Burp Cloths for Baby Girl No. 6

So far in 2017 I have sewn 34 burp cloths for five babies - all girls! Except for one pair of twins, all were born to a random assortment of friends and acquaintances totally unrelated to each other! So no wonder when my daughter-in-law's sister had her baby girl, my flannel drawer was positively void of baby girl and even gender neutral prints. I was also unprepared because the baby came five weeks early; she is small, under 5 lbs, but is doing just fine. I delved into my gender neutral flannel options first.

Just  a couple weeks ago I'd bought this gray, red, and white snowman flannel. The Frosty Folks I had recently added to my stash was from Henry Glass & Co., Inc., designed by Jan Shade Beach. The randomly spotted gray flannel (a supplemental fabric purchase) looked like snow falling to me and so made a good pairing with the snowmen. Baby girl and parents live in Colorado so a snow theme seemed fitting.

I also had this fox print in my drawer and had been keeping my eye out for a complement to it. The Seuss stripe had been in the same drawer, too; but I had never thought to pair the two until now. Isn't there some quote about "necessity being the mother of invention" or "desperate times calling for desperate measures"? The red and white stripes serendipitously go splendidly with the red fox and his white tipped tail. I'd bought the foxes in May of 2016 and no longer remember their source but those wonky Seuss stripes are by Robert Kauffman and may still be hanging around as a staple.

I still wanted to make some more burp cloths to give, especially a few on the more girly side. So, martyr that I am, I dragged myself to my local quilt shop and raided the baby flannels in the back corner. I found some really cuties from the Maywood Studios line Little One Flannel Too. 

I bought this green trellis and animal print pairing from Little One Flannel Too.

There was a bold stronger colored print from the same line that I paired with a diagonal stripe that sported the same shocking pink.

The large print had delightful sayings on it, shown in the zoomed in photo below

I bought a half yard of each flannel and let the prints fall as they may. How lucky I was that they happened to feature themselves! Note how the elephant is front and center and even the turtle and his advice about speed turned out well-placed along the narrow border. Now I'd better pre-wash all these and get them off in the mail. I did not get them finished before the baby shower happened – I never intended to. But then the baby shower did not get completed before the birth happened, either! So there!

Completion of these eight burp cloths increases my 2017 running tally to 42. I did also buy these blue dot prints to add to my stash. The gender tides are bound to turn soon, and boy, am I ever gonna be male ready!

Birthday and Halloween

BIRTHDAY
Today is my eldest granddaughter's 5th birthday. I spent Sunday working away on a pair of Hansel and Gretel dolls and their accessories from a panel by Stacy Hsu.

I forget how long it does take to sew and stuff these. They always come out cute though. Here, from left to right, are Mr. Bear, Hansel, Funny Bunny and Gretel with her border print dirndl skirt.

This is the front of their blanket and pillow – at least I declare it to be the front. I layered the blanket  with batting and simply stitched straight lines along the squares of the counterpane. For the pillow I added a bit of batting, and stitched around the Home Sweet Home sign and the central house  to give the pillow a bit more dimension before sewing, turning, and stuffing it. 

Here is the reverse side of the pillow and blanket. The print is very cheerful and colorful. For some reason the vertical lines of the mini-quilt are not visible in the photo but they are indeed there.

This is the whole set completed. They will go with the Lil' Red (3/8/16), Coral Queen of the Sea (5/14/17), and Lil Superheroes (April 14, 2017) I've already given her. My granddaughter will not get Hansel and Gretel today, Wednesday, because the post office was closed Monday due to the Columbus Day holiday. Alas, I'd procrastinated and forgotten to allow for the extra day. UPS was open Monday and I sent it that way; it will get there Friday. At least an Amazon package I sent should arrive today.

I also mailed a book of the fairly tale Hansel and Gretel along with the cloth entourage. I read the book first. Yee gads, what a gruesome tale!  I'd remembered the part about shoving the wicked witch into the oven; but that was OK. After, all she was wicked and deserved it. I had not however remembered how Hansel and Gretel got in that predicament to begin with. The version of the book I found to send, told the tale of her father and stepmother having not enough food to share, so they took the kids out into the woods and deliberately left them there to perish. Nice, huh? Oh well, Autumn likes to watch scary movies with her dad so maybe this will not phase her in the least.

HALLOWEEN

This week I also sewed up some block of the month mini-kits from my guild. There was a choice of  a squat pieced house block, a tall pieced house block, or a short and tall tree pair paper-pieced block. I bought one of each block type intending to submit them back into the drawing. The houses came out cute enough and the paper-pieced trees took me long enough that I decided to keep the trio and make it into a small wall hanging. Here is the squat house complete with spidery window and door and a skeleton lurking in the attic.

The tall house had ghosts on the first floor and jack-o'-lanterns peeking out the second story window. I split the tree block and sandwiched the tall house in between the two paper-pieced pines.

I placed the trio on my design wall and plan to add a lawn in front courtesy of green fabric culled from my stash. Perhaps I will interrupt the grass with a couple of angled walkways and bind the unit pretty much the size it is. The blocks with the blue marbleized background finished about 12" each.

Linking up now with Let's Bee Social #198 from Sew Fresh Quilts...