Things Have Changed

If you know us in real life you might have already found out but either way . . . We’ve Moved!

We’ve decided to move for a whole number of reasons which I may talk about more in the future. In the meantime I just jumped on here to say we’ve got a new home and hopefully a few new projects to share along the way.

Nolan’s 9 through 12 Month Update

Ok, so I’m a little behind. Nolan is getting close to 18 months and I just never got around to posting this update and his last monthly photos that I took. Better late than never I guess.  I’ve waited too long to write this post so I’ve forgotten many of the milestones that he reached along the way but I’ve added in a few things that I’ve remembered. Otherwise there’s tons of photos of Nolan between 9 and 12 months old.

12 Month Stats: At his 12 month appointment he was 18lb 9oz and 30″ tall.

Clothing Size: At 12 months old he was wearing mostly 12 month size clothes. Except for pants. 12 month were still a little too big around the waist even though the length was probably fine.

12 Month Sleep: He was taking two pretty consistent naps a day. The first was about 2 hours after he woke up and it lasted about 2 hours. His second nap usually fell around 2.5 hours after waking up from his first nap and it usually lasted about 2 hours as well.

  

9-12 Month Milestones: If I remember correctly Nolan started pulling up sometime between 9-10 Months. As of 12 months he was still just crawling around, pulling up on furniture but not yet walking around on his own. (He didn’t start walking until almost 15 months.)

1st Birthday Party: Nolan has two cousins (on Chris’ side of the family) that were born within 6 weeks of him. We decided to make it easy and had one party together to celebrate all three babies 1st Birthday’s.

It was so much fun watching all the babies with their cupcakes.

Each had their own way of doing it but they all had fun.

 

 

Baby Boy’s Car Seat Tent & Quilt

Before Nolan was born I made a car seat tent and a car seat quilt. I’ve made them as gifts for other people before so of course I wanted to have my own. Since my son was born in November I thought they would both be useful.

For my own tent and quilt I used mostly fabrics that I had left over from different nursery projects.

The tent was pretty simple. It’s just stripes of patterned fabric and white fabric with a white minky on the back. At the time I purchased the minky I would have rather had a grey on the back but the fabric store was all out. Even though it’s white it has only gotten dirty once and it washed up just fine.

Since I had my car seat already I used it to figure out where I wanted to place the straps.

Here it is all laid out.

To finish off the tent I did two rows of top stitching and used velcro on the straps.

If you want more info on how to make a car seat tent I’ve got another post you can check out <here>.

For the quilt I wanted to do a little bit of a interesting pattern but being pregnant and working on other things I didn’t want it to be too complicated. I ended up cutting out a bunch of squares of fabric that matched the tent.

Then I just assembled the squares into rows. I started every other row with a half size square so that the seams ended up a little offset.

I finished it up with some basic binding and some ribbon ties for attaching to the car seat.

I used a piece of warm and white batting in the middle and teal minky on the back so that it would be nice and warm.

We used the tent quite a bit when Nolan was a newborn, especially because it was cold and rainy out. After about 2 months though I don’t think we used it very much. Chris really liked it but I just found that it ended up being in my way more than it was useful. I was always having to push it out of the way when it was in the car or I was trying to carry the car seat somewhere.

As for the quilt it was great at first too but we stopped using it fairly quickly as well. Everyone talks about how cold babies are and how you have to dress them so warmly and I thought the quilt would be perfect. The funny thing is though we have a really warm baby. Every time I used this after the first couple of weeks we’d pull him out and he’d be so sweaty and I felt so bad. It almost didn’t matter how little we dressed him in he was still hot. As the weather got warmer this spring I just threw in a muslin swaddle blanket if I thought it was going to be a little cold. Of course he still rarely needed that.

So they were both nice to have, but they are things I could have done without. I know some people love to use both but they just seemed less than necessary for us. Who knows, maybe we’ll end up with another baby boy in the future and he’ll be chilly all the time and these will be great to have.

Anyone else have or used a car seat tent and quilt? Were they must have items for you?

Baby Rag Quilt

I have a confession to make. I really like rag quilts. I like to use them and I like to sew them. I’ve made quite a few over the years and many I’ve given away as gifts. Below are the ones that I have currently in my house.

The size I make most often uses 10.5″ x 10.5″ blocks in a 5 x 7 pattern. I’ve found that it’s the best use of the flannel fabric so there’s less waste. When I’m doing these quick easy quilts I will usually use 2 or 3 different flannel fabrics.

Towards the end of spring I was wanting a small light weight quilt that I could put on my lap while I was feeding Nolan. The final quilt ended up being about 35″ x 35″.

