I didn’t make PJs for Anneliese last year, but this year I repurposed a nightgown of my own that I haven’t been able to wear in a long time, and won’t be able to either (since it’s not breastfeeding friendly). The fabric is so pretty and soft, and I’m glad Anneliese can enjoy it.

I also cut up a camisole I had in the “for use as fabric” pile (I need to come up with a better storage system for upcycle-able stuff like that than a pile), to use for the sleeves and accents.

She is laughing here, I promise. Look at her cute chubby feet!

It’s not a perfect nightgown by any means (other than straight lines I’m kind of a sloppy seamstress), but it fits and it’s cute.

The nightgown I cut up already had the gathers under the bodice, so the new nightgown is nice and full.

And I made it extra-long because of all the growth-spurting Anneliese has been doing. Hopefully it’ll fit for a couple of months.

Anneliese explored the tree and looked at her presents, then went into her room to look at a book and get ready for bed.

The little flower is hand-sewn and hand-stitched onto the front, and the heart is blanket-stitched on by hand also.

A heart for my heart.

Stop and smell the roses.

It’s pretty compact. See?

And when you open it up, there are slots for 8 mini colored pencils (which I got at Michael’s) or crayons.

The other side is one big pocket for storing coloring pages. I drew my own, scanned them in and printed them 4-to-a-page. If you do a google image search for “coloring pages” though, you’ll find lots of line drawings you can print out the same way. Simple!

The fabric I used is cotton flannel, and I fused together two pieces with Pellon Wonder Under, which is an iron-on fusible web.

I trimmed the short ends of the rectangle with pinking shears, then folded in the sides and ironed firmly, folded the whole thing in half and ironed the center crease.

A line of stitches 1/4” in from each of the longer sides, and I trimmed those sides with my pinking shears too.

After that, 7 more lines of stitching on the crayon/pencil side (evenly spaced of course), and the coloring wallet is ready for filling!

Ready for on-the-go coloring or gift-giving!

Dyed silk play scarves – Tutorial by The Artful Parent, and there is also a great color chart by Gerbera Designs.

Coiled Rag Bowl – tutorial by Wee Folk Art (there are LOTS of great tutorials on this site for free, so be sure to check them out!)

Tree blocks – simple how-to by Crafting a Green World. Yes it’s as simple as it seems. And while I LOVE unit blocks for more architectural building and naturally absorbing math concepts (and would love for Anneliese to have a set of real full-size “preschool-quality” ones someday)… there is something perfect in the imperfection of these natural blocks too.

Wooden Peg Doll Family – inspiration by ColorFool. What a sweet idea, to make a little doll family modeled after our own! I’ll try to make a Zora (dog) peg too.

Rainbow people matching game – I’ve seen sets like this on etsy and thought they would be a sweet little game for Anneliese, but easy to make myself too. J Man and Miller Bug apparently had the same thought!

Busy Bottles – from Pink Pistachio. LOVE this idea. I was also a fan of the “glitter wand” as a kid, and this is a similar, homemade idea. You could make bottles with different themes or color schemes.

Upcycled Sweater Crafts – If I can find some great 100% wool sweaters at Goodwill, I’d love to make some felted stuffed animals, slippers, and a cute cap. (All how-tos from Martha Stewart.)

Wooden Lacing Cards – By Dollar Store Crafts. I’ll see if Michaels has any larger wooden shapes that I can drill some holes into. I’m pretty sure they have simple plain wooden geometric shapes I could paint. I know they have the smaller wooden shapes too but I don’t think those would be big enough to work well.

Crocheted tea set – I saw this in the Land of Nod catalog and made sure to “pin” it to my Pinterest. How sweet would this be?

A Play Kitchen – I love the “hacked” Ikea kitchens floating all over the internet. This one is probably my favorite though. I love how it’s simple but “complete” and has real touches like an actual faucet with knobs, and how it doesn’t take up a ton of space.

I would be remiss to not include my girlfriend Kim’s play kitchen she and her husband made for their daughter. Everything Kim does has such CHARM that it’s impossible not to fall in love.

Family Book – I’ve been meaning to do one of these for a long time, but maybe I’ll actually get one together for the holidays. I just need to find a good picture of each of us – my husband, me, Anneliese, Zora, our parents, our siblings and their spouses and kids… that should about cover it. I’ll probably order through shutterfly or picaboo or one of those types of book printing places.

Some sort of Mobile – there is a hook in the ceiling in Anneliese’s room and it would be the perfect place for a lovely-to-look-at mobile, but I haven’t made one yet. Add it to the list. This one is precious.

