I Spy Disappearing 9 Square Baby Quilt

I love when one idea leads to the next. I was planning out a baby quilt with an I Spy motif. My first thought was to just have alternating squares of I Spy fun fabric with one consistent print or solid. Then I looked around at I Spy quilts on Google images and found one quilt by "Dancing Needle" that was a disappearing nine square. It looked great!

I wasn't sure how big to make it. For inspiration, I looked at more images of disappearing nine square quilts. I found a little baby quilt at Connect the Dots Crafts that was only 30" square made up of four disappearing nine square blocks. That seemed like it would be the perfect size.

At one point I stumbled upon the Indian Hatchet quilting pattern. It seemed like a neat way to incorporate two fabrics into one square. I decided to just add the different fabric to one corner instead of two. I think it has a neat effect. Here's one tutorial about it at badskirt.

I decided to make 5.5" squares and 3.5" squares for the little corners. I found a great orange for the opposite squares and a black print with circles for the center square. Perhaps not a true I spy quilt as I have two of each print for matching too.

Nine Square Blocks Before Quartering

At one point I had the nine square blocks sewn together and the next step would be to quarter them. My little one needed me to stop sewing for a bit. I quickly took some pictures of each block. Then using one of my favorite apps, Photo Wall, I virtually cut each block and rotated the ones to be rotated and could get a glimpse into how my quilt would look. Almost instant gratification and I could snuggle my girl at the same time. This collage became my pattern for piecing the quartered blocks back together. It made it much easier than trying to figure it out while I was sewing.

After putting it together, I realized I cut the black print with circles the wrong way and didn't have enough for a big border. I cut a 2" border and then used more of the rainbow stripe for a second 4" border I hadn't planned on using it at all. It was just in my fabric stash. I liked the stripes so much, I decided to change my back to the stripes and fortunately had enough!

For quilting, there are always so many options. Going with simple outlining of the orange seemed to be the way to go here.

I struggled a bit with what fabric to use for the binding too. Because I used stripes for the 4" border and made them all go the same way, having stripes for a binding and then have them not go all the same way seemed like not a good idea. I didn't have enough of the orange or the black. I went back and forth about trying to find a blue that might go well with the stripes or just get more black with circles. Either way, it's a trip back to the store.

Because I don't make quilts all that regularly, I often need to look at instructions for sewing on the binding. The printed instructions I've been using are missing at the moment. I searched for a good tutorial and found a couple. Heather Baily has a great one for continuous binding. My other instructions were more like these at Sew Inspired with the end tucked into the beginning.

What I loved especially about making this quilt is that instead of just finding fun prints to use, I found prints that are symbolic and meaningful to the recipients' family. I hope they love it too!

I can see me making more of these. I love the I spy quilt I made for my third baby. I found all kinds of fabric scraps I had used over the years and made sure to have squares representative of my other children. While her quilt is nice too, using the disappearing nine square is fun and has such nice results.

I Spy Matching Disappearing Nine Square Quilt

The Extreme Hula Hoop Fort

I posted a while back about the minimalist hula hoop fort. Well this must be the extreme one. I saw an image of one and knew I'd have to try my own.

It was a sunny, snowless, winter day with just enough wind to make it extra tricky, but I was determined.

I assembled all my hoops together and surprisingly I could have made yet a fourth tier. But the wind was threatening to knock it down yet again. Quickly I got them stacked and snapped some pics. I even got a high five and a yay from the little one.

The colors of my image were not popping enough, so I used the app ColorSplash to color just the hoops.

Extreme Hula Hoop Castle

Complete vocal rest with a toddler

Well it hasn't happened yet, but I have had time to give it some thought. I don't think it will be an ideal situation, but with a little creativity we will make it work.

I have had an intermittent hoarse voice for eight months now. I didn't really realize it was a regular occurrence until the summer. Finally in the fall, I had it checked out. A small, five millimeter cyst-like bump resides on one of my false vocal cords. The false vocal cords are next to the true vocal cords. Everyone I talked to recommended I have it taken out and soon. And with the surgery comes almost certain complete vocal rest. This means no speaking, whispering, laughing, crying, throat clearing, or whistling.

Of course my older children think it will be great to have mom not be able to speak for the five day minimum. My toddler doesn't know what to think. I know it will be hard and she will be confused.

After thinking a lot about this no talking, I wondered what kind of technology could help me out. It occurred to me that there might be a neat iPad app designed for autistic children that I could use. After perusing the App Store and reading various reviews, I found iclickitalk. It was on sale due to an upcoming update. I decided to try it out.

With iclickitalk I can add my own categories, upload my own images, and most importantly record my own voice. Because the recording length has no limit, I can record single words at a time, a sentence, a rhyme, song or story.

It has been fun customizing the iclickitalk app and also a good thing to keep my mind off surgery. We even took some special pictures for it.

I even added a few phrases directed towards my older kids. Though I expect most of my communication with them will be in written form. With the new OS for the Apple products we own, we had noted a new "Messages" app. We hadn't given it much consideration. Finally I read about it and realized it would be a perfect way for me to communicate with my older children. It works much like text messaging, but can use wifi and your Apple ID and email address. This may be the way my seven year old learns her way around a keyboard.

My husband and I have always used "chatting" as one way to communicate. Gmail chat is what we use nowadays. I expect it will help us out during this time too.

Complete vocal rest, but not silence. My fingers will have to do my talking for a little while, tapping along a keyboard with a little signing mixed in.

Update 12/11/11 - Surgery went fine and the surgeon actually was able to perform the surgery without touching my vocal cords. I wasn't required to have complete vocal rest, though it felt a little strained to speak. While I could still talk, it was nice to have my little rhymes and things prerecorded for us.

Hurricane Irene

In upstate New York near the shores of Lake Ontario we were spared from the destruction of Hurricane Irene. But we did have one of the windiest days in my memory. As we sat down to dinner I suggested we go and see the lake. If it was super windy at our house, the lake shore would probably be even more so.

As we approached the parking lot near the lake, it was very clear that we were not the only ones curious about the lake that night.

Getting out of the car I realized that the force of the winds were bordering on dangerous and we would need to be careful. I scooped up my toddler and strapped her onto my back.

The waves were amazing. Never had I experienced the power of water like this. I could imagine a wave coming up and whisking us away.

Of course the sunset was a nice treat too.

Newborn Portraits

I've had a great time photographing my kids through the years. I enjoy looking at others people's photos and feel that I have a decent eye for taking pictures.

For my newest baby I wanted to take some newborn portraits. I also wanted to read up on lighting and they ideal times.

I learned that between day six and ten is the ideal time to photograph a newborn. No flash and natural light from a window in the background works well too. Another tip was to have something white to reflect the window light back to the baby's face. Most babies sleep a lot during this time and are easily positioned into cute poses.

I even purchased a pattern for my mom to knit a little photo prop for the baby to be nestled into. It worked well too. Though it almost didn't fit her over ten pound size.

I felt fairly prepared for a great newborn session. It was day 7 and I had a clean, content baby. But she was awake! My camera wasn't anything special and I didn't use a tripod. I set up in my son's room with a piece of fabric draped over his bean bag chair. Flash off, white board reflecting the light back and go!

I set up a few other sessions over the next couple weeks. Certainly she was more wiggly and therefore blurry as she got older. But I did finally get a sleeping photo of her and even caught a few smiles. Patience and persistence paid off.