Since I was doing a smaller quilt I decided to go with a little bit more involved pattern then I’ve done before.

For my rag quilts I always use flannel for the outer fabric and muslin for the inner or batting layer. For this quilt I went through my stash of fabric and picked out three coordinating flannel fabrics. One print and two fabrics that were a little more solid. I already had white muslin on hand as well to use for the middle. Most of the rag quilts I’ve seen online use something else for the batting. I’ve always used muslin or another inexpensive solid cotton. I think it’s the perfect fabric. It’s lightweight, adds the right amount of warmth, inexpensive and it frays really well.

So lets get started on the quilt. The first step was cutting a big stack of blocks. For this quilt I cut 26 – 8″ x 8″ squares out of the main flannel fabric and 48 – 4.5″ x 4.5″ squares out of each of the solid fabrics. I also cut out 13 – 8″ x 8″ squares and 48 – 4.5″ x 4.5″ squares out of a white muslin for the batting.

Once the fabrics were cut I layered them up into the blocks. Two layers of flannel with one layer of muslin in between.

After all the fabrics are layered in blocks I sewed an X on the front of them. This helps to keep the fabrics from shrinking at different rates which could make the quilt bunch up weirdly. I always do this and it’s especially important if you’re doing larger blocks.

With all the blocks ready to go I laid them all out on the ground in the pattern that I wanted. I did this so that I could determine which blocks will be on the edges. Then I sewed down the edges of the blocks on the outsides with a 1/2″ seam allowance. It can be a tedious process but I have found that if I don’t do it now I have to do it at the end and then I have to sew all the outer seams flat which doesn’t look as nice. It’s totally worth it to finish the edges at this point instead.

Here are some edges and corners all stitched up.

With the edges done I started assembling the smaller squares into blocks. Just like with the edges I use a 1/2″ seam allowance in all of my rag quilts. I think it’s the right thickness of seam to fray well but no to long that it looks stringy.

To make the seams less bulky, easier to work with and easier to match corners I made sure all the seams were laying toward the green blocks.

When the seams lay in different directions it makes the seams thinner and it helps to lock the corners together when it’s being sewed so that the corners and points will match up really well. This is a great tip for any quilt not just a rag quilt.

Once the smaller blocks were together I laid them out again with the other blocks.

The I just sewed the blocks into rows and then the rows together.

Just like with the blocks I kept the seams always laying toward the patterned blocks to lock the corners together and kept the seams from being to bulky.

One of the last steps is clipping the seams. It takes forever and starts to hurt my hand every time but the seams will not fray well without this. And that’s the whole point of a rag quilt is to have the frayed exposed seams. I usually clip about 1/4″ apart  (I just eye it) along every seam as well as around the perimeter.

The last step is washing the quilt to get the seams to fray up. I always make sure to shake out the blanket after it comes out of the washer and before I put it in the dryer. Otherwise I’ll end up with a ton of strings clogging up the dryer.

So that’s it. One baby rag quilt. I’m really liking it and I’ve been using it throughout the summer. Hopefully once Nolan gets a little older he’ll like it and what to use it too.

Nolan 6 to 8 Months

I’ve been taking monthly photos of my son Nolan but I’ve gotten behind on putting together a monthly update post. I didn’t want to completely stop or skip them so I thought I would just try to start from where we are now and add in some of what’s happened since he turned 5 months old.

Stats: The last Dr’s appointment we had was at 7 months. At that time he was 16 lbs and 6 oz. and I think he was 27″ long. So that put him at the 15% for weight and 67% for height. He’s just a tall skinny boy.

Clothing Size: As of 8 months he’s still wearing mostly 6 month clothes.  Since it’s summer he’s mostly in onsies and shorts so the length isn’t really an issue. I’m not sure that he’d really fit into the 6 month sleepers anymore. He does have a few 9 month clothes and they fit fine as well.

Sleep: We stopped using the swaddle around 5 and half months I think. It was pretty rough for a little over a week but it slowly got better. Now he just sleeps in some kind of sleep sack. At this point I’m not sure if he really “needs” the sleep sack to sleep but I don’t have a problem with it and I don’t see any reason to bother with something that’s working.

We got the ok from the Dr. to drop the morning feedings at 7 months and after that he started sleeping through the night with the exception of a dream feed that I did around 9:30. A couple of weeks ago I stopped doing the dream feed and now he’s sleeping completely the night. He usually goes down between 6:30-7:00 and wakes up anywhere from 6:00-7:30 in the morning.

