How to make a lion comforter for Baby Leo

My brother's family is exploding with baby boys! My brother has two daughters. The youngest, Kristin, had a beautiful baby boy, Lincoln, in October and Great-Auntie (me!) helped her celebrate with a baby owl comforter, because owls were the theme of her nursery. See Lincoln and his owls here.

Now Kristin's older sister Amber and her husband Jason have adopted Leo, also a darling brand-new baby boy. In the way these things are, they waited for a long time for Their Baby to show up, and then when he did, it happened overnight. Suddenly they were new parents! So the idea of a "theme" didn't happen - in fact the nursery was still a dream in their heads. When I went to get fabric for a welcome comforter for Leo, I was on my own. Well, not really, because Leo pretty much means "Lion", doesn't it, and what could be better than a comforter full of lions!? I definitely had lions in my mind.

Lan at Piedmont Fabrics, my favorite neighborhood fabric store, came to the rescue as always with the perfect fabric. First she said, "You have to make a book, because I have this great fabric with lions that is meant to be cut up and made into a book." Then we said, "Well, why couldn't it be made into a comforter with all the book pages on the front?" And that's what I did.

Here it is in my sewing room. I bought one set of pages and cut off the instructions on the side. You can see it in the photo. The remaining fabric with all the pages was 33" x 32", a perfect size for a baby comforter.

 

I also bought a yard of soft flannel baby-blue-and-white striped fabric for the backing, some soft cotton batting for the stuffing, and a ball of baby blue yarn for tying the comforter.

 

I washed the fabric front, the batting, and the flannel backing in the washer on "hot", dried them in the dryer, and then ironed them. Who wants a baby blanket that's not perfectly clean? And besides, someone (probably Amber) is going to be washing this baby blanket every other day from now on - might as well get all the shrinking out of the way from the start.

After the ironing was done, I cut the flannel backing to match the size of the lion fabric, and laid the two pieces of fabric right sides together (see photo) and pinned them on three sides, plus a couple of inches into each end of the fourth side. I machine-stitched the pinned edges together using a 1/2" seam, and left the remainder of the fourth side open so I could turn the "envelope" right side out and stuff the batting in through the opening.

 Then I used the fabric "envelope" as a pattern to cut the batting. I used two thicknesses of batting, which in this type of cotton batting results in a thickness of about 1/2". We don't want it to be too thick, because it can overwhelm a tiny baby and even restrict his breathing if it's so thick and stiff that it sticks out over his face. Not good!!

 

Stuffing our batting into the envelope is a piece of cake if we roll it up first.

 

 

 

Then stick the whole roll into the farthest end of the envelope and unroll it toward the opening. Adjust the batting inside until it's smooth and even all over. Pin the open edge closed, folding under 1/2" seam on each edge. I hand-stitched this seam closed. It could also be sewn close to the edge with a machine, but the stitches will show and it won't look nearly as nice. Hand sewing is therapeutic... let's put on some nice music and find a comfy chair.

 

Our lion comforter is nearly finished! All we have to do now is tie it in regular intervals with yarn to keep the batting inside from shifting around, and also to provide a pretty pattern. In this case, I tied the comforter at the corners of the printed book pages, more or less, and kept up the geometric pattern where the pages became irregular at the top. Here's a photo of how to tie a comforter; of course we are putting the yarn through all layers of the comforter, so a stitch of yarn shows on the back too. Then  tie a square knot on the front and clip the ends off to about half an inch long.

 

 

One more pressing, and we're finished. Here's our beautiful storybook comforter for beautiful Baby Leo!

 

Babies and Owls

Ooh, my niece Kristin just had a baby boy, Lincoln James. He is so cute, I can hardly stand it. Needless to say, I had to create something special for the newest member of the family.

The theme of Lincoln's nursery is owls, so off I went to my favorite fabric store, Piedmont Fabric, to find owls in soft fabrics. Soon, a baby comforter with soft cotton owls on one side and soft green fleece on the other, and, yes, a companion stuffed Baby Owl, came together in my sewing room. Off they went in a box to the sweet new family in South Dakota. I just got a photo today in email and here it is: Lincoln with Blanket and Owl.

How adorable is that?! The "baby" owl is twice Lincoln's size. I hope it doesn't scare him!

Of course he's only two weeks old, and before you know it he'll have a job and be wearing a suit. Well, maybe not that fast. Welcome to the world, Lincoln James!

Giraffe Skirt

Here's the giraffe skirt!

Isn't it a fabulous fabric? I love the brick-y color. And, of course, the giraffes.

 

It's a simple Amy Butler pattern, and really easy to make. There's an "apron" in the pattern too, a piece I would call a peplum instead of an apron. I think I'll make that out of this fabric, and see how it looks with the skirt.

I envision wearing this skirt with a longish black scoopneck t-shirt and maybe black  tights. Here's the pattern. I've made two other skirts from this pattern, and my daughter-in-law Allie has made several too - she's the one who turned me on to it. Thank you, Allie!

 

 

 

Animal fabric

Much Life has come between me and my blog, dear readers. But I am back! Of course, Life goes on thankfully, and in force. Some of Life is work and for the past few months I've been working as a bartender slingin' drinks at the pool bar of a nearby luxurious resort. What fun! What a lot of work! Now summer is waning, although the best weather of the year still remains here in northern California. I'll be working fewer hours but still (wo)manning the pool bar until at least mid-October. Perfect. It leaves me more time for all those other things I love.

Like pillowcases. Honestly, I have a passion for cute pillowcases. Here's another one I made...can you see the little monkeys on the blue part? Love them.

And then there's the Ant Skirt. It started out to be a pair of crop pants, but I seriously over-estimated my girth when it came to alterations to the pattern. Yes, it happens to all of us! When I got these pants put together, they were ginormous. Seriously. After a good laugh with my boyfriend Wayne over huge pants with ants, I cut off the legs and the crotch pieces, and sewed up the front and back. Voila! An adorable Ant Skirt. Here it is:

And here are the ants!

Isn't that about as cute as it gets? Now I'm working on a giraffe skirt, which I'll show you soon.