Joovy Stroller Pocket Area Reinvented

I was reading a book recently that argued that necessity was not the mother of invention, but instead that irritation was why we invent and re-invent useful things. And with that, I give you today's project: a re-invented Joovy Scooter Stroller pocket area (I don't know what this is actually called).

Here's a picture of what it originally looked like, except mine is green:

A Joovy Scooter pretending to be all useful and holding a bottle.

Overall, I really like this stroller, but that back area has been extremely irritating for several reasons. One, my Camelbak water bottle doesn't fit in the cup holder. This is the big one, because when I'm out running around all day with baby+stroller, I need water! Two, because of the design of the handlebars (which are comfortable to use), there's no was to attach a pre-bought stroller organizer to add more space:

Stroller organizer does NOT fit on a Joovy because of the handlebar design. 

And three, I just generally needed more room to store stuff that I wanted quick access to.  So, after much irritation over the course of the last year, I came up with a solution:

I made a trip to Joann's and bought outdoor fabric (like the stuff you use to make outdoor chair cushions), grey strapping, a pack of 4 D Rings, and some carabiners. 

With that, I made some straps for clipping things to. I'm not sure what they are called, but I've seen them on backpacks:

And, a cup holder that actually fits my water bottle:

It looks a little funky while empty, but there's webbing on the bottom, and it's reinforced with boning (the stuff for corsets- that's right I used it for something actually useful!) to stay open for the water bottle.

Think I'll take Sylvie to the zoo to test it out :-)

Wonder Woman Tutu

My friend's son will be having a super hero themed costume birthday party next month. Even though my daughter is too young to really enjoy dress up (she'll be 11 months), I decided she needed a kick ass super hero costume. There aren't a whole lot of choices for a) babies and b) girls in the super-hero-costume category, but I did find a pretty cool wonder woman onesie at superherostuff.com. I realize I could have gotten her a boy's costume, but the feminist came out in me and I was determined to find a kick ass female super hero for Sylvie to dress up as, because, well, girl power!

Wonder Woman Onesie!

Since there was not a bottom to wear, and while Wonder Woman may have run around in the equivalent of a bathing suit, I would like Sylvie to be a little more dressed in public. Then, today while at Joann's buying more quilting fabric, I got into a conversation with a very nice woman working at the cutting counter who explained to me that I could make a tutu simply by cutting up tulle and tying it onto a elastic crocheted headband!  And - Sylvie's Spectacular Super Woman Super  Hero costume was born!

 Since Sylvie is only 11 months old, I used two yards of tulle, one yard medium blue, one dark blue, and a red headband. The headband was $1.50 and the fabric was $3.25 - how amazing and cheap is that!
Basic directions:

1. Cut up the tulle into strips (about 7ish inches wide, and maybe 2 feet long - I didn't measure any of this so this is a guess). 
2. Put the elastic headband around something (like a book, or 2-liter pop bottle) so that you can easily work with it.
3. Then, fold the tulle in half and pull a little bit of the folded side through the elastic, so that there is a little loop of fabric. 
4. Then, pull the rest of the fabric through the loop and pull tight.

Edit:  Here's the final result with the costume!

Quilting Frenzy!

Since I've been on a roll lately, I decided to finish up the quilt I'd planned on making for my mom. Then, I remembered I had a whole bunch of jelly rolls laying around and decided to do another one for me. I'm going to probably need to stop for awhile after this!!

Quilt for my mom

Quilt for me!

A Birthday Present "Value" Quilt

Since the semester is over and papers are all graded and in the system, I finally had enough time to finish the "birthday" quilt for my sister (her birthday is in March, so we'll call it the belated quilt). I got the fabric for this quilt in January and it's just been sitting around screaming at me to work on it for the past four months.

Finished quilt!

For this quilt, I used the Mediterranean Dream fabric by Simon and Kabuki, which I chose based on a color palette she sent me when I asked if she'd like a quilt. I thought I was never going to find anything like what she was looking for, and then this fabric pack came along.

Palette my sister sent me

Fabric I found!

I think I did pretty good hunting down that palette!  So far, I've only made patchwork quilts, so I wanted to try something new, but not so difficult that I would mess it up. I stumbled on "value quilts" in my googling, and decided to give that a try.  SewKatieDid has a great tutorial, if you are interested in making a value quilt. This is the end result:

So excited to be done, now I can start my next one!

Bookshelf Project

Sylvie's new bookshelves:

Bookshelves made from, wait for it... rain gutters.  Thank you Pinterest!

When I was pregnant last year, I spent a lot of time on Pinterest looking at baby rooms. I found these bookshelves made from Ikea Spice Racks:

Ikea spice rack bookshelves, from blog: http://darceeintoodeep.blogspot.com/

The spice racks are only about $3, and if you leave them natural wood color, it's virtually no work. So, I got super excited about this "project" (read: screwing a shelf into a wall) and headed off to Ikea, which is about an hour from my house. When I got there I found out they had no spice racks in stock and weren't sure if they were going to get any more, ever. I've been sad about this ever since - I am a complete bookworm (and have a graduate degree in literature) and loved the idea of books everywhere. Since that project fell, the books have been in an ever growing stack on her dresser (getting high enough that they were going to start falling everywhere). So, I've been looking for another solution.

I didn't want a traditional bookshelf though; I wanted her to be able to see the books and easily get them for herself when she's old enough. So, with some more pinteresting, I found a new way to create bookshelves for kids - raingutters!

Rain gutter bookshelves!