Eating: Just after 6 months we started adding solids. He’s currently eating solids 3 times a day which is usually a mix of baby puffs and some kind of baby puree. Other than that he’s still breastfeed but he’s cut back quite a bit. I usually offer to feed him about 6 times a day but he only breastfeeds 4-5 times a day.

Schedule: His daytime schedule has been pretty steady for about 6 weeks now I think. The wake up time tends to vary but the hours between things is usually consistent. I’ll start with waking at 7:00 just for an example.

7:00 am: Wake/Breastfeed
8:00 am: Eat Solids
9:00 am: Offer to Breastfeed (usually doesn’t) / Down for Nap
11:00 am: Wake from Nap (2 hrs usually)/ Breastfeed
12:00 am: Eat Solids
1:30 pm: Breastfeed (sometimes)/ Down for Nap
3:30 pm: Wake from Nap (2 hrs usually) / Breastfeed
5:00 pm: Eat Solids
6:30 pm – 7:00 pm: Breastfeed / Down for Night (usually no later then 3 hrs after last nap)

Milestones: He has been doing the army crawl for a few weeks now. He doesn’t seem to interested in crawling on his hands and knees right now. I think he figures he can get anywhere he wants to with the army crawl so why do anything else. Just in the past couple of days he’s been trying to pull himself up on things while he’s on his tummy. He still hasn’t figured out how sit up from laying down and he doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of trying to really.

Favorites: He’s still playing in the exersaucer and with most of the toys he has. Although I think he would prefer to just crawl around and explore all the time. That about the only thing that keeps him from screaming and squealing.

Memories: Now that he’s crawling we’ve been shutting doors and using baby gates all over the place. He can move really quickly and loves to explore all over the place. The moment I set him down on the ground he stretches out onto his tummy and starts to crawl.

Along with that he has started screaming and screeching at the top of his lungs which he loves to do whenever he’s in the high chair or exersaucer. He does occasionally babble but he isn’t really saying any words yet.

Chris taught him how to blow bubbles with his mouth and he loves to do that. Especially when he’s eating which means we end up with baby food all over the both of us.

In the past month it’s been warm and I bought Nolan a little swimming pool. He enjoys splashing around in it. He also enjoys pushing his body over the side and letting all the water out of the pool.

Now that he’s crawling anytime he sees the cats (usually Marshall, Lily tries to avoid him) he crawls right over. Marshall loves to bump up against him and Nolan just loves to look at him and laugh. Nolan is surprisingly good at not pulling at Marshall or grabbing chunks of fur or his tail. I keep a close eye of him but so far Marshall is really patient and I think he’s just so starved for attention he takes whatever he can get.

DIY Nursing Pillow and Covers

Back when I was working on projects for the nursery I also made a few other baby items. One of those items was a nursing pillow similar to ones that you can purchase. I’ve heard somewhat mixed reviews on these so I was a little hesitant to spend the money to buy one.

Instead I did some searching on the internet and I ended up finding a combination of two online tutorials to make my own pillow and cover. The first blog post by <A Load of Craft> has a link to the pattern I used and the second tutorial on <Vanilla Joy> has a little bit more description on how to make the pillow and covers.

I printed out the pattern pieces and assembled them like in the directions.

With my pattern assembled I cut out two pieces of white muslin for the main pillow. I serged around the edges and then used a 1/2″ seem allowance to sew the pillow together. I left a big enough opening in the seam so that the pillow could be stuffed with filling.

After the pillow was sewn together I turned it right side out, ironed it then added a bunch of polyester fiber fill. I had read online that the biggest complaint about other nursing pillows was that it’s too soft and flattens too easily especially once it’s been used a while. Because of this I probably ended up over stuffing my pillow a little bit. Once the pillow was stuffed I hand sewed the opening closed.

To make the pillow case a little softer and easier to wash I made two covers to go on it. Instead of using the pattern that included extra pieces for the zipper section I used the same pattern as for the pillow to cut out two pieces of fabric. then I just sewed on an invisible zipper right into the top of the seem.

After I sewed in the zipper I sewed up the rest of the seam and tried it out on the pillow. It fits nice and snug. I’m glad I put the zipper in the seam instead of along the back like in the other tutorials. This way I can use either side of the pillow as the top and the zipper won’t be in the way.

Here’s the two covers I made. Each with one side cotton print and the other soft minky.

Now that Nolan is 5 months old I can tell you my thoughts on the pillow. I am glad that I had it especially in those first few weeks but I’m also glad I didn’t spend the money to buy an official breastfeeding pillow since I didn’t use it very much past the first few weeks. Honestly I regular bed pillow would have been good enough for me but everyone is different.

