Sienna Wren Jansen ♥

Born Monday, May 20, @ 3:09pm, our little bundle weighed-in at 7lbs. 11oz., 21 inches long. We are besides ourselves and completely smitten. Here she is on our ride home from the hospital yesterday. We are happy, tired, and complete. Many more photos to come... :)

(She's modeling a few of the things I made for her: the crocheted turban and baby bird blanket out of vintage fabric I found. Crocheted Turban pattern here, yarn, Madelinetosh Tosh Vintage in corsage).

sewing for baby - 5 easy nursery projects

If you've been following the blog recently, you'll notice this knitter has been bitten by the sewing bug. I thought I would pull together one post in which I gather all of the easy, cute projects I've made recently.

Here are the reasons why sewing for the nursery has been so rewarding:

1. Cute nursery items are expensive! And you need a lot of them (ie. multiple crib sheets, changing pad covers, etc.) Though I've spent some $ on cute fabrics, I've saved us quite a bit and some of my fabrics have been from thrifted items, even more savings!

2. I'm picky about designs, patterns, fabrics, colors. Most of the affordable nursery items just aren't gonna cut it for this mom who makes her living as a graphic designer (and who repainted the living room of our rental house the first week we moved in because I couldn't stand the color :)

3. Sewing allows me to sit for a bit, get up and iron or cut, and sit back down. Knitting requires sitting for long periods which has not been comfortable in these last few weeks (I'll be 36 weeks on Sunday!)

Thanks to the plethora of great tutorials out there, via Pinterest of course, I have managed to find wonderful instructions to guide me through making many of these useful projects. Trust me, I am not an expert seamstress in any way, but just powering through some of these things (and not being too particular that every detail is perfect) has allowed me to create so many custom nursery items in just a few weeks.

For these first projects, many of my fabrics came from Hawthorne Threads. Such lovely fabrics!

Boppy Cover

Tutorial here

Wet Bag

Tutorial here
Combined it with this GREAT zipper pouch tutorial 

Changing Pad Cover

Tutorial here

Crib Sheet (for mine I used a thrifted twin sized sheet)

Tutorial here
And I zig zagged the corners as suggested here

Simple Zipper Pouch (I used the leftover squares from my changing pad for this bag! I plan to use this for my phone and other small things inside the diaper bag)

Tutorial here (same one as above)

And here are a couple of things I've made, not using online tutorials:

Swaddle Blanket (Found this AMAZING vintage fabric remnant at the thrift store)

For this project I just pieced together the remnants to create an (almost) 42" square. I was a little shy, but mostly plan to use this as a light blanket and to wrap our Baby Bird in for her newborn pictures. 

Kimono Tops (I used vintage pillow cases for these)

This pattern is from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. Beware, there are errors in early editions. Also, the instructions are a little tricky when it comes to sewing on the ties and the binding.

There you have it! Whew. I didn't realize I had made so many things in the last few weeks. I hope you'll try some! These are all quick projects and would be SUCH nice baby shower gifts, if you don't have a little one of your own. Happy Sewing ♥

bear claw blanket decisions...

Happy Saturday! I'll soon be posting an update from our lovely babymoon trip to Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, but first, I need your input.

I've gathered a bunch of the Koigu I have (yes, used to be addicted to it), some Louet Gems in pale grey for the background color (purchased a bag of it at Stitches South a few years ago) and worked some graphic designer magic in Illustrator this morning to put it all together into a blanket design, with 2 options.

The pattern is the Bear Claw Blanket by Veronik Avery, from Interweave Knits Spring 2005. I have adored this blanket forever and am so excited to start. Here are my 2 design options:

I love them both! Right now I'm deciding between the gold or red center square color. I will later on choose a border color, as well, but feel free to leave input on that option, too. Let me know what you think! Here is a photo of the original finished blanket from the pattern. I had so many different colors of Koigu that I decided to save a little $ and make different colored squares instead of following the pattern. I would've had to buy so much yarn! I'm excited about my thriftiness and that the design worked out lovely with what I already had :)

Thanks for your votes! We'll see what happens...

UPDATE: Also making this, remember, so I must be slightly obsessed with red-orange square centers...

little blanket, coming right along...

Pattern: Square Target square from Jan Eaton's 200 Crocheted Blocks
Yarn: DROPS Alpaca 

almost have the knitting bug back...

As many of you know, the first trimester of pregnancy can be, well, icky to say the least. I was fortunate to be able to eat ok through my first 13 weeks, but I sure did feel carsick most of the time, woozy and a little dizzy. Needless to say, that cut down on my desire to knit, considerably. As I start to feel better though and look at adorable little patterns, I'm noticing the growing desire to have something on my needles. I'm thinking I'll start with these two lovely patterns and go from there :)

Little Baby Sweater from Purlbee

Wool Leaves from Brooklyn Tweed

One down. Lucky fishing socks.

One down. Lucky fishing socks., a photo by elletrain on Flickr.

Woah, an actual knitting post! Sweet. Here is the first of a pair of fishing socks I'm making for Pinky...we're hoping they are filled with fish-catching luck! Pattern is from Purlbee (amazingly lovely patterns) and is called Socks for Giving Away. I'm using Cascade Sport for the oatmeal color and Blue Sky Alpacas Baby Alpaca Sport (doubled for strength) for the red. I haven't made a ton of socks and I'm still figuring out gauge now that I've switched to continental style knitting. I went down 3 needle sizes than the recommended for the foot part, because I like a snug fit on the foot. They fit him well! Now, to just get that second one done. I've already cast-on, so hopefully it will get done :)

Here are a few patterns in the queue to make next, after finishing a few undone projects, of course... (we'll see!!).

Kildare by Michelle Wang

Cowboy Cowl by Pam Powers

Rams & Yowes by Kate Davies

What's on your needles or in your queue? I want to see!! :) Happy Weekend! Oooh, the sun is coming out! Must soak up some vitamin D!!!