Crafty Mother

I know, I know, I’ve been neglecting things around here.  I owe an update on the baby, now with more teeth.  One about the weight loss (stalled thanks to milk issues caused by baby, now with more teeth).  However, I’ve been dealing with stress by tackling my serger and some fun sewing projects.

First, some blocks for H.  Including some not finished yet house/blocks.  Not sure if those will be for H, or my niece who will be one in March.

These are not all perfectly square, but it was the last of my foam block, and I am pretty sure that H won’t mind.  I have two left to finish (so I can spell her nickname with them).  It is a great way to use up scraps.  I just wish that I had thought to put some ribbon tags on them.

These will be house/blocks.  Right now they are covered in cotton batting.  I do that with the square ones too.  It makes them look more polished when they’re finished and hides any imperfections from my less than perfect use of the electric knife (which I bought expressly for using with foam).  I hadn’t really thought of doing anything other than blocks with the foam, but then I saw this.  I even own the book and I hadn’t really thought of it.  My foam is 3″ thick, not 4″, but I think it makes for a very easily pawed/grabbed size for small hands.

The other thing I’ve been working on (other than a dress which I have to show if it passes four year old approval) is cloth labels for the cloth bins in M’s room.  We tackled our clean up issue by trying to better organize her toys, and we purged some.  She has things in a variety of fabric bins.  From ones from Target/Ikea that are in her large Ikea bookcase to the shoe hanger drawer setup we put in her close to organize her Disney/Barbies by character.  That way she has a set place for each characters accessories (including prince if applicable).   You can’t use the labels from our label maker on them, I don’t want to write on anything with a fabric marker, and she’s really starting to read now.

I used felt and fabric scraps to make them.  Including some strips from a quilt that were left over after I had all of the blocks I needed (Snow White).  They will be pinned to the bins using safety pins.  Most of them used lower case letters since she is still working on writing those.  I think for a pre-reader you could make some picture based ones as well.  For instance, we used some flannel with Tinkerbell on it for the Fairies.  It has both the word Fairies and a picture of Tink.  I think I have about 7 done, and at least five more to do.

They are two layers, sewn right sides facing after I do the letters (really basic stitching since the letters are smaller), then turned and top stitched/closed.  If I owned a pinking shears (I have no idea why I don’t) I think I would just top stitch then pink the edges.  I could also serge the edges, but I like the look of this better.  I wasn’t neat at all, since I think half the fun is the slightly off look of them.  It fits M’s decor well.  Its all a bright mishmash of colors.