As far as the stuffing is concerned I am glad that I over stuffed it since it held up Nolan’s weight really well as a newborn and it’s held it’s shape over time.

I’m also glad I made two covers and went with the minky on one side. I ended up using the minky side up most of the time and if anything got on it I could pretty much wipe it right off since minky is a little bit water resistant.

Since Nolan is older now I think we’ve used it more for things other than feeding him. For a while I would lay him on it to prop him up a bit and now as he’s getting just a little closer to sitting I put it around him every once and a while so he can sort of sit on his own.

So I’d say if you’ve got some sewing knowledge and some extra fabric like I did go for making your own. It’s a really simple project and you can save some money instead of paying the $30-50 that it would cost to purchase a pillow and two covers.

Baby Shower Gifts

Here’s another one of those posts I’ve been hanging onto for a long time. It’s not really a tutorial of anything but more just a memory of a few things that I made as baby shower gifts back well before Nolan was born.

The first set of gifts went to my cousin Kayla for her first baby who is now getting so close to 1 year old.

The main part of the gift was a car seat quilt and a car seat tent. I used the same basic measurements that I’ve used before. You can check out those posts here and here.

While I was making these gifts I was still in my first trimester of pregnancy myself and wasn’t feeling all too well. So instead of making an elaborate pattern I ended up finding what I thought was a really cute flannel that looked like it was a quilt pattern.

The quilt was just flannel on one side and minky on the other with grosgrain ribbon ties.

The tent was made out of the same flannel and a lighter pink minky for the back.

With some of the left over fabrics I made a little taggie blanket.

One of the last items was a matching burp rag. It’s got the same flannel pattern with a pink terry cloth backing.

As I got even farther into my pregnancy I made a few things for my sister in law’s first baby. You can tell I wasn’t very motivated to blog at the time because all I ended up taking was a shot of everything together.

The little rag quilt is from the Simplicity Pattern 1822 which I’ve used before. I’ve also got another burp cloth like the one I made above and a little ribbon pacifier clip.

Keeping track of projects like this was one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place. It didn’t feel like a really exciting post but I do enjoy being able to remember these types of projects.

Nolan’s 5 Month Update

We have made it to five months old. I took the photos just a few days after he turned 5 months, it’s just taken me a little longer to get up the blog post.

Stats: He hasn’t been to the doctor this month but we have weighed him at home. According to our scale he’s 14lbs 10oz but I’ve always felt that our scale measures light so he’s probably a little bigger than this. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how big he is at his 6 month appointment.

Clothing Size: He’s currently wearing only 6 month cloths. We switched over just before 4 months and it already feels like he’s almost growing out of them. I know that the cloth diapers do make his cloths fit a little tighter so we’ll see how long we can make them last.

Sleep: I think one word sums it up: Inconsistent. Naps are pretty much all over the place and change from day to day. His wake time has been all over the place in the morning as well. It can be anywhere from 6:30 – 8:00 depending on how the night went or if he woke up in the early morning and I fed him and put him down again. He takes his first nap somewhere between 1-1.5 hours after we officially get up for the day. The rest of the day he’s usually up about 1.5 to 2 hours and then takes a nap. His naps last anywhere from 1/2 hour to 1 1/2 usually. When he goes down at night varies widely based on whether or not he just decides to “nap” after 6 pm or just keep sleeping. If he doesn’t wake up on his own I usually wake him up to eat one last time between 8:30 – 9:30 before I go to bed. From there he sleeps until anywhere from 4:00-7:30 am before waking up. So I guess you could consider that sleeping through the night. Although many nights lately he’s been waking up between 4 and 5:30 and I’ve been feeding him and putting him back down to sleep for a few more hours.

Eating: He’s still exclusively breastfeeding. Since he’s sleeping longer at night we recently dropped another feeding. Right now he usually eats 6 times in a 24 hour period. Some days he ends up eating 7 times if he’s eating close together during the day or if for some reason the normal schedule gets thrown off like when we are traveling.

Milestones: He is laughing and smiling a lot. His best laughs are when I’m genuinely laughing at him for some reason and he’s laughing back. I can usually get at least a little giggle out of him by smiling and touching my nose to his. Occasionally he’ll laugh if I try to tickle him in some way. He loves to look at us and smile, laugh and show off his dimples.

He’s starting to grab things better and better every day. He still can’t quite figure out how to get the pacifier in his own mouth consistently but every once in a while he gets lucky. Then he usually pulls it out because he can’t figure out how to let go of it without pulling it out.

