LuvlyGurumi Giveaway Winner!

We have a winner!!

Comment #2 was from luvinthemommyhood! Congrats! I’ll e-mail you with details.

Thanks to all who participated, and special thanks to Lyly of LuvlyGurumi for offering this fabulous giveaway!

Gifts for My Sister

My beautiful sister had her baby boy last week. He was 11lbs 2oz (yes, you read that right) and 23 inches long. My mother flew out to Utah yesterday to be with her. I spent much of last week sewing so I could get things done to send with her. Here’s how things turned out.

First, I knew my sister had to have a nursing cover. This is her 4th baby, and she’s always used a blanket to cover up for nursing. I didn’t discover the joy of nursing covers until my second baby, and I can tell you, I’m never going back! I figured this would be the perfect way to spoil her during all that quality time she’ll be spending with baby.

I knew I wanted to make one with two layers of fabric. Last time I was nursing, I had two nursing covers, one with two layers and one with only one. I found that the cover with only one layer was too easy for baby to brush out of the way. One good kick would send that light weight cover floating off of all the parts I wanted hidden. I decided to make it reversible. Here’s the other side.

Even though there are tons of useful tutorials online for making nursing covers, I went a different route this time and got instructions from my friend who made mine. I altered her instructions just a bit, but I still think it turned out really well, especially for my first time making one. I think I might have to make myself a new one for my next baby.

Next, I made her a car seat canopy, or “greeter deterrent,” as they have also appropriately been called. This was SUCH an easy project to throw together! Well, mostly easy. I did run into one major snag related to my sewing supplies, but I’ll get to that later.

I love how it turned out!Adorable buttons.And for a little extra decoration, I did two rows of topstitching: green and aqua on the top layer and aqua and dark blue on the bottom layer. I’ll have to branch out and try some fancy stitches on my sewing machine next time. I’ll have to experiment and see what “Old Reliable” even has to offer in that department.

There are all kinds of great tutorials on the web for car seat covers. Cluck Cluck Sew’s is the first one I found. And here are a couple more:

Sweet n’ Sassy Girls

Just Because I am Me

I kind of read through the instructions on all of them to learn the basics and winged it when I actually did it. Any one of these tutorials would be really helpful to anyone wanting to learn how to make one.

And just in case there was any question that my house is occupied by little girls, I’ll give you a peek at what was hiding underneath the car seat canopy:

My littlest is obsessed with small dolls she can carry around. She has quite a few Strawberry Shortcake figures, but she’s constantly stealing her sister’s Tinker Bell fairies. She thought the car seat seemed like the perfect place to stash her “girls.”

Oh, and I guess I was going to tell you about my velcro catastrophe. I had all my supplies for the canopy, but when I purchased things, I purposely didn’t buy velcro for the straps. I knew I had plenty at home from one of my Christmas projects. Well, when it came time to sew on the velcro Friday evening, I searched my house and all my disorganized crafts (I’ve got to do something about that). I couldn’t find my velcro anywhere! After all my searching, I only had a little time to swing by Joanne’s before I had to be at my friend’s house for a girls’ night. Joanne’s failed me! They only had black sew-on velcro, and I didn’t want to buy the no sew white velcro (even though I could still sew it on) because it was more expensive. (I was feeling stubborn.)

Saturday, the day I was supposed to get things to my mother before she left, I went across town where there were several stores I could try to find velcro. I started at Wal-mart because it was the nearest stop. They too only had no sew velcro in white, but it was at least a better price. I was feeling a little more flexible, so I decided to quit my search and just sew on the sticky back velcro. BAD IDEA! Once I got home and tried it, my needle on my machine got so gummed up by the glue that it wouldn’t pick up the bobbin thread. My mother was running errands and then she was going to come by my house to pick things up. I took a chance and called to ask where she was. She was at Fred Meyer, but I had her check for it on a long shot. Long story slightly shorter: my mother and Fred Meyer saved my car seat cover!!

So all my blathering aside, just let that be a lesson that you make sure you have the supplies before you get started!

And I guess I won’t waste any more of your time with a rant about how hard it is to find decent prints suitable for a boy locally. Even things that are the right color have flowers or hearts these days! Have any of you had that problem?

My sister called me on Sunday after my mother arrived. She loves everything I sent for her. I also made the little guy a hat, but I’ll share that later.