It's cheap and really really easy project (if we count in drive time to Ikea, and navigating the store, this is actually an easier project). Since they are already white, they look more finished.

Supplies needed:

1 10' vinyl rain gutter (cut in half - they should be able to do this for you at the hardware store)
6 gutter brackets (3 per shelf)
4 end caps
6 screws
Screwdriver (electric)
Level

Directions:

Put end caps on each of the gutters. Try to find studs to screw brackets into. Screw one bracket most of the way in, then use a level before screwing in the next bracket. Screw additional in additional brackets.  That's it. You're done!

Ridiculously easy project.  As you can see, her room is very small, so this also helps us make use of a wall that we can't put any furniture up against. We put one of the shelves very low, so that as soon as she is walking, she should be able to reach them on her own. The other shelf is a little higher, so that when she's around 3 or 4, she can reach that shelf. The idea was to put the board books on the lower shelf, and paper books higher (since right now, she likes to eat paper).

Playing around with quilt design

I've got two projects in the works for family members, but because I'm somewhat obsessed with fabric, I can't help myself but plan another quilt of my fabric choice. When I was looking for fabric for my mom, I stumbled on this:

So funky!  And it has owls!

I love messy, funky fabric - so obviously this collection appeals to me.  As I said in an earlier post, I'm considering trying something other than squares sometime soon. I found a post on a discussion board that explained how to use Gimp (an open source photoshop alternative) to design quilts, so I gave it a go!

Quilt I designed to use with the Owlivia fabric.

I tried to stay fairy simple - some chevrons and strips. I think I need to edge the chevrons with gray or another neutral, though, because this is really busy fabric. It might still be too busy though - I need to ponder this one some more.

Oh, and here is the link to how to design quilts with Gimp:  http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutorials-f10/designing-quilt-gimp-free-software-t141145.html  It was pretty easy, but I already use Gimp, because I'm primarily an Ubuntu Linux user. I don't think it would be too hard to learn for this purpose, though.

Progress, at last

I'm happy to report that I am finally making progress on Sylvie's Christmas stocking (albeit, a little late for Christmas... this year).  I ordered some more fabric, as the green fabric is still hiding from me somewhere in my house. The front is fully pieced and cut, I just need to pick a fabric to line it, and then I can actually put it together.

Almost a ready-to-sew stocking!

I also got the fat quarter bundle of "Mediterranean Dream" to make a quilt for my sister.

I'm going to do a simple patchwork quilt (just squares), so I cut the fabric to 7" squares. I cut the usable scraps to 4" squares to use when piecing the back. I think I'm going to do two rows of squares separated by 4" of backing about 1/3 of the way down the quilt. I like playing with the backing. Since I don't (yet) do anything fancy with the front, or the quilting, the back seems like the little touch that makes it feel more handmade and unique - you don't tend to get touches like that with store bought quilts.

I keep thinking I should play more with the quilt blocks on the front - try for an actual pattern, but I keep just wanting to do squares. I think it's because I keep picking fabric that I just want to show off. Plus I like the look of simple patchwork. I'm planning on making my mom a quilt next for her birthday, and she picked out a fat quarter bundle that is much more muted. So that may be the project to try something beyond squares. Since I don't want to ruin it or get in over my head, I'm thinking I might try something like this:

Possible pattern for my next quilt!

Time for new projects!

Now that the craziness of the holidays are over, I'm itching for a new project again. I've been using my "Oh Deer" quilt as a blanket for the baby to play on the floor on, so at some point I want to create another quilt for our living room (to actually stay warm under).  But, in the mean-time, I'm going to work on some present quilts. I ordered a fat quarter pack that I think fits the color scheme my sister likes:

I also kind of like that it's titled "Mediterranean Dream" since we're part Greek. I'm going to make an afghan-sized quilt for her living room. Hopefully, I will be able to finish this in time for her birthday in March (at least that's the plan).

I still haven't been able to find this plain green fabric that I bought to finish Sylvie's Christmas stocking. So, while I was ordering fabric, I also ordered some Christmas fabric to finish that project. The good news is the fabric I ordered is from the same collection that I used for her stocking and it was on sale.  I think it will actually look nicer than the plain green anyway!

Hopefully that project will be finished now before next Christmas.

More updates to come soon!

Christmas Stocking Debacle

The "kit" Christmas stocking I purchased wound up being a debacle and a half. I started working on it and within 3 hours I was maybe 5% done. Clearly, this was not the project for me, given my impatience with detail oriented work. It required sewing quite a few small pieces together and many many beads and sequence on the small pieces. I probably should have realized that simply from the picture of the stocking...

Seriously, who looks at this and thinks, "Oh, that's an easy project for an afternoon?"

So, I've given up on that project. I'm instead going to quilt her a stocking, which is something I actually can fit into an afternoon.  I bought a charm pack of Kate Spain's "Joy" and some green fabric for the lining. 

I have a rough quilt together for the front of the stocking (not cut into stocking shape yet), but I seem to have misplaced the plain green fabric I bought for the back and lining. I remember folding it up and putting it somewhere, like on a shelf or something, and thinking, "that's a good place, I won't lose it then."  Clearly that was a brilliant thought. It's been missing for three weeks. I will update again if I ever find this fabric to complete the stocking!  In the meantime, for Christmas, I stuffed the vintage stocking I made earlier in December for Sylvie (my baby girl).  She didn't have an opinion about the stocking, but thought the Fisher Price "Cell phone" that came out of it was really cool.

Way cooler than a quilted stocking.