Oopsie the Octopus

Since the birth of my super cute nephew, Maximus, 8 of my friends have had, or are expecting, a baby. Eight. I kid you not. Congrats to all my new mommy and daddy friends! So many babies!!!

With all the baby hoopla, I'm drawn to all sorts of beautiful children's fabric and sewing patterns that are available now. Rarely do I actually sit down and make something cute for a little one.

Oopsie the Octopus was just too cute. I found the tutorial on the Moda Bake Shop and finally found some time to make a simplified version of the toy. No yoyos, and I only gave it eyeballs.

From sewing

From sewing

It really was (almost) as easy as the tutorial implies. I made lots of mistakes, but hardly noticeable. The most surprising part was how much filling you have to stuff into the toy to get a nice round shape. Don't be stingy!

Some other cute things that I've seen recently:

Big Butt Baby Pants:

Knotty Jumper with Ruffled Leggings:

Everything Olivery + S

And check out this super awesome fabric that just arrived at the workroom!

From lizzyhouse.typepad.com

So many great kids patterns and fabrics out there!!! I guess I won't have a shortage of babies to sew for!

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Happy Birthday Mackenzie!

Today, our beloved canine daughter turns 7.

Last week she had an early celebration with our roadtrip to Ottawa where my parents live in an area of dense squirrel population. There was lots of chasing. Ottawa is also where my handsome nephew Max resides. He is in the early stages of walking, he just needs something to hoist himself up and hang onto. Mackenzie was often the object of choice.

From Family

Today we are planning a trip to the Bronte Creek Leash-free-path. She'll get her pick of picnic snacks and then head home for a well deserved nap on our king-sized bed!

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Churn Dash

Last night was my first quilt class. I spent forever picking some coordinating fabric to go with my initial border fabric.

From sewing

Although I struggled to stay away from the whimsical (a little polka dot got in there) I think it was successfully balanced with some masculine plaid (thanks Jerisse!)

From sewing

The darkest fabric I picked is a deep chocolate brown that has slight fades in it. Upon closer examination, there are cursive words dispersed throughout: "Good" "first" "Spring" "Beauty" ...

And now the reveal of my very first quilt block: the Churn Dash! Can't remember why it's called the churn dash, but something about churning and dashing...

From sewing

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Quilty Pleasures

Next week I fulfil one of my longtime old-lady dreams: I start a quilting class!!!

I signed up for the Sampler Quilt class at the workroom (where else?!). Our task before the first class is to pick the border fabric from which we will build the rest of the quilt. A multi coloured pattern that is medium to large size print.

This is the fabric that I chose:

From sewing

This fabric is from the Gypsy Glitter collection by Art Gallery Fabrics. It's a mixture of paisley and floral but I think it's not too girly with the more neutral colours and only a subtle splash of pinks.

I've been scouring Karyn's flickr page to get ideas of what the sampler quilts will looks like. Here are some of my favourites:

Doris' Sampler Quilt

Jen's Quilt Top

Alison's Quilt

The first quilting class will be spent talking about fabric selection. I think I'll probably try to pick fabrics that have finer prints so that from far away, they look mostly solid. Although I love, love, love prints, I think I was drawn to these three quilts because the 6 quilt designs pop out. They aren't lost in crazy quilt prints. We'll see how it goes... I really love crazy prints!

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