baby » B.Yazoo

Bebeh Clothes

Mar 232013

I’m usually too much of a scrooge to want to make baby clothes (they use so much fabric! and babies can only wear them for a little while!), but generous bloggy people have been sharing free patterns for them, and I got sucked in.

When Rae released the 0-3 month size of her Little Geranium dress, I was all, I’m going to have a 0-3 month sized baby! Glowbug was too little for it when she was born, and then this week I noticed that she was finally the right size for it. She’ll probably fit it for two weeks, heh.

My little niece turned two, and I made her a Prudent Baby snappy shirt, but I was worried about it fitting until I realized that I have a two year old that I can test it out on. Double heh! (I had to bribe him with M&Ms, though.)

Minimini book bag and a tomte

Dec 162011

I wanted to make my mom a library book bag and I liked Echinops and Aster’s spa bag, so I made this.

The pattern makes a cute bag! I tried to coordinate the exterior with the book fabric, since my mom seemed to like it when she saw it in my bag, and I bought the interior fabric especially for her.

I was a dork, though, and only vaguely tried to compare the dimensions to a pile of books before I started, and it’s kind of too small for a pile of library books! Doh.

In other news, I made a tomte for Dawnybear’s present. Two Christmas presents, dun!

Baby quilt, supahfast!

Dec 072011

This past weekend, we were invited to Mr. Yazoo’s sister’s friend’s son’s first birthday party. :> I’ve been feeling a bit of a pinch since I went kind of crazy with the after-Thanksgiving sales, so I made a superfast quilt (two days!) to go along with a little bit of money for our present.

It’s 40″x50″ because that was the size batting I had left over from my tree pants. I also used more of the same flannel as my dad’s quilt and I pin basted (as opposed to spray basting), so I felt very thrifty. Maybe I should be embarrassed that I’m so thrilled about saving money on a present…

Since the quilt was so simple, I tried to spruce it up a little with more stamping.

I was in a rush, so I machine bound the quilt. It was my first time! I used Crazy Mom Quilts’s terrific method of attaching the binding to the back, first. This way, the front looked tidy and the back wasn’t too bad!

Please excuse my tasteless glee over saving money — I do have a point! :} I was super happy because, using yazoomath, I saved us $60 by making this quilt. Then right after I finished it, I found out about a fantastic sale at Drygoods Design and spent over half of that! >_< But how could I not? It's 40% off your fabric order $40+ with code HOLIDAY40 (through 12/14) PLUS free shipping! Please to enjoy.

Thanksbapron and geese

Nov 282011

On Thanksgiving morning, I woke up and realized that I didn’t have a holiday outfit for Sunshine. Whoops! Poor second baby! So Mr. Yazoo wrangled the kiddos while I made this:

I totally copied the google turkey. :} Oh, and I almost misspelled “daddy!” See?

On Saturday, I finished my Piece Bee With You block. I used Katy’s tip to use one of the templates to cut out all the pieces with a half inch margin, which was awesome. I was able to chain piece my four quadrants!

My dad-in-law made me an extension table a little while ago, which I love using, especially when piecing stuff like this. I put a light under it and was able to see through the foundation paper pretty handily!

(The lower left corner isn’t broken — larger projects were getting caught on it, so I asked my dad-in-law to make it less corner-ey.)

I made my signature block using my new copy of Modern Blocks. (I was a little disappointed when I saw some slightly old-fashioned looking fabrics used for the sample blocks — I’m not very good at imagining things in different fabric combos so I love samples that use fabric I already like — but overall I think this book is fantastic!) It’s just a leeeetle too big, but hopefully Alisha won’t mind!

Captain Sunshine Bapron

Oct 312011

… or The Reason My Bee Block Is Going To Be Two Days Late, Sorry Charlotte!

I’ve been so focused on working on Christmas things that Halloween stuff slipped my mind. I had planned to have both the kids wear old costumes, but then it was October 29th and I couldn’t find the monster body for Sunshine’s outfit. Whoops! Instead of buying a costume I wasn’t really excited about (why do the stores with the super cute baby costumes only stock them in August?!), I made a bapron like this one.

This is a superhero bapron, so he’s got both his secret identity business attire and his cape. Bizness in the front and party in the back!

I amazed myself again by taking alllll night to make what should be a super fast little project. I’m still really slow when I have to applique things — it took me forever to draw the N that I ended up using, and then I cut it out of fabric four times: first I forgot to flip it and then it was backwards; second I drew a different N, cut it out, then decided I didn’t like it; third I realized that the icy blue fabric I was using was too light, and fourth I cut out the dark blue one correctly. I also made too much bias binding really slowly.

But Captain Sunshine’s ready to tag along with Cosmo and T tonight!

Bubble Pants (aka Gigantor Pants)

Sep 292011

Mr. Yazoo has a couple of really nice t-shirts that he’s never going to wear because they’re not his style, so since I had won a copy of Growing Up Sew Liberated (which has a lot of knit fabric projects) from Sew Mama Sew, I made Sunshine a pair of the bubble pants in the 12-18 month size. (He’s seven months old, but I like his clothes to last. ) I was shocked when I pulled out the pattern sheets — they’re HUGE! I used almost all of Mr. Yazoo’s t-shirt for them, and I didn’t even have enough to make the lining! That’s okay, though, since it’s never winter here and my little heatball kids don’t need multiple layers of clothes.

