Tied Baby Quilt for Little Twins!

So, I've told you about how to tie the knot for a tied quilt and one of the many options you have for binding a quilt.  Now, would you like to see a quilt put together from start to finish?  I hope so, 'cause that's what this post is about.  :)

A while back, a good friend of mine had twins--a boy and a girl.  If there's anything cuter than a newborn baby, it's newborn baby twins.  When my sister and I saw these pink/brow and blue/brown elephant fabrics at Jo-Anne's, we immediately knew that those adorable babies needed adorable baby blankets.

These quilts are sized to be good carry-around, lay-on-the-floor-to-play-on, tuck-around-the-baby-in-the-carseat quilts.  They are great for infants, but are still large enough for toddlers.  

For one quilt, you will need:

1 yard of fabric for the quilt top

1 1/2  yards of fabric for the backing/binding

Batting

Yarn

Big needles (large enough eyes to fit the yarn through)

General sewing equipment

Quilt frame--you can tie a quilt without a frame, but it is harder.  (You could try a large embroidery hoop.)  Whatever you choose, make sure you can keep the fabric taut.

Thumbtacks, preferable the ones are flat on the front

Alright, the first step, of course, is to cut out your fabric.  I'm not really a fan of cutting fabric (you'd think with the rotary cutter and ruler, I could cut a straight line, wouldn't you?  But no.), so it's nice that this project requires me to do very little of it.  My sister and I made these quilts about one yard square, but you could just cut the extra half yard off the backing fabric and have a nice width-of-fabric X 1 yd quilt.

Cut your batting to fit your quilt backing.  It's easiest to have your batting and backing a little larger than your quilt top--err on the side of caution, you know--but especially on a quilt as small as this, it's not really necessary.  And we'll cut the fabric for the binding later.

{UPDATE:  I should probably clarify that for larger-than-baby quilts, you really do need to have the backing and batting larger than the top.  Two-three extra inches on each side would be good.  Hopefully the quilt sandwich won't slip out of place while you're quilting, but it is possible (especially without a quilting frame), so err on the side of not having to completely re-do your quilt.  And having extra backing/batting for the baby quilt never hurt anyone, either.}

Next, sandwich the quilt together on the quilting frame.  (Quilt sandwich = backing, wrong side up + batting + quilt top, right side up.)  Use the thumbtacks to secure each layer as you add it, removing the previous layer's tacks if they are in the way.  If you are not using a frame, sandwich the quilt on whatever surface is large enough to lay your quilt out flat.  If you are making a larger-than-baby-quilt sized quilt, the floor is a good option.  Pin securely. 

(Sorry for the bad picture.)

Now you can tie the quilt.  The nice thing about baby quilts is that you can tie them in about no time flat.  Who doesn't like instant gratification?

If you'd like a refresher on how to actually tie the knots for a tied quilt, see this post.

You are almost done already!  Last step: Finishing the edges.  There are several ways to finish the edges of a quilt: with prairie points, a ruffle, self-binding (like I did for my Fourth of July wall hanging), and more.  The method I used, I recently found out, is called Double Fold Binding.  (For my tutorial on this quilt binding method, click here.)

And that's it!  All you have to do now is bask in the love/appreciation/gratitude/hero worship of the lucky recipient of your quilt.

Happy sewing!

Awesome Folded Fabric Flowers--Japanese Style

I like fabric.  I hoard fabric.  It's a little crazy the size of fabric scraps that I can't bear to part with.  Seriously, who keeps one inch strips of fabric?  (They were just too pretty to throw away...  And actually, I came up with a great way to use them.  I'll write a post about it later.)  

If you, too, are addicted to fabric to the point that you don't throw away even little tiny scraps, DO NOT READ THIS POST!  It will only make it worse.

So, what can you do with this much fabric? 

How about make a sweet little Kanzashi flower?  The blue flower below took only six one-inch squares of fabric.  

No fabric scrap is safe.

I got a book from the library called Kanzashi in Bloom by Diane Gilleand (the blogger behind CraftyPod). Kanzashi are really pretty easy to make; the two flowers pictured above are my first two attempts.  (The blue one wasn't finished, but I'll show you the completed project later.)  I turned the white one into a hair clip, and when Boo saw it, she said, "White!  Pink!  Hair!"  (I love how she says each word as its own sentence.)

Kanzashi in Bloom teaches how to make three styles of petals and gives lots of ideas for what to do with your creations (hair clips, belt buckles, flower arrangements, rings, earrings, necklaces, and more).

You could also just google "kanzashi tutorials."  (By the way, some of these tutorials tell you to starch you fabric, but I don't think it's necessary--I didn't use starch for either of these flowers.)

Happy flower-making!

What do you think of my new blog design?

What do you think of my blog's new look?  A while ago, I realized that all the blogs I thought looked the best had white backgrounds.  They're just so bright, happy, clean, uncluttered...  But it took me a while to get my blog's background changed over, mostly because I needed to redesign my blog's header first.

(The poor little elephant doesn't stand out very much against all the white.)

Well, I finally decided it was time.  And with a little help from some friends at The Blog Design Network, I came up with this:

(So you know what I'm talking about if I decide to change it again later.)