A gorgeous fabric memory game – Tutorial and photo from purlbee.com. I love the idea of this and think it would also be great with different textures of the same color fabric too for an older child and a bit more of a challenge (imagine all in royal blue, but pairs of felt, velvet, cotton, chiffon, wool, lace, etc.) and for more of a Montessori element (only one variable).

An activity board – For now I’ll stick with the Melissa and Doug Latch Board that we have, but I would love a more exciting version with more types of “goodies” on it when she gets older. This is something I could enlist my husband’s help with I’m sure.

Wall Abacus – From Anything Pretty. Another thing I’d rather have my husband build than do myself. But this would go perfectly on the wall in the play area of the living room. hmmmmmmmm….

Fabric Card Table Playhouse – From Bargain Hoot. Something I’ve been eyeing for years, since before I was even pregnant with Anneliese. I probably won’t make it for Christmas, but maybe for her birthday next year or even Christmas next year. She doesn’t really “pretend” yet but I know she’ll be into it soon!

Quiet Book – My sisters and I had a quiet book when we were kids, and I vividly remember a page with flowers we could button onto stems in a vase, as well as a page with shapes to match (I’m not sure if they were button-on, snaps, or velcro). There are SO many ideas on the internet for quiet book pages and book themes, and a flickr search will bring up a ton of inspiration. I also LOVE this color scrap book from Emmy Lizzy (shown below).

Painted Step Stool – Photo by Remodeling this Life. As Anneliese gets more sturdy on her feet and more independent with tooth-brushing and such, I’d like her to be able to reach the bathroom sink safely and easily. I have a little step stool but it’s not tall enough for a tiny toddler… it’s only one level like a tiny milkmaid stool. Apparently Ikea has some great-looking wooden step-stools with two steps that would be perfect! I’d love to personalize it a bit, not just leave it one color.

Painted Matryoshka Set – I got a set of 7 blank nesting dolls on etsy earlier this year and haven’t settled on a theme yet, but I got 7 so that I could do the rainbow (including indigo). I want them to be relatively simple and modern, but when I do come up with a design, I’ll paint them for Anneliese. Picture from ecrater – gorgeous, but a bit elaborate for me to make (and $80+ to buy!)

Handmade growth chart – here are two versions I LOVE. An embroidered quilted one, and a jute/safety pin/tag one. Totally different looks but I love them both so much. The doorframe thing doesn’t really work for military families!

Baby underwear – Since we’ve been ECing (Using elimination communication)since Anneliese was about 6 months, she is quite used to the potty. Now that she’s walking and also happens to be telling me (with sign language) more often that she needs to use the potty, I’m thinking it’s almost time to ramp up to actual “potty training/learning” instead of the casual EC we’ve been doing for nearly a year. But no one makes underwear for a less-than-20-pound baby. Well, some people do, but it costs $10+ per pair. Making my own would be much more economical. Maybe not “Christmas gift!” material, but something to do soon in any case. Photo from Noodle-Head. Pattern from That Darn Kat on etsy. Zaaberry also made a trainer/pull-up version which is a great idea. I’m planning to continue using cloth diapers during naps and at night, but maybe when she is more reliable a “pull-up” like this would be good for naps.
Note: The pattern only goes as small as a size 2, but I figure it can’t be too hard to scale it down further.

Fabric “Paper Chain” or Advent Chain – I know people use these to count down (or up) to Christmas, but I think they would be a fun year-round activity for toddlers to do (akin to the plastic linking chains, or the beads that snap together). I saw these covered plastic ones in the Land of Nod catalog and immediately thought “I can make that!” and imagined using heavier interfacing inside of tubes of fabric (quilting cotton or flannel), and snaps to fasten them together. A bit of googling led me to Roots and Wings Co, who has a tutorial for a less time consuming version using fusible webbing, pinking shears, and velcro.

Fabric Christmas tree with Velcro ornaments – This is an idea I came up with and when I googled, I didn’t find anything like what is in my head. There are lots of two-dimensional advent calendars that have similar ideas, and this 3D one is the closest to what I was thinking. But my tree would be cuter and simpler, my ornaments would be less cheesy, and it certainly wouldn’t say “My first Christmas tree” across the base. This is another one you could use as an advent/count down decoration, but I think it would be more fun as a toy through the whole month of December, to decorate and un-decorate as many times as your child wants. When I get around to making ours, I’ll be sure to post pictures of my non-ugly version.

A garden gnome … because I’ve been looking for one that isn’t creepy for a while. And this guy is cute!

And a bunch of fabric and some trim. And some gift bags.

But the fabric and trim… that is the part relevant to this post.

