Category: Grandkids

A quilt for Aytan

Before Aytan was born, 5 years ago, I set out to make a quilt for my first grandchild. I was too impatient to wait to find out the gender of the baby. So I made a baby quilt with pink, green, light blue and brown stars.Aytan's baby quiltI had recently gotten back into quilting and had found a wonderful book that showed how to make these different 8 point stars with strip piecing.

It is time for a new quilt and I’m working on it right now. Aytan loves trains, a passion I am trying to cultivate. He likes riding them, he loves model trains – so what better theme than trains.

I set out to find fabrics, some in local stores, some from online sources.Train fabricA jumble of fabrics after being washed. Notice the train tracks along with train related fabric. If you are seeing some Spiderman mixed in there, that is because right now Aytan loves Spiderman and that is also a passion I keep feeding. I will be putting that fabric on the back of the quilt.

Now for a patternOff TrackI love it when someone else designs a well thought out pattern. I don’t  need to do everything myself.  Allison from Cluck Cluck Sew  designed this one. The name says it all. train track patchI found the perfect fabric, train tracks to connect the boxcars.P1020319Here is a complete quilt block. I chose a grey for the background and decided that the center of the boxcar would always be a solid color. boxcars from On Track

Here is the first row of blocks complete. I showed it to Aytan and he thought it was very pretty, I think I have a happy customer.

P1020325You noticed the non-train fabric boxcar?  Yes indeed that is Mickey Mouse, thanks to his Mom, Aytan loves Mickey and everything Disney, so into the quilt he goes.

I’m in no rush to finish this, I am enjoying the process of seeing the quilt top grow gradually. I’ll probably be posting this for  a few weeks at WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Leah

Baby blanket

As soon as we heard about becoming grandparents again – I had to start making baby items. Although I don’t like knitting blankets,  it’s different when it’s my own grandchild. We found out the same day they did – they told us immediately. So of course not knowing the sex of the baby it just had to be bright and colorful

Princess Squares blanketI have subscribed or bought many knitting  magazines over the years. Not being a hoarder, every so often I will go through and tear out the patterns I like and throw the rest away. This is one of those tear outs,  it didn’t have the instructions, I must have neglected to tear those out. lucky for  me, everything can be found on Ravelry these days.  Princess Square Blanket.  No instructions there either, but  this is a  modular square, a quick search on you-tube and I was reminded how to make these. Seeing other people’s finished projects on Ravelry gave me the confidence to just go ahead and make this.Knit Picks BravaKnitters know that Knit Picks is a great source of inexpensive yarn. Sometimes you get what you pay for. In this case, I want acrylic – a blanket that can be thrown in the washer/dryer and will be fine. So Knit Picks Brava it is. Also, they have a big selection of colors.Knitting the blanketI could have chosen different colors, but I figured these would work well for either a boy or a girl. icord bindingThe original pattern called for picking up all the stitches and making a 1″ border in garter stitch. That is way too much work.  Back to You Tube for reminders on making the  I cord edging. Finished Princess Square BlanketThe original blanket  was 8×8 squares, as you can see, I made a rectangle. Not sure why I made the rows 9 blocks long, but I did. and after a while, I was getting tired of the repetitive knitting. Have I mentioned I don’t like knitting blankets?Princess Squares blanket finished.Time to get creative with photography, it sure makes the blanket prettier.With Vera BearVera Bear is mine, I made her for me, she lives at my house. Grandson will get a different bear, but she sure does look cute on the blanket.

Of course I have many other baby projects to get to now.

 

 

Leah

Shopping for flower girl dress and ring bearer Tuxedo.

With all my creative efforts you’d think I’d be sewing a most adorable dress for my granddaughter who will of course be the flower girl. You would be wrong, very wrong.  Here in LA we have, downtown LA fashion district. That is where I have bought some very unique fabric, trim and other items for my creative endeavors.

There is a specific area – Santee Alley – which is well known for it’s inexpensive clothes, knock-off watches and handbags. 20 years ago the alley was one small block long. Now, it stretches from Olympic Blvd all the way to Pico, 0.3 miles long.

They have some little children’s clothes but it’s at the Pico end, on Maple street that they sell all the wonderful party dresses. So Becky and I  went off shopping.party dresses downtown LAYes, that price is accurate, they sell these dress from $10 – $40.  I can’t compete and btw, they are adorable little dresses.Party dressesOk, those bows look tacky, but they are just pinned on, easy to remove. First good option, flower girl dressAt our very first stop we find this, it’s green which is perfect, It’s got bling, but not over the top.  We sent a picture off to the boys, sure fine they say. But what’s the fun in buying the first thing you see. On we went.green and white dressVelvet green top? No, the green is too dark and it almost looked to Christmas to us.grey party dressLovely gray, everything is perfect about this one. (Gray, green, black are the colors) except one thing – they don’t have it in a small enough size. downtown LA party dressThen we find this one, perfect! (we will probably lose the flower).  A little more elegant, a little greener. We send off this picture and the response is – perfect get this one. Just to be sure we go back to check dress one – it had already sold. Yes, it is the day before Easter, I’m sure many a mom were out looking for an Easter dress.  For $25, I couldn’t make this, the materials along would cost more, not to mention my time

Oh and a suit for the ring bearer?boy suitYeah, went into one store, it was black or gray. Last year he wore black at Elk and Mandy’s wedding. So this year, it’s gray. We will lose the tie and pocket patch, wrong colors. But the whole suit comes as one unit. If I can’t find something green, it will simply be a the suit and shirt – no extra color.  No question, shopping for little girls is much more fun.

Also, these are staying at my house, I know Aytan doesn’t care about the suit (no spiderman on it), but Shira would never take off that dress. We want it new and lovely for the wedding.

Leah