And then I found a tutorial on how to make your blog wider.  Awesome--I always thought the posting space was too skinny, even though I set my blog as wide as the Template Designer would let it go.  (And if you click over to the tutorial, you'll find one of the white-background-blogs that inspired my redesign!)

So, do you like the new design?  Is there anything else you would change?  Or anything you would change back?

{UPDATE:  The tutorial I linked to has been taken down.  But Blogger has made it very easy to make your blog pretty wide.  All you do is go to the Template Designer, click on "Adjust Widths," and move the sliders until you like the width.}

I'm Guest Posting at Momma's Kinda Crafty!

I'm guest posting at Momma's Kinda Crafty today!  It's my first guest post; I'm so excited!  My post is a tutorial on making a Growth Stick.  What is that, you wonder?  Here's a hint:

Intrigued?  Then click on over to my amazing guest post to find out more.  :)

UPDATE:  This blog doesn't seem to be up anymore!  Never fear, I have reposted the tutorial on my own blog.  Just click on over for my DIY Growth Chart.

How to Emphasize Your Comments on Your Blogger Blog

I'm always looking for ways to improve my blog.  One thing I've been wondering how to do is make my own contributions to the comments section stand out.  For example, let's say one of you lovely readers asks me a question.  You'd like to be able to easily skim through the comments to find my answer, right?  So how could I make my comments look different?

I found this tutorial, How to Highlight Author Comments in Blogger, from SimpleBloggerTutorials.com, and it worked!  (Sometimes I find html-related tutorials that don't work...but it's probably just my inexpertness in html.)

Okay, so just click over to SBT's tutorial, then meet me back here, and I'll teach you some ways to customize how your (and your readers') comments look.

...

...

Good, you're back.  :)

So, if you follow SBT's instructions exactly, you get this:

If this fits the look of your blog, then you're done!  But if you'd like to tweak it a bit, read on...

(This is the second bit of code that the instructions have you paste into your blog template.)

.comment-footer{
margin-bottom:0 !important;
}
.author-comment{
background-color:#F0FFF0;  <--Background color.  Bet you guessed that already.
padding:5px;  <--  Has to do with the space around the comment.
margin-bottom:1.5em;  <--  Similar to padding.
border:1px solid #ccc;  <--  Border thickness, style, and color
border-radius:10px;  <-- This is what makes the corners rounded.
}
.author-comment.blog-author {
background: #FFEBCD <--  This is the background color for your comments.  url(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_-BRP4LFLyWc/TZX3b7r2AyI/AAAAAAAAATY/8Am8ri02OjE/s800/admin.png) no-repeat right top;  <--   The url is a direct link to the crown image.  
}

The text in blue applies to all comments on your blog.  The text in red applies to your (the author of the blog's) comments only.

If you'd like to change the background color (for all the comments, or just for yours), just change the appropriate number.  Click here for a list of web colors.  Or, if you use Photoshop, open an image that has a color you'd like (for example, if you'd like to use the same color as your custom navigation tabs you rushed off and made after reading my tutorial about it, you would open that image).  Open the Color Picker, use the Eyedropper tool to select your color, and Photoshop will tell you the number right there.

If you'd like to change the border, click here for css coding for different border styles.  If you'd like to change the rounding of the corners, click here to find out how.  If you want to remove the border entirely, simply delete the code for the border.

Here's how I customized my code:

.comment-footer{

margin-bottom:0 !important;

}

.author-comment{

padding:5px;

margin-bottom:1.5em;

}

.author-comment.blog-author {

border-style:double;

border-color:#fc8700;

}

And this is what I got:

Have fun making your blog exactly the way you want it!  Let me know if you have any questions!

Free Little Girl's Dress Pattern from JAME

I just found out about this free pattern from JAME, and I thought you might like to hear about it, too.  The pattern is for a cute bandana dress, and it fits little girls from preemie to 9 months and beyond.  I love free patterns, so I'll be trying it out!  At almost two years old, Boo's probably too big to fit it, but that's what nieces are for, right?

Happy sewing!

How to Add a Favicon in Blogger

I think it's really cool when blogs have a favicon appear before their url--it just seems so professional.  But the tutorials I'd found on how to add my own seemed too complicated.  (And I don't think Photoshop can save a file as an .ico, which the favicon must be.)

Then, as I was working on my blog one day, I saw a new feature in the Page Elements section:  I could now add a favicon right from there!  Awesome!  No complicated html coding, no hosting images on other sites, and guess what?  It doesn't even have to be a .ico file!

Are you as excited about this as I am?  I think this rocks.

A favicon is 16 pixels square, so use your favorite image editing software to make a really awesome (and tiny) icon.  Remember that since it is so small, simple is best.

I tried uploading my favicon as both a .jpg and a .png, and I don't remember which one ended up working. Sorry!  Maybe either would work?

Once your image is ready, just go into Page Elements, and click to Edit your favicon.  Upload your favicon and save.  

It took a few minutes for my favicon to actually appear on my blog for some reason, but it did work, and it was really easy.

Have fun making your awesome blogs even better!