Up, Up and Away!!

My little sister is having a baby soon. Like, really soon. I can’t believe how fast her pregnancy is gone… or maybe I’ve just been distracted lately… it’s all relative, I suppose. I remember my pregnancy dragging on forever, and I was only pregnant for 31 weeks!  I’ve been meaning to get around to making baby gifts for her for the last 8 months and finally I have managed to finish a couple of things! My guilt will drift away as soon as that darn package is in the mail and en route to Canada. Shoot, 5 weeks to get it all the way to Canada! I had better get a move on!

Anyways, my sister is having a boy. This is the second boy in our family, and I’m always stumped as to what to sew for boys. Erin seemed pretty excited last year when I said I was creating a hot air balloon baby mobile, so surprise, surprise! That’s what she’s getting! I’m really happy with how it turned out. I just need to find a box to pack it in now.

The little balloons were pretty easy to sew up. They are big enough that you can sew them on the machine. I stitched 3 panels together, then the 3 panels of the other side then sewed them, right sides together, leaving about 1.5″ so that I could turn it. I then hand-stitched the opening closed, stuffed it with wool and hand stitched a little circle to close it. The rain drops are just glued together with a hot glue gun, and the clouds are all hand-stitched. I used a long doll making needle to push the string through the balloon, then secured it with a hot glue gun and tied a not underneath.

 

Here’s a list of some of the other gifts I’ve made for the baby (and I’ll post actual links when I’ve got some photos):

• Burp cloths (made from recycled towel)
• Bib (again, from that very large towel!)
• Wet bag for cloth nappies (or wet togs, or anything, really that is wet)
• Cute little baby shoes from some fabric a friend brought me from Bali (OK, I haven’t actually made these yet… they’re still in the concept phase. I really should have kept the pattern I made the last time I made shoes!)

Stay tuned for some photos of the above items!