around for projects such as this. My girls can wear these where ever and when ever they want and hopefully they will assist in keeping their clothes clean(er).

Like I needed more fabric.

My husband has this friend Craig, one of his best friends from High School. Over the many years of friendship, dating and marriage(a combined total of about 17 years), Craig has become a good friend of mine as well. I have met his family only a handful of times, and every time it has been a complete riot and I have been welcomed as part of the family. Which is why I was somewhat surprised and yet not surprised at all when his mom called me up earlier this week. She asked if I was still sewing and if I would be offended if she sent me some fabric. She just wasn't into to sewing anymore and she was trying to down size. Who says no to free fabric? Not me. I told her that I was tickled that she would think of me and that of course I wouldn't be offended and would be more than happy to take the fabric off her hands. So she told me that she would drop it of at my husbands work at the end of the week. Tonight Daniel brought home three full garbage bags and three good sized boxes. I sat down on my newly mopped kitchen floor(thanks to my darling 7 year old) and started to sort through the fabric. I was prepared to find a lot of outdated stuff, but was surprised at the lack thereof.

After all was sorted I ended up with one bulging garbage bag of polar fleece, a box full of flannels, a box full of quilting cottons(including the perfect piece to recover my bouncy chair), a box full of some basic knits and ribbings and some super soft sleepwear and a decent selection of terry towel that I plan to finally make myself a bathrobe with. I also had this beautiful blue/purple iridescent organza and some pretty blue dress fabric that will likely become Christmas dresses for the girls. There was this perfect purple/yellow/pink pastel piece that will be the answer to "what to accent the girls Easter dresses with?". I now have a selection of boyish fabrics to make boyish pj's mostly(if I actually have a boy this time) not to mention all the girly stuff to make some super awesome summer pj's. And I now have more than enough fabric to experiment with before I use all that beautiful fabric that I love so much. I love free fabric, for the most part I don't have any issues cutting it up! I can't wait to get started!

My life has just been made a little bit simpler.

Remember awhile back when I was trying to make a swaddling blanket but didn't have a baby to try it out on?

Problem solved!

Chris at Pickup Some Creativity told me about the POD swaddler pattern. So I went to go check it out over at While They Sleep(seriously go check it out now). And wowsers! I love it. It's kind of what I had brewing in my mind since my first trial run, but I wasn't sure how to keep it done up with out velcro(I really didn't like the idea of scratchy velcro on a soft blanket). I hadn't ever thought of tying it up. So I've decided that I no longer will try to create something that is already created the way I want it. I'll just buy the pattern and I will tell all the world(at least those who visit my blog) where to find this wonderful pattern. All that tedious work figuring out measurements and yardages is already done for me, now all I have to do is make one, or two....or more.

More Fabric Issues

I wrote this little message to my sister in-law on facebook and then realized that it wasn't so little, that really it was a blog post. So here it now is as a blog post.

"I have all of this gorgeous fabric that I have recently purchased just because I loved it and with out any real project in mind, except that I would do something for me/baby. The problem is that I can't decide what it is that they were meant to become. Just when I think I have it figured out, I wonder if that is it's true destiny. Yeah, I have issues.

Check out this fabric selection.

I actually had a purpose in mind for the first two (green and blue hexagons and the purple 'feeling groovy'). They will become a baby sling depending on if I have a boy or a girl, but I can't bring myself to make the slings yet, because I may want to use whatever fabric I don't need for some other fabulous project. I think that I have decided that the last two(brown with turquoise flowers and the cream and green flowers) I will have my sister-in-law make into peek-a-boobs. I love them both they would be more for me than the baby anyways. As for the others, again depending on if I have a boy or a girl they may be made into car seat covers or something. The brown with green flowers is likely to be made into a skirt for me after baby comes.

I had originally thought that I would just make one of each of everything and then either give away or sell the ones that I didn't need....but I don't think I can. I love this fabric to much, after all I picked out for me. It may just be destined to end up in my fabric stash."

(See Michelle, I told you I'd just cut and paste)