What projects have you been working on? Have you discovered the joy of nursing covers? Do you know any places I could find great prints for boys that don’t cost $16 a yard? Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for 5 patterns from LuvlyGurumi (see sidebar)!

I’m sharing this post with:

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Personal note: given to Beth/Nathan

LuvlyGurumi Pattern Giveaway! {Closed}

Good news!

I e-mailed my post about the little crocheted lamb to the shop owner, Lyly, of LuvlyGurumi, and she decided to offer 5 free patterns to one of my lucky readers! I wish I could win!

If you haven’t heard of amigurumi, it’s a word for knitted or crocheted stuffed dolls. Lyly sells PDF crochet patterns with easy instructions and pictures to make these lovely dolls. In her own words, “One special day, I discovered amigurumi and it was instant love. Everything made me go ‘Awww’ and a smile would quickly appear on my face. I decided then that I had to learn how to make these cuties myself. A couple months later, I was doing exactly that… and now that I’ve started, I simply can’t stop.”

Just look at some of the cuties in her shop and see if you can keep from saying, “Awww.”I bought the pattern for this adorable lamb and had so much fun making it.This lion is definitely the next one I want to make.How adorable are these bunnies in little hoodies? Wouldn’t they make such a cute Easter gift?Or there’s this cute little penguin.

And that’s just a sample of the dolls that are in her shop. So, are you ready to enter to win 5 of these adorable patterns? Here’s what you can do to enter. You have 3 chances to enter. You can do one, two, or all of these things:

1. Visit the LuvlyGurumi shop. Take a look around, come back here, and leave a comment telling me your favorite pattern.
2. Become a follower of The Spare Time Continuum using Google Friend Connect (on the sidebar) and comment letting me know you did. Or you can comment telling me you already are a follower.
3. Add LuvlyGurumi to your Etsy favorites and leave a comment telling me you did.

**Make sure to leave a separate comment for each entry. It’s like a raffle and your comments are your tickets!**

That’s it. Only 3 comments per person. You MUST include a valid e-mail address in your comment or have e-mail linked to your blogger profile so I can contact you. If I can’t e-mail you, I will choose another winner.

Giveaway ends Monday, April 25th at 8pm PST. Winner will be chosen using Random.org and will be announced soon afterward. If I have no reply from the winner within a week, I will choose another winner. Good luck!!

*All images for this post were borrowed from LuvlyGurumi.

Little Lamb Amigurumi

How was your weekend? I had a wonderful weekend of car shopping, spending time with family, and being uplifted by General Conference.

I’ve also been anticipating a brand new link party on one of my favorite blogs. Just what I need to get me out of my non-blogging rut. Seriously! I have been such a lazy blogger! Can I blame it on the pregnancy? Well, I’m going to. I have to get some perks out of this, right (besides the gorgeous new addition to our family coming this fall)? Here’s a project I finished way back last November but never got around to blogging.

I made this sweet little lamb for a friend who didn’t find out what gender she was having. I thought rather than make something green or yellow, I could make something loveable for a boy or a girl. This is the first time I’ve tried my hand at amigurumi, and it was actually pretty easy. I found this pattern to make the lamb. Maybe I should have made it white and cream like the example, but I fell in love with this grey yarn. It didn’t occur to me until it was finished that a black sheep given to a baby might not have to best connotation. Ha!

The whole shop (Luvlygurumi) is really cute. I’m in love with this little lion. That will probably be the next pattern I buy.

I wanted something to go with it, so I typed out the words to my daughter’s favorite church song, “Jesus is My Shepherd,” in a subway art(ish) format. Excuse the cheap dollar store frame. I knew my friend was such a good decorator that she could paint the frame to go with baby’s room or replace it altogether.

And just to be nice, I’m going to share the PDF of the words in case any of you have a use for them. Click here to get the PDF. The song and words are written by Tammy Simister Robinson. For personal use only, please. If you do download it and use it for something, I’d love to see pictures. E-mail me or leave a comment with a link! And especially let me know if it doesn’t work. This is the first time I’ve tried document sharing.

And don’t think I’m crazy, but I thought the lamb’s backside was just so cute that I had to take a picture. You can also see that the wool on the lamb’s head is actually a removable hood.

And now, some pictures of the adorable recipient (he’s much bigger by now, but still just as cute):

Love those little feet!

I’m sharing this post with . . .

 

 

*Personal note: given to Alicia/Truman