It was a really busy holiday selling season on Etsy from early November through mid-December and then then there was finally a lull so I could get family holiday things done. As of December 18 (my last effective ship-by date), we hadn't baked a cookie, bought or wrapped a gift or sent a card! That's the latest I've ever left it all and I never want to do it again. Fortunately, our big family Christmas actually takes place several days after the 25th, so we get extra time to prep...that saved me.
Anyway, back to the sewing project in the title...
For years (long before I had grandchildren and even before my boys were married), I've been collecting vintage toys for 'a grandchild to be named later'. I had a very cool wood baby doll bed and metal high chair and now I had a little girl to give it to! Our granddaughter was just turning 2 and was getting a baby doll for Christmas, so I got the toys out of the barn and got them all ready to be her gifts from us.
The baby doll bed had a piece of formica for the mattress base (a home-fix by some dad or grandpa, I'm sure). I decided to make my own mattress and baby blanket for it because, what else did I have to do in the last 2 weeks of December?
I found this great pink fabric at JoAnn with turquoise and teal owls...little miss loves owls so I knew it would be perfect.
The next challenge was to unearth my sewing machine which I had not (literally) used in a couple of years! It took the better part of an hour to clean off the work table so I could get to it.
It would have been cool to tuft it with covered buttons, but she's just 2 so I didn't want anything that could come off as a choke hazard. I toyed with the idea of tufting with felt flowers, but (of course) couldn't find the right color felt here. In the end I just tied it off with pink yarn -- cute, but not tempting enough to take apart (I hope).
Next came the baby blanket and it was the hardest part of all! I'd bought pink embossed-dot minky and was so excited to use it because it would be so cute. I'd never sewn minky before and don't ever want to again. It was so slippery and had so much stretch that it was very hard to cut straight with either a scissors or rotary cutter and hard to sew straight, too. Thankfully, I don't the 2-year-old will examine it that closely!
Here are the 'after' pictures...
That's it for today. I'm looking forward to the next few months...more sewing projects, more treasure hunting and more posts. Have a great weekend!
