A Beautiful Thing

There was a guy that both Andy and I knew in college that was quite entertaining and fun to be around.

He would often say "It's a beautiful thing."

Every now and then Andy or I will use that phrase and we both smile and think of Kimber.

Well folks, this truly is a beautiful thing I'm going to share with you.

Maybe some of you are already aware of it but if not, prepare to have your socks knocked off.

(I realize that not all of you will agree with my feelings here since not all of you are sewers.  However, if you have ever made a baby blanket before, you may appreciate this.)

On Pinterest a while ago I saw these...

(Apostrophy Designs)

Super cute right?

You may recall a while back (I think I mentioned it on my blog),

that I tried sewing this and didn't measure precisely enough and it turned out very wrong and I ended up just giving burp cloths for a baby gift.

Well, a couple of friends of mine were having babies soon and I was determined to try this again and get it right.

I had some fabric that I had bought several months ago with the intention of making a blanket for Matt.

He told me about a year ago that he didn't have a "small blanket" like the other kids.

Josh and Abby have both kind of hung on to one of their baby blankets and just keep it in their bed.

So...I bought this really cute baseball fabric and put it aside for a while.

This was my chance, both to complete a long over due project and practice this technique again.

I had Mom help me look at the tutorial and figure things out.

We actually found this one to be a little more helpful and clear, but they're the same idea.

After Mom's help I felt confident that I could do it and I set to work that day during nap time.

Things were going really well...I was super careful with my measurements and everything looked like it was turning out.  Well, when I turned the blanket right side out something was terribly wrong again.  I was frustrated...I kept trying to make it right but it just wasn't so I sadly left it in my craft corner and went upstairs to finish the rest of the day.

After the kids were in bed I was ready to face it again.

I went back to the tutorial and read it very carefully and after a few minutes realized what I had done wrong.  One simple mistake and I knew it would make all the difference.

So I cut off all the seams and cut the fabric down to size and tried again.

Finally, on my third attempt at this blanket I had success!

It turned out small, but beautiful :)

And Matt loved it.

I love that grin!

So I now felt ready to make a couple of more for my friends.

I was anxious to get to the fabric store and get some cute flannel so I called my cousin to come and babysit for me while I did that and went to the grocery store.

While having the fabric cut, I got a phone call from Abby saying that Ben was having a seizure.

I wasn't too alarmed since lately they've only been a few minutes at the most and on top of that, my cousin has been babysitting before when he has had a seizure.  I calmly told her that I'd stay on the phone with them until it stopped.  The lady cutting the flannel could probably tell something was wrong since she said I could go and come back later if I needed to.

I told her I was fine.  Well, the minutes kept ticking and the seizure hadn't stopped.

After 5 minutes I told Becca to go ahead and give him the Diastat.

She did and after a few minutes it still hadn't slowed down.  At about 9 minutes, my fabric was paid for and I decided I had better get home.

I told them I was coming and hopped in the car.

At 10 minutes it still hadn't stopped.

I told Becca that I was going to call 911.

I was trying to figure out how she could get a hold of me if it stopped while I was on the phone when...

Phew!  It finally stopped.

That was a close one...

He fell asleep in my cousin's arms and was grumpy the rest of the day.

Anyway...blankets.  I whipped these two out plus 4 burp cloths in one day.  

Once I understood what I was doing they were so easy!

The fabric line for both of these blankets is Robert Kaufman's "Pretty Paisley".

They are so slick and give you perfect mitered corners every time!

This is my new go to baby gift. 

I love this technique and I hope you do too.

Thank you for letting me share this beautiful thing with you :)

Side Note:  I just have to share this because I think it is so funny...

At the shower where I wanted to give this as a gift and ended up just doing burp cloths with a package of diapers, there were some sweet ladies who were more advanced in years than some.

When the mother to be opened my gift and I explained that cloth diapers are my favorite burp cloths because they are so absorbent (I have pretty spitty babies) these cute ladies were confused and seemed to think that I had dressed up some cloth diapers to be used as cloth diapers.

They explained how to put one on a baby and so on and so forth...

It was just too funny :)

They must have thought it a pretty silly gift to put fabric and ric rac on diapers!