Burp!

Forget paper, forget cakes, the next few days are going to be all about fabric.



We went to Walmart last week because I remembered seeing some Seattle Seahawks fabric there. Since that's my husband's favorite football team, and Sawyer will be born during football season, I thought it would be cute to make him a blanket with the team logo. I picked up the fabric on clearance, and then bought a coordinating green flannel and an organic cotton/bamboo blend quilt batting at Joann. I embroidered his name in the bottom corner using green and white embroidery floss. I laid all the layers together, sewed them, trimmed the corners, and went to turn the whole mess inside out. That's when I realized I made the most STUPID, bush league level mistake I could possibly make while sewing a blanket.

I put the batting in between the flannel and the printed fabric.

That means, when I flipped it all inside out, the batting would be OUTSIDE of the blanket, instead of snugly ensconced in the middle. DUH. Now I have to use a seam ripper to take it all apart and start over tomorrow. Grrr.

To make myself feel better, I moved on to a different project. I had some good sized scraps of the logo fabric left over, so I decided to make some decorated burp cloths. I had read somewhere that cloth diapers made excellent burp cloths, so I figured I'd get some of those, and sew panels of fabric in the middle. Piece of cake, right?

Well, let me begin by saying that I just don't get cloth diapers. I have never seen one before outside of it's package, let alone on an actual baby, but I kinda had an idea of what they would look like. Boy, was I wrong!

When we did our registry, we put some organic cotton ones one there for burp cloth use. I decided to go into Babies R Us to pick some up, and luckily, instead of just grabbing the package, I actually looked at them. These things looked like a cross between gauze and cheesecloth! How on Earth do they hold ANYTHING in? How do you scrub them without them falling apart?

I looked at the regular, non-organic ones and they were no better. How could I expect these things to protect/absorb anything, let alone be sturdy enough to sew? I dug around a bit, and I found some that were Super Premium (oooohhhh) that were kind of heavier, but still, a bit thin. Whatever, they'd work.

I get home, and they're like giant handkerchiefs! Not at all what I was expecting, yet again! After messing with one for a while, I decided to fold the edges in toward the center, and then cover the seam with my printed fabric. This would thicken them up, and make them sturdier for sewing.

What a freaking learning curve.

Here are the Seahawks burpies; I had enough fabric left to make three:

That left me with nine cloth diapers to decorate, and no more fabric pieces big enough to use. That's when I remembered seeing the cutest ginghams on clearance at Walmart when I picked up the Seahawks fabric, and also how I was lamenting not needing any since it was only 75 cents a yard. Now I needed some! I had to get something for dinner tomorrow anyway, so off to Walmart we headed.

Yeah, of course all the good colors were gone. I got a blue/brown gingham, and then saw this cute flame print, so I got some of that too. It seems that they're doing away with their fabric department so everything was 50% off, but they really didn't have anything that I liked besides those two.

I'm loving the flame one, and I wish I had bought enough to do more than one!

Oh, and I just had to share this - you know how I am sure that my husband loves me? He sat with me and dug through this HUGE display of women's underwear to find a package that was my size, in the cut and color that I wanted. :)

One of the things that all my books/magazines said to pack for the hospital was "disposable" underwear. We decided that meant either some Hanes Her Way in a value pack a la Walmart, or Depends. Since I'm not ready for adult diapers yet, I went with the Hanes. I can't even remember when was the last time I bought underpants in a multipack (yeah, I'm a chonie snob!) but they had an 8-pack for $5.50, so I figured, what the heck!

I did hear him mutter "I am SOOOOOO married" at one point though... hee hee!