How did a month go by since my last post? I totally dropped the ball on doing anything with those wine grapes from our backyard that I mentioned last time. "Challenge accepted!" I had exclaimed? More like challenge forgotten!
Ugh, and now the fall weather has set in and I've got a nasty nasty cold. It's terrible...the kind with body aches and a burning fire in your chest, a wet and angry cough, fire in your eyes. How did I catch such a nasty thing from this smiling little baby??
Something has been going around, that's for sure. My brother and sister-in-law were under the weather a few weeks ago. Then their daughter Gracie had a runny nose. It's not surprising Adam had it next after a few play-dates with several shared toys. Then, on Friday the 13th of course, in this miserable game of Pass the Cooties the hot potato landed in my lap with extra dressing. My only hope is that this mega-cold can't be passed back to Adam or Gracie. Sick babies are no fun at all.
Fortunately with the noticeably cooler weather Adam can now make use of his new Blue Owl Wrap. I started it about a week ago thinking there was plenty of time before he'd need it (remember that two-day heat spell of 35+ degC weather?!) but no, we've already taken it along with us on strolls.
For some time now I had been wanting to make a convertible baby blanket that would be useful for both the stroller and my Beco baby carrier but I took a while thinking about the design. I know there are some pretty good multi-functional baby blankets out there online but this was too good of a project idea to pass up. I actually have a bit more work to do (just missing some snaps to attach to my baby carrier) but I can write about the stroller blanket part this time.
First I started with an owl blanket I happened to see at Toys R Us. Yes, I was gonna order the raw materials online and start from scratch...but then I came across this cutie and heck, it meant I could start the project ASAP without waiting for delivery!
I made three slots in the blanket to install zippers and accommodate the 5-point harness on the stroller. It's pretty awkward putting in a zipper where there isn't already a seam! The ends turned out kind of wonky so the fabric doesn't lie flat. Oh well. The two longer vertical zippers (beige) open up to allow for shoulder straps and the short horizontal zipper (white) is for the centre buckle.
These slots definitely made up most of the work on this project. Once I cut into the fabric it was clear that the fluffy soft underside would need binding along the edges in order to prevent some serious fraying. It looked like I had been shearing sheep by the time I'd finished!
Next I basted in the zippers. Then the real challenge was using the machine to sew the zippers into the top minky layer without going through the second fuzzy layer. It gets tricky when you have the minky layer on top and you're just feeling around underneath to make sure the sewing foot is always within the hole you've just added binding to.
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| Zipper basted in place |
Finally I hand-stitched the bindings to the back sides of the zippers so that the two layers of the blanket were re-attached.
Yay for zippers! Once those were installed I played around with some design ideas. I wanted to extend the blanket to leave more room for a baby who's growing up too fast for my comfort :( That's where the cream-coloured flannel came in. I added a fleece layer in between for warmth and sewed some diagonal lines to give it a quilt-like feel. Then I got some white shoelace and my good ol' Peekaboo Partridge cotton to finish the bottom edge.
One more zipper to go! I put in a 26" plastic zipper to close up the front of the blanket and then sewed in a few velcro tabs to complete the project. I'll explain in my next post why I chose to make the bottom of the blanket this way. It would have been far simpler to just sew close the entire bottom portion and ensure Adam's little toes never poke out into the cold but this design decision was made with the baby carrier blanket in mind.
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| Velcro tabs to help bottom edge stay closed |
Today Adam and I took the stroller out again with the blanket. We were outside for over an hour and he was still toasty by the time we got back to the house :)
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