He’s been rolling over from front to back since before he was 2 months old. Just in the past few weeks or so he’s been rolling over from back to front (although he seems to do it most frequently over one shoulder but not the other). He’s doing it multiple times a day. Usually once he’s on his tummy he has a really hard time rolling back over and frequently gets frustrated. It’s like he’s forgotten how while he was working on the other way. He is getting better and occasionally will roll from his tummy to his back.

Things we want to remember: He’s adorable baby giggle. I never think to try and catch it on camera but I would love to have it to look back on. Since I know I’ll probably not get the chance with a second baby I’ve also been enjoying the occasional nap on my chest during the day.

Things that were invaluable this month: I have a love hate relationship with the SwaddleMe swaddles. They are the only swaddles that out little Houdini doesn’t immediately get out of but he still can and frequently does. He has a really hard time falling asleep without being swaddled but on some days it’s almost impossible to swaddle him in the first place. We’re going through another one of those phases now. I attempted to wean him off the swaddle earlier this month and it didn’t go well so we’re still swaddling.

Favorites: He loves just about anything he can grab. He loves the Sofie toy especially when I squeak it or whenever he can get it in his mouth. Other than that he’s been loving the Oball rattle and any of the teethers we have I think just because he can easily get them in his mouth. He spends quite a bit of time rolling around under the baby gym and grabbing at toys as he goes.

It’s amazing how it feels like the time is dragging on and yet it’s flown by so quickly. Sometimes it feels like a phase is lasting forever but it really couldn’t have been going on too long since he’s only 5 months old.

Kindle E-Reader Cover

Before Nolan was born I had a few posts in various stages of being worked on. Obviously I never got around to finishing them but I don’t want to leave them out so I’m going to try to finish them up now. One of those projects was a kindle pouch that I made back in last January (as in 2014) and I just never got around to finishing up the post. Chris and I were planning on a vacation at the time and I knew I wanted to take my kindle along. I already had two different pouches. One that was envelope style that was really bulking and another that I had made a while ago that was book styled and I never loved how it looked or worked.

I did a little searching on the internet and found a pattern that I thought I would like a little better. I hoped it would be protective yet slim and flexible.

I used <this tutorial> to come up with the size and the basics of how to put it together.

I cut out one piece of a pink chevron cotton, one piece of black chevron flannel and one of quilt batting. All of which I already had on hand. I chose the flannel for the inside because I wanted it to be a little softer so it wouldn’t scratch the screen.

Just like in the <tutorial> I rounded the top edge for the flap using a diapering ink pen.

Before I assembled it all together I attached half of the velcro to the flannel since that’s what I used for the inside of the pouch.

Then I sewed all three layers together and left a small opening at the bottom to turn the fabric right side out.

Once it was turned right side out and ironed I top stitched the bottom to close the hole. Then I folded up the bottom to make the pouch and top stitched around the rest of the pouch.

Lastly I lined up where I needed the second half of the velcro and sewed that in place.

I ended up using the pouch for our trip and it worked out great. It was slim and protective and when I wanted to read I could just pull out my kindle and there was nothing else in the way. I just love projects that I can do with what I already have. Especially since lets be honest I already have way to much fabric.

Have you ever created your own case or pouch for a tablet or e-reader? What style is yours?

Nolan’s Monthly Photos 1-4

Since I’m just now getting back into blogging I’ve got a few months of Nolan’s photos to catch up on posting. So much of the time has already started to blur together. In future months I’ll probably write a little more of a specific update on how the month has gone but in the mean time here’s Nolan up until now.

Looking at his one month photo I miss that tiny little body and all those warm, sleepy snuggles. However, I do not miss how little sleep I was getting.

I think around the two month mark he started to roll over from front to back. He doesn’t always do it now but he still can.

Around the three month mark I think he starting grabbing and batting at toys with a lot more precision. He still couldn’t always get what he wanted (and still can’t) but he was showing interest and getting better at it.

At his four month well child visit he was 13lb 14oz and 25 inches long. He’s grabbing toys like crazy and trying to roll over from front to back. Right now he’s still getting “stuck” about halfway over.

We are frequently able to get him to smile and laugh now. We just have a hard time capturing it on camera (without the blurry hands).

Our little wiggle worm won’t stay anywhere for very long. He may not be rolling over but he’s still finding ways to wiggle around in circles. I occasionally find him turned 180 degrees in his crib by morning.

We are pretty much past the stage of having him easily fall asleep on us. I loved being able to hold him for hours while he slept on me all warm and snugly.