Baby Burritos

The week before the girls were born I waddled into my sewing nook and made a dozen large colorful swaddling blankets from Anna Maria's Folksy Flannel. I purchased a yard of each and squared them up with my rotary cutter and finished them with a rolled hem using my trusty serger. The remnants were also hemmed and added to my basket of wash cloths and burp rags so I literally used every square inch of fabric for this project. They were by far the easiest and most useful items I made for the babies. The Folksy Flannel is a wonderful weight for this sort of application and the colors are simply gorgeous; I can't tell you how many compliments I received.

The only thing I would do differently next time is to make them bigger. We swaddled our girls for a long time and once they got to be about 13 pounds they started to bust out of them. I made a few more from 1 1/4 yard pieces and they worked until we stopped needing them at about 6 months old. They are still in great shape (even after many washings) and I'm sure I will be able to re-purpose them at some point in the future. For now I'm keeping them in the bin with the teeny-tiny premie clothes that I can't bear to part with.

Let the Mommy blogging begin

The Bean, the Bear and the Bandit*

So, that pregnancy thing I was working on? It turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. It also turned out that having three newborn babies living in your house is a lot of work. Now that we are eight months out and the babies go to bed at 7:30 pm and I am back at my job where I get an actual lunch break, I have time to make stuff again. And, possibly, hopefully, blog about it.

*Not their real names, obviously, but how they will be know here in Blogland. Bean because she was such a teeny tiny bean when she was born, Bear because she's such a squishy sweet Gummy Bear of a baby and Bandit because she had colic and ruled the house for months.

Plus One

Take one adorable couple then add one gorgeous baby boy and what do you get? The plus one baby boy quilt, of course!

I knew I wanted to make Mr. E a baby quilt to welcome him into the world but I struggled with what it would look like. I wanted it to have meaning and not just be useful. Luckily, the internet is jammed packed with inspiration and I found mine at Film in the Fridge.

For me all those plus signs speak not only to the addition of a family member but also the addition of immense amounts of love to your life. It is the addition of a connection between mom, dad, and baby E. It is the addition of the best kind of chaos. The addition of rough and tumble play and scraped knees. It is the addition of memories just waiting to be made.

A new baby is so much more than the seemingly simple addition of one.