Yesterday, I sewed and sewed and sewed, and ended up with this:

A cute cute cute “pillowcase” dress for Anneliese, and a matching one for her friend Ella, Joni’s baby girl. I made it big/long on purpose, so she can wear it for a long time. Hopefully it will fit throughout the summer, and in the fall she can wear it with a long sleeved shirt underneath it, and leg warmers.

Here are some more details. Please excuse the wrinkles… Anneliese had been wearing it all day.

And here it is with the dress I made today (which took alllllllll day):

Black/white polka dots, with yellow smocking, buttons, and peek-a-boo rickrack.

Close up of the honeycomb smocking and decorative buttons:

peek-a-boo rickrack

Matching pinwheel hair clip.

And I forgot to take a “real” picture of the back of it, but here’s one I put on instagram earlier (minus the straps and trim). The top of the back is shirred with yellow top-stitching, and elastic thread on the inside. The front of the bodice is lined with yellow gingham.

I know I really haven’t blogged much lately, and that stinks. I have stuff to share, but I have just hardly been on the computer at all.

In case you haven’t heard of Instagram, it is summarized as Fast, simple, beautiful mobile photo sharing on your iPhone. Basically, you snap a photo with your iPhone, choose one of several filters to apply to it, and share it (I usually tweet mine).

So since I’ve only picked up my real camera a handful of times this week, here’s a peek at what our week has been like, via instagram.

Still missing The Guy, still working on growing those teeth. (Though I think the worst of this round of teething is over now!)

Making thigh-high baby socks so we don’t have to deal with leg warmers that ride up with socks that fall off. Lovely!

Waking up to this precious girl every day, and spending the morning snuggling in bed.

Experimenting with more back carries (this one in my Snuggy Baby ring sling) and using our back-carry time to get more chores done – like raking the back yard.

A sleepy baby who was fighting her naps, and only sleeping about half an hour at a time (for a couple days)… Desperate for playtime.

Hanging more pictures and such… trying to get the house in order, while Anneliese hangs out and practices eating…paper. Still waiting for her papa to come home before we introduce solids.

LOTS of nursing earlier this week – I suspected a growth spurt. It seems to have calmed down a bit though.

A small craft project for my bedroom (I’ll show you once I get it on the walls), and a building relationship between dog and girl.

That growth spurt I suspected? Check out these 6-9 month pajamas. Yeah, the 3-6 month ones don’t fit anymore. Also? Mountains of clean laundry to fold.

Being thankful that the fog seems to have lifted (literally) and that our nook of the country isn’t covered in snow. Dressing baby inappropriately in summer attire, even though it’s in the 50s. (I think it’s okay if it’s warm in the house, right?)

Taking some time to put my feet up and relax. Also, sorting through Anneliese’s smaller clothes and diapers, deciding what to keep (for a future little sibling? – but no, I’m not pregnant) and what to pass on.

As part of our “sleep plan,” spending some quiet time each day playing on the floor bed, to get comfy with it and associate it with happy feelings. Also, keeping up with elimination communication, even if I haven’t made any “catches” lately. Anneliese is comfy on her potty, and it’s a good time to sing songs and recite poems.

Excited about the fact that one of the dresses I made a while ago fits perfectly now. And surprising a friend with a baby shower (this is her daughter with Anneliese – she’s going to be such a good big sister).

Learning to sleep unswaddled – this just started today. Two 45-minute naps unswaddled on her floor bed, and one nap in the ring sling at the baby shower (not sure how long). So far tonight, she’s been sleeping unswaddled, but she’s woken several times and needed help getting back to sleep. I found it’s impossible for her to sleep unswaddled on her back at this point, because her arms just wave around nonstop. But on her tummy, she can sleep once she relaxes and stops trying to push up to see the world. Back rubs and pats help her relax, and she snuggles with her Sleepy Sheep, which is just precious to see.

So that’s the week in instagrams. Hope you enjoyed it!

(This is me and Anneliese, Virginia and Landon in December.)

Now, Virginia is doing well – she has been discharged from the hospital, and aside from a few sniffles and recovery from her surgery, she is healthy and strong. She is pumping wonderful breast milk every day for Leila to drink when she’s ready, and seeing her baby girl as much as possible while still “loving on” her little boy.

Leila is getting stronger each day, and has stabilized her blood pressure and some other factors as well. She had a blood transfusion two days ago, which is normal/expected with babies this premature, though still scary. Everything went well though. She is a little fighter for sure.

To keep things fun, Virginia and the NICU nurses are changing Leila’s hat every day. Virginia wants to save all the tiny hats and put them in a shadowbox or something later on. You can join the hat drive for Leila here on Facebook, if you’d like to make any hats to send them. If you’re not so crafty, but you’re thinking of the family or keeping them in your prayers if you pray, join Leila’s friends.

