Hello, Summer!

It's done. School is over and so the summer has begun! It was a good last couple of weeks of school, full of meetings, IEPs, and getting everything of mine out of the classroom and home. I will miss it there. I will miss the kids, the teachers, the people. I will have to go back and visit them when I can; show off the baby. I am sure that if I do not, I will hear about it!

 

It has been a while since I last posted! Nikolai and I went to the zoo, not this past weekend but the one before, with my friend Meghan and her two kiddos. It was the first time we tried to feed the giraffes and the ducks. Nikolai did well with feeding the ducks. I think he was a little scared to feed the giraffe!

 

 

Mother's Day Weekend

I know that was last weekend, but we had so much fun with the kids and grilling. It was fun. Yummy food, yummy dessert, and family always makes an event fun! :)

Had a BBQ with family on Saturday...

Nikolai wanted Daddy to sit in his lap...

Cousins

Sunday we went to the park!

Good fun! Though this is a week late, hope you all enjoyed your mother's day!

Receiving Blanket: Mitered Corners Tutorial

 

For Nikolai's baby shower, one of the best gifts I got was the receiving blankets from my friend Tiffany. They were the homemade kind from the snuggle flannel, and not to mention HUGE. Perfect for snuggling, perfect for swaddling, and we still use them! Since these last few weeks have been jam packed with baby showers, and I am back into my sewing (and enjoying it), I decided to make some.

 

But how to do the hem? I loved the look of the mitered corners that I did for the Robot Baby Quilt I thought how great that would be to do that for the hem on the receiving blankets? I am pretty proud of myself because I pretty much did not use any website to help me out with this, mostly because I couldn't find anything! Since I am super proud at how they turned out I figured I would share how I did the corners! :)

 

The size of fabric I used was enough to make a square. I got 1.25  yards and trimmed off the extra. I can use that later (wof=42" that gave me an extra 3"), hurrah for scraps! :)

 

How I Did My Mitered Corners

 

1.  I pressed the first quarter inch in around the whole blanket, then the amount that I wanted the hem to be. I was thinking about an inch, but for receiving blankets I think more blanket is better and did about 3/4 of an inch.

 

 

2. I think that makes this part so much easier! You can see the creases from pressing the hem in! I used that to my advantage (mostly because I was not sure about where to measure!

 

 Open up your hem and fold diagonally. I used my grid to help me make sure it is straight. Line up the 45 degree line on the crease, that was my guide of where to draw my line and sew.

Draw the line on the fabric using your marking pen, chalk, pencil (whatever you use). Remember not to sew over that 1/4 inch. If you do, that makes folding that part in a little difficult! ;)

 

3. Sew along your drawn line! I locked in the stitch near the quarter inch. I know that will be gone over with the hem stitch, but I think babies give a lot of wear and tear on these things (Nikolai is still using his 2 and a half years later!)

 

 

4. Cut off the excess! I cut off about 1/8 from the seam. It makes it less bulky.

 

I also trimmed a small corner where the point will be. Be careful not to cut the seam!

 

5. fold your pieces back in, press and pin. Then sew around your hem!

 

 

I have no pictures of the sewing part; the batteries to my camera died.

 

Sew as close to the inner edge as you can. I don't have a hem foot to help me with that so I just use the standard foot. But, you have to make sure that you are also sewing over your 1/4 inch. That is to keep the fraying down and the blanket from falling apart. :)

 

So easy! I had no idea it was so easy! I whipped up a couple so fast once I figured out how to do it! Yay me! I'm just excited! (can't you tell?)  ;) I am so proud of those corners!!

 

 

I hope the recipient likes them as much as Nikolai does! Perfect for swaddling! And I like the way they look tied up with selvage... Cute!

 

 

I can't wait to make some for baby girl! :)

A Special Week: Pictures!

I have really enjoyed this week, mostly. There have been some stressful moments like the 2 IEP meetings that I had, both of which took about an hour! 3 more meetings to go and then I am done! Yay! But, it was my birthday this last Wednesday; I had mommy and me pictures done with Nikolai on the 2nd (picked them up on my birthday) and we got 3d/4d picture of Baby Girl on the 7th. I think those were some pretty good birthday presents! Nikolai showed up at my work with flowers and a card, so special! I wasn't able to get pictures of that though because my phone died.

 

I'm just excited! I cannot believe that only 2 months left and there is going to be another baby in the house! That means only about 2 months left with just Nikolai... All the more reason to have done the mommy and my photo shoot...

Wait to Fall Asleep...

I am waiting for Nikolai to fall asleep, and while I am waiting, I feel like I am going to doze off! I feel like I have a few times! But Nikolai is being a mean tired, and I am not going to put up with it. I am done with time outs, he is laying down!

 

I cannot sleep until he does, only because I don't need him getting into trouble. I feel better knowing that there is someone to watch after his mischievousness. Not that he usually is, because he is not, but because I just feel better with having a 2 year old under supervision...

 

So while I wait to be able to take a nap, I thought I would show you this picture... It seems this owl has made it's home in one of the Saguaros on the property. Pretty neat!

 

 

It's a bit blurry because I don't have a fantastic zoom. So this one is cropped...

 

It's not the hawk that was sitting on the fence the other day when I left for work. So many neat raptors in the area. I don't know how the vulture with the broken shoulder is doing... I love it out here. :)