Baby Stuff I Made for a Good Friend

I made a lot of this quite awhile ago, but my friend only received & opened it today. So now I can show everyone else.

My friend V lives in Calgary and is due to have a baby girl any day now :)

These are a few of the things I sent her.

Pic intensive.

A crocheted stroller blanket.

A baby quilt.

A couple baby hats, also crocheted.

This is a cradle & mini album I made her. I got the idea from Anne's Paper Creations. I asked her permission to copy it - there isn't a pattern, I just looked at her instructions & pictures. You can find her version HERE.

Nothing like procrastination...

So I finished the baby quilt just in time for the shower on Sunday.

Once I managed to get it sandwiched (took 3 tries). I planned on quilting it on my new (to me) sewing machine...it had other ideas. I grabbed a practice piece and started quilting only to have the machine act up. As I didn't have time to play around, I figured I would just straight quilt on my regular machine. Which I did successfully until the bobbin thread ran out.

I refilled the bobbin and then proceeded to quilt without first testing the thread. I got a loopy mess on the back of the quilt that I then had to rip out. After playing with the bobbin for about 5 minutes ( I have no idea what I did) I got it to sewing smoothly again and I finished quilting the quilt on Friday evening.

However, as I used high loft batting, I had an area that looked just too poofy to me, so I ripped out another huge section, repinned and requilted it. I then sewed on the binding and hand-stitched the binding to the back on Saturday.

My handstitching is getting better

Front

Back

I have to say I think this quilt has been the most finacky, but I also like it the best.

My neice Amanda - the Mom-to-be

Opening my gift

I finished the baby afghan I started crocheting way back when, and gave that as well.

Also at the baby shower, I got to meet for the first time, the two recipients of the previous baby quilts I made.

My great neice Samantha - this was her quilt

My great nephew Dustin - this was his quilt

New crochet project

I started crocheting a baby afghan for one of the two babies due in my family in the next couple months. However, I have this really bad habit of losing or adding extra stitches when I knit or crochet, so what started out as a rectangle, ended up looking a lot like a triangle by the time I had 24 inches done. So I ripped it all out and started a shell pattern which is easier not to increase or decrease.

My friend had shown me how to do the shell pattern several years ago so I refreshed my memory with this (now posted above cuz I couldn't make it work here) Amazing what you can learn on Youtube!

So here is what I have done so far. Only a few inches - I have a long way to go yet to make a baby blanket :)