"The Rematch"

As you may recall, after my abysmal Crafting Fail last month, I promised a rematch with the self binding blanket method.

I started afresh (quite stupidly, I might add) with some adorable owl knit I found as a remnant at Jo-Ann's.*

I then waged WAR with said knit for days. And days. Before long, I was looking for the nearest fork with which to gouge out my eyes. If you think that's a little overly dramatic, then you've probably never tried to sew with knit!

"Knit is wicked! Tricksy! False!!"

Anyway, after hours of turmoil, I finally ended up with this:

And then another one (which went only slightly better than the first):

 

The problem with knit is that it is extremely stretchy, and especially when you're trying to sew it onto a piece of non-stretchy fabric like woven cotton, even if you use forty five pins and just ease it along and try not to stretch anything, you end up with puckers and loads of extra material bunched up somehow. Some people, like Dana from MADE (whom the Crafting Gods never fail to smile upon), sew with knits all the time and say it's "fun and easy to do". HA!! Maybe in my next lifetime.

So then I made these other two with regular old flannel and broadcloth (cotton) and they turned out just fine. Better than the knit, anyway.

No weeping, no wailing, and hardly any gnashing of teeth. That fabric was about one thousand times easier to work with. Lesson learned!

Here is an instruction sheet I've had for a few years on how to make one of these blankets, with helpful notes added by my old neighbor and sewing guru Ruth Jeppson. You can print it out if you want. (I don't know why it looks faded...sorry.)

They are cute little blankets to make--once you figure them out--but they do require extra measuring, cutting, pinning, etc. If you have a piece of fabric that's slightly smaller and narrower than a full yard, it can be used for the center of the blanket. Handy for all those remnants I seem to end up with!

* All fabrics in this post were from Jo-Ann's. I feel like they should be paying me for advertising or something...

And then, since I am apparently a glutton for punishment, I serged the edge of all these flannel receiving blankets:

 

Normally, they are very easy blankets to make (and coincidentally, the only way I've been able to use knit successfully), but my serger is such a DIVA!!!!!!

She (the serger, her name is Lauren) is so finicky. Even after I paid $90 to get her fixed last year, she still isn't perfectly aligned and every once in a while as I'm sewing, the needles hit on something down below and go CHUNGGGG! and scares me half to death. I sew in constant fear of parts breaking off and flying into my eye. And it always takes me about an hour of fiddling with the four different tension dials before everything is stitching as it should. I bet you'll never guess why!

"Hey mom! I'm up from my nap! I see you've been sewing."

 

"Look how I twisted the threads around for you."

"And now just lemme change all the tension dials..."

 

"Looks about right.....okay you can finish your project now. Why is your face turning red like that??..."

 So most of the time I just make do with my regular sewing machine.

Here's some more things I made:

 

Burp cloths are always a nice diversion. I can finish a dozen in an afternoon and they never cause me any trouble. These ones were for my sister-in-law Nikki, who had her baby shower last weekend.

I made her this blanket, too, and tossed in a few of those flannel receiving blankets. I can't wait to meet my new nephew in a month!!

 These simple cotton blankets are my favorite baby gift to make (and I'm already working on more).

There's nothing quite like a custom, homemade blanket. :)

By the way...

For fellow family members who are living vicariously through our niece Amber, I've updated her blog a couple of times this month. Click here for more glorious pics of her adventures in Yangshuo, Guilin and the Li River in China. Thanks to her, I have a six month supply of pictures I can wallpaper my desktop with. *sigghhh!*

The life and times of a 7-year old

Madelyn got a hold of the camera the other day. I thought it was interesting to see what she chose to take pictures of. You know, important things like SpongeBob, stuff in her bedroom and a nice panorama of her tongue.

 [Plankton]

 [Her AVA LOVE poster]

 [Her flower fairy mobile]

 [Her humidifier]

 Um......

 In other news, she and Mark just got new glasses last week. We got them online from Coastal.com. If you're a new customer, your first pair is free! Let me know if you want the promo code and I can email it to you.

I have a cute family. I think I'll keep them.

Bird watching

 Mark went to Old Iron Town yesterday to scope out some spots to take pictures of the upcoming solar eclipse in May.

 From Cedar City, you hop on Route 56 and go west for 20 miles, and then get onto this dirt road. After about 5 miles you come to these ruins from a settlement called Iron City from the late 1800s. (This whole area was founded around iron mining.)

 There's some modern houses out there, too. There's a lot of people around here who prefer to live off the beaten path...including...

 Bald eagles?!!

Yep! Apparently they winter here down from Alaska. There's plenty of little rodents for them to eat, that's for sure. I've seen a lot of other raptors around here but never a bald eagle! Mark says he's seen them recently but never had a camera with him. It's Awesome with a capital A.

House tour, by Luke

 "Let's start in the dining room. Here we have our fold out table we used Sunday night to have my Grandma Carolyn, Uncle Kevin, Aunt Lori and cousins Hattie and Jack over for dinner. Also note the alphabet magnets, the iguana head grabber, my shoes and the bag of Junior Scrabble Cheez-Its I removed from the box. I just ate a ton of them--I need to lie down for a while and digest."

 "This is our living room. It looks relatively unscathed, but that's because you can't see where I spilled a drink and squashed a banana into the rug this morning. Mom says I'm helping keep Resolve carpet cleaner sprays in business. And just wait till you see what I do later tonight! I have big plans to get a container of Madelyn's art supplies and fling them all over the room."

 "This is my mom and dad's room. While mom was attempting to get dressed and make the bed this morning, I came running from my room thirteen times in a row to show her what letters I'd found. Also some stray Cheez-Its made their way in here somehow."

 "Lately, I've been passing some time getting into the hall closet. Mom just bought a brand new box of bandaids, which is great because I love to unwrap them and paste them onto the wall, or my legs, or just wad them up and leave them on the carpet. I also like to get out the envelopes and my inhaler. Mom says reorganizing the closet and putting all that stuff out of my reach is on the top of her to-do list. I am not happy about this."

 "From the hall, we can see into the kids' bedrooms. For some reason, Mom cleans them every night. I think she likes for me to have a fresh palette to work with in the mornings."

 "First order of business is always to go through Madelyn's bookcase and toys. Mom is going to buy me my own bookcase soon for my room. Then I can throw my own books on the floor, too!"

 "Today I found my foam alphabet puzzle in my closet, and also got Mom to open a bin of toys I haven't played with in a while. It's been the most awesome day ever. She said she gives up on trying to keep the house clean anyway."

 "Now don't bother me. I'm trying to watch Blues Clues and enjoy some delicious toes."

 "Nom nom nom.....these are a little ripe......."

 "Interview's over!!"