So far I’ve made three hats for Leila. Here she is in the first one, which I crocheted:

And here are the other two, which she doesn’t have yet:

So in case you’d like to make a hat for Leila, or for any other teeny baby you might know, I thought I’d put up this simple tutorial.

Preemie Hat Tutorial – Easy Sewing

First, start with a pair of fun-looking kids’ socks. I got these in the dollar section at Target.

Cut the socks at the ankle, right above the heel.

These are the parts you’ll be using.

Sometimes socks have a visual seam where the pattern is slightly jagged. If yours has that (you can see it in the sock in the background, near the edge), cut there. If not, cut wherever you want… lengthwise from your previous cut to the cuff of the sock.

So now you have two pieces that look like this:

Put the two pieces together, right sides facing each other.

And zig-zag stitch up the sides. If you’re hand-sewing, a simple whip stitch will do.

If you want, you can flip the hat right side out and gather the top with a running stitch. You can cover the raw edge by adding a pom pom or some other embellishment.

But I didn’t do that. I zig-zagged over the top edge to make a rectangular hat.

Flip right side out.

Then basically you’re going to gather two little ears, by making a diagonal running stitch “cutting off” each corner.

Like this. Maybe an inch in from the corner, diagonally across to about an inch below the corner.

Pull tight, add a few back stitches to secure, knot and trim. Repeat on the other side to make the second “ear.”

You can leave it like that if you’d like.

Or add any embellishment you think looks nice.

Voila! Teeny hat for the smallest sweet girl.

Now you don’t want your hat recipient to get sick because of a germ introduced by your gift… so wash it on hot water and machine-dry it, then immediately put it into a ziploc bag so that nothing unintended makes it into the NICU.

You’ve seen some of the little dresses I’ve made for Anneliese. I have pieces cut out for several more, but haven’t sewn them together yet.

I’ve picked up a blanket I started crocheting… oh, about 6 years ago… it’s going to take a while to finish because it’s going to end up pretty big, and the cables slow me down a bit. But I’m working on it again.

I’ve picked up embroidery again (which I’ve always LOVED), to embellish some pockets for a super-secret project. I can’t reveal the whole project yet, but here’s a sneak of one I’m making for a friend:

…and one I’m making for myself:

I have fabric for lots of diaper inserts cut out and ready to go once I set up and figure out my new serger. The light blue is just some satin I’m going to serge into rectangles to put under my girl’s head when she sleeps, to hopefully stop all her hair from rubbing off when she moves her head… hopefully it’ll grow in by Christmas? The dark blue fabric is for another project.

This area has been getting a lot of use lately… my laptop is exiled to the living room.

This sucker needs to be set up and played with a bit… it came with instructional DVDs I need to watch! The husband just set up a big folding table in the office for me to put this on.

So basically, you’re going to be seeing a lot more projects coming up… my craft mojo is back!

The first one has a felt appliqué birdie, singing about love.

I need to wash and dry it in order to tighten up the shirring a bit – as is, it’s far too big for Anneliese. I also added a little ruffle onto the bottom of this one. Unfortunately, once I figured out my fancy ruffler foot, it broke (the part that hooks onto the machine fell off – I need to epoxy it back somehow). So this was made with a not-so-fancy “gathering foot” that doesn’t seem as good or precise. It’s fine though, I guess.

The second dress is made of two different fabrics, with embroidery to tie in the accent fabric.

See the little flowers on the sleeves?

I know the empire shirring makes this dress look ridiculously small, like a doll dress, but it is very elastic and not at all too small once my girl is inside it.

See? I hope she likes it!

Milk tongue!!!

Hello, sweet girl.

What? Is this too many pictures? Are you getting tired of this?

All tuckered out.

So when I used two containers of wipes in 2 weeks, I decided it was time to switch to cloth wipes too. Wipes aren’t really something I want to add to my weekly shopping list. Plus, I only had about 20 flannel receiving blankets… so it’s not like I’d even have to buy fabric.

I cut up 2 of the receiving blankets into 16 squares each. They ended up around 7”x7” each.

All you have to do is cut the squares, and then zig-zag stitch around the edges to prevent fraying. If you have a serger you could use overlock, but zig-zag on a regular machine works fine too.

See how that turns out?

It only takes a little while if you just sit down and do them all at once…

And then you’ll have a big stack of wipes, ready to go! If you already cloth diaper, it’s not a big deal to add wipes to your laundry too.

I keep a spray bottle in my diaper changing area, and fill it with a mixture of water, witch hazel, and a few drops of tea tree oil and lavender oil. I make enough to fill 3 spray bottles at once, and those 3 bottles last about 2 weeks before I have to mix up some more.

So far so good!