The Best Room on the Block

We used to have a guest room.  Now we have a Best Room (half baby room/half guest room) – all hand made and dragon themed, of course!  Here are some shots of the awesomeness:

two handmade pillows, a dragon, and a teeny tiny velociraptor!

My all-time favorite poem - someone made this for my mom when SHE started having babies! She knew I loved it & surprised me with it... isn't she awesome?

One of my aunts made this when I was a baby - it's been hanging in my bedroom since I was born, and now it's hanging in my baby's room.

 

A dragon-y mobile my sister-in-law created, and an awesome dragon tapestry hanging over the crib.

The handmade wall (that's Husband's artwork on the left, and a few little dragon appliques I framed on the far right).

 

and, of course, more granny squares! I made this green blanket when we first started trying for a baby... after almost 3 years it's finally going to see some use! (Oh yeah, and one more pillow case)

 

It was surprisingly difficult to decide on decor for a baby’s room-slash-guest room, but I think we found a happy balance (I only cried two or three times!). There’s a baby sleeping device and a dresser along the back wall (beside the rocker), and some short bookshelves under the handmade wall.

See the top of the bookshelf there? It used to be the headboard for an old, old waterbed. We painted it black & voila! Instant toddler-sized toy storage!

 

We also used some things that Husband & I had saved from our own childhoods – Bugs Bunny, for example, was mine way back in the day, and the Pac Man lunchbox & Glow Worm were Husband’s.  In the end, the room turned into a nice mixture – some hand made things, some new things, some vintage things, and some repurposed things.  Considering the small amount of space, the fact that we couldn’t do any major renovations since we’re renters, and the dual-use this room’s going to see, I’m pleased with how it turned out.  And, honestly, baby boy isn’t going to remember living here anyway, so I’m pretty sure we could have just slapped some sheets in a laundry basket & he’d be happy.  =)

 

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Killing Time, Granny Style

I have a dilemma.

I don’t want to start any long-and-involved projects before the baby gets here, but I also don’t want to sit around twiddling my (granted, Miss Piggy-esque) thumbs together & doing nothing.

I want to have a transportable project available to take with me to doctor’s appointments and hospitals to combat the “sitting around being bored” syndrome, but I don’t want to have to take a pattern with me, nor do I want something so involved I’ll have to stop counting and/or rip out a row to get back on track the next time I work on it.

Translation:  I want a project I can work on for five minutes, put down for three days, then pick up again & still be on track.

Solution?  Granny Squares.  And rectangles.  And pillow cases.  LOTS of them!

...a pillow case for the baby's room...

...a girlie granny throw made with alpaca homepspun...

...green-and-white-and-blue cotton WIP...

The problem is that granny squares projects work up quickly.  Like, Oh-dear-I-just-sat-down-and-now-I’m-out-of-yarn-again quickly.  Lucky for me everyone I know seems to be stocking up on babies, so I’ve got plenty of Welcome to Earth projects to keep me busy.  I’ve also used up my entire stock of scrap yarn – I started an awesome ALL-THE-COLORS granny quilt that will likely take years to finish (it’s an experiment in asymmetry…we shall see how my brain copes with the lack of perfection):

And, since I discovered that the amount of arthritis/swelling/pain in my fingers doesn’t subside even when I DON’T make lovely yarny things (and likely won’t subside again until baby gets here), I switched to some back post/front post double crochets and kept hooking – I made another pillow case:

And a throw blanket for Nina & Fraidy Cat, made entirely of scrap yarn from my Dr Who Scarf, which the kittens refuse to snuggle (because the box from our Roomba is a much more appropriate cat bed, obviously).

...handmade blanket-in-a-basket = definitely less comfortable than a cardboard box...

 

I’ve got enough yarn to finish one or two more projects… think it’ll last me until baby boy arrives?

My Poor, Poor Fingers!

If you ask my doctor I’ll be 35 weeks pregnant next week.  If you ask my sister’s doctor (who counts differently), I’ll be 36 weeks pregnant next week.  Either way, my belly is swollen, my shoes don’t fit, and my poor little fingers haven’t been able to tolerate more than ten or so minutes worth of hookery lately.  Boo.

I miss you, yarn!

Solution?  Some non-yarny crafts!  I know, I know – they’re not nearly as awesome (or as dragony) as I’d like, but until my fingers stop looking like hot dogs it’s the best I can do.

So.  Check this out:  An old, ugly cork board I inherited from my brother when he went away to college (in 1998), a pillow case that didn’t fit any of the pillows in my house, and various & sundry craft supplies!

The only logical thing to do was to use my crafting superpowers to somehow turn this pile of crap…err… craft supplies… into a useful item: one of those quilted picture board thingies that all the frou-frou Cornflake Girls like to make.

Step Two: slit the seams of the old pillow case, cover the batting & pull it tight around the edges, then hot glue gun it to the back of the cork board. Try not to hot glue your fingers to the cork board (also difficult).

Step Three: do some measuring & string some -gasp- yarn evenly to create a quilty pattern. I'd tell you my measurements, but unless my cork board is the exact same size as yours it really won't help. Just make sure it's even.

I’m pretty sure the frou-frou crafty Cornflake Girls would have used some sort of fabulous ribbon for the stringing, but, well.  I never was a Cornflake Girl, so… black hemp yarn it is!  If you look closely you’ll also see that I actually drove tiny nails the entire way through the cork board to mark each cross-over.  I could do that because it was soft cork, and I recommend it if you use a pillow case with any sort of straight line pattern (like mine).  I *did* drive the nails the entire way through the cork, and here’s why:

Because Nina! Yay!

Uhh, I mean… because of the buttons.

Step Four: Sew a button over each cross-over on the board, making sure your yarn (or thread) goes the entire way through the cork board and contains both sides of the yarn you've already strung. In other words, don't just sew the button to the top of the pillow case or it won't work.

If you do the sewing right you’re going to either need a thimble or some serious finger first-aid.  I recommend the thimble.  Finished product:

It's my boy!

I sacrificed my vanity to make room for a bassinet in Husband & I’s bedroom, so the trade-off is this new creation… a cool place to display the pictures and whatnots that used to be attached to the sides of my vanity mirror!  Hooray!

Two quick notes:

1: I couldn’t just toss the pillow case because my moM made it for me.  When I went away to college she made me a t-shirt quilt with all the shirts I’d acquired from various musicals, plays, and other high school events.  The back of the quilt is made of the two fabrics you see in the picture – a dark blue with glitter and the little rain squares.  FUN!  I used the pillow & quilt the whole way through college, and still use the quilt to snuggle up in when I’m feeling sick.  The pillow part of the pillow wore out, but I couldn’t just throw the case away now, could I?

2: You’re going to love what I did to the vanity mirror… stay tuned for a new post soon!