I guess the pants don’t look so huge in this picture. The elastic cuffs are awesome. But wait! Cosmo fits them, too! O_o

When he was walking around later, he looked like he was wearing those guy harem pants I was seeing a while ago. Hehehe.

It was awesome how easy these pants were to sew. They were so enormous that I didn’t worry about seam allowances, and Gracie Lou Freebush and I happily serged away. Then since I didn’t have a lining to form the elastic casings, I sewed on the extra little orange bits.

My dad offered some t-shirts so I could make more. Now I just have to reclaim my pattern pieces from Cosmo — he found them the next day and used them for coloring paper.

Finally, a machine needle book! Plus squishies, a blankie, and a thank you

Sep 222011

First up, a needle book for my sewing machine needles!

Up til now, I had an unnervingly disorganized storage system for my machine needles; it was something like:

Used, weird-sized, non-jeans needles were in the same tiny tupperware as my filled bobbins
Jeans needles, both used and new, were in the little paper package I bought them in
Old standard needles for foundation piecing were in one paper package
Brand-new standard needles were in a different paper package
My current used-but-not-old-enough-to-use-for-foundation-piecing needle always got put back in my machine so I knew where it was

Then since I wanted to make a sock skellington and so was going to open up a package of ball point needles, I neurotically needed to make a machine needle book to organize everything, first. Aheh.

I used two charms that I got from Hoosier Toni in Stitchery Dickory Dock’s Feeling Fussy Modern Fabric Swap. At first, I just wanted to keep them whole since the prints are so cute, but then I scolded myself that I must be bold! Must cut fabric! Thus, the super duper exciting exterior you see above.

I sewed pieces of ziploc bag on the inside to make pockets into which I could slip scraps of paper for keeping track of what needles were on which page. And then the part of me that is ever so slightly OCD breathed a sigh of relief. Machine needles organized, yay!

Next, a couple more baby squishies and a ribbon blankie for Mr. Yazoo’s expecting cousin. This time, I’m making tags for them so that his cousin knows they’re machine washable and such. I think it’s really cute when I receive Etsy stuff with nice wrapping and tags and things, but I’m too cheap to really put any money into making my own; this one’s made out of a Jamba Juice paper bag. (I haven’t put tags on the other two because I can’t remember what the baby’s name is going to be — the big squishie is for baby’s older brother.)

Finally, thank you to Crafty Staci, who sent me a super cute tea cup cozy thingoo since I was one of the winners of her giveaway! By this point, Cosmo was really antsy and kept grabbing things I was trying to take pictures of, so this is the best picture I could get of the cup cozy.

Dawnybear potholders

Aug 132011

My sister and I were shopping for her mother-in-law’s birthday present the other day, and I offered to make her a present out of Dawnybear’s footprint. Then we realized that we should make three of these, so that my sister and parents could have ones, too.

I used Sugar Pop scraps and bicycles because my mom said she liked the bicycles. I used too much bicycle fabric on this next one, though!

The potholders have two layers of the InsulBrite that my sister sneakily had paid for when we went to the store for her friends’ ribbon blankies’ supplies.

I practiced my free-motion quilting on the backs, but only drew one picture for each because I was running out of time before my family was going to wake up. For my mom’s potholder, I made a flower like the one she draws for Cosmo when they’re playing crayons.

My stitches were really tiny and I had a hard time moving the fabric around, so I followed The Free Motion Quilting Project’s awesome instructions for modifying your fmq foot, and it was so much easier! Then I followed one of their neat patterns to make this daisy for my sister’s mother-in-law.

Finally, I drew hearts on my sister’s potholder because she likes hearts. I definitely need more practice on making hearts and text!

I’m linking to the August Bloggers’ Dinner Party. Thanks, Lindsay Sews, for hosting it this month!

Baby Ballet Shoes

Jul 312011

My sister has a pair of newborn-sized ballerina slipper socks that she loves putting on her daughter, even though her daughter is now six months old. Since they’re both coming to visit in a couple of days, I thought I’d try making her a pair of baby ballet shoes.

I used Me Sew Crazy’s tutorial and pattern, which was very good, but I’m not so handy at sewing such eensy, fiddly curves. I’ve definitely got sewing baby shoes out of my system, now!

I tried to get Sunshine to model the shoes for me, but his feet are too big. I hope Dawnybear’s feet are a lot smaller!

Pentagon squishies

Jul 262011

I recently saw a super cute baby ball at Patchwork Delights, so wanted to make some for Sunshine and my niece. I used Lori Hanson’s tutorial and freezer paper, which meant I only needed to use one of the templates. Yay for skipping a step!

I sewed a ribbon loop into the balls so they can be hung from play gyms and things, and I also put three jingly bells inside.

I left them pretty squishy since Sunshine and Dawnybear aren’t very old yet and are still working on their gripping power. Next, I have to try washing them… hopefully the stuffing won’t get all weird!

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