nursery projects {bunting quilt}

These days I am loving flag bunting. And I know I'm not the only one - it's everywhere!

{Although, when I told Drew that I was making a bunting quilt for Miss Bug he said, "bunting? Like baseball?" oh, husbands - love 'em. :-) }

I knew from the start of my pregnancy that I wanted to incorporate a bunting banner somewhere in the nursery. They're such a fun way to add color and cheer to a space! Instead of draping an actual banner in the room I decided to put it on her quilt!

I've made a few quilts, but they have all been the same pattern {different fabrics, same base plan} so this was a major departure. I found a couple tutorials online, but none were exactly what I wanted, so I went my own way using them for inspiration.

Two of the tutorials I read and liked the most can be found here and here.

Want to make your own? Ok! It really wasn't that hard and I learned a lot along the way. I'll even share all of my mistakes so you'll {hopefully} have more instant success and less one-on-one time with your seam ripper than I did. Fun times. :-)

What you'll need:

- 1/4 yd of each fabric you'd like to use for the flags {this was more than enough for my blanket}
- around 2 yds of fabric for the quilt front + 2 yds for the back, cut to whatever size you want the final quilt to be
{this amount totally depends on how big your quilt is. Mine ended up being 56"x42"}
- cotton batting
- pins, lots of pins
- sewing machine
- thread
- bias tape

{1} First up, pick your fabrics! This is the most fun. Since we're expecting a little girl and her nursery is mostly navy blue, pink, and aqua I decided to stick with those base colors - adding in a few splashes of bright yellow and multi-colored chevron for extra fun.

{2} Next, cut out your flags

I decided that I wanted mine to be 7" across and 7" from base to tip, but this is totally up to you as well. I'm sure there's a more efficient way to do this, but what seemed easiest to me was to make a template flag out of scrap material, then simply "trace" around it to cut all the flags exactly the same.

{3} Arrange the flags on your top fabric and pin 'em down.

{4} Once you've got it all arranged sew around each flag to hold them in place. I sewed across the tops first, then went back and sewed down the sides. I used a zig zag stitch so I wouldn't have to fold under every raw edge of each flag {that looks nice, but would take forever}. The zig zag keeps the raw edges from fraying.

{only the top of the flag is sewn in this photo, but I did the sides next}

{5} Your quilt top is now done!

{6} Layer the quilt top on the wrong side of the backing fabric with the cotton batting in between. For the backing I used minky that I had on hand - it is SO soft, I want a minky blanket for me!

{7} Pin all 3 layers together and sew a straight stitch around the quilt edges to connect it all together.

One mistake I made was not to put lots of pins all across the quilt. I just pinned the sides together and things shifted a bit while I was sewing - grrr... When you do it, pin the heck out of the thing, it's worth it.

{8} Sew a straight stitch around each flag to "quilt" the blanket together. This keeps the front, center, and back from flopping apart in the middle of the quilt.

{9} At this point your quilt is completely together, but the edges are still raw. To finish this off I used bias tape as binding. I've never used bias tape before and was pretty intimidated, but it was so easy. Full credit for my success goes to this tutorial.

Here's what I used...but in navy blue.

I don't have any photos of attaching the bias tape, but if you follow the link above it's simple to finish.

That's it!

I'm in love with how it turned out. It's exactly the cheerful addition to baby bug's room that I was hoping it would be!

 

bugaboo {33 weeks}

I feel behind.  I still haven't gone through my beach week photos, let alone blogged about any of our trip - and it was amazing!  You want to hear about it! {believe me - ha ha}  The truth is, between Asher starting school and me devoting all of my spare time to baby prep there just aren't enough hours in the day.  Hopefully I'll find some time to squeeze it in soon!

In good news, I did get Drew to take my belly photos for week 33!  We are having some gorgeous weather right now - not too hot and feeling like fall might just be approaching - so we took these outside.  :-)

All is well with baby bug.  We had an OB appointment last week and got a great report.  They checked my iron and so far everything looks perfect with that.  I go back in 2 weeks for another check-in.

I have been having some additional uncomfortable symptoms lately.  Namely, swelling in my hands.  I never had this with Asher {big benefit of having a December baby, I think!} but summer finally caught up with my pregnancy and my hands are the big losers.  It's not so bad in the morning, but by evening I can barely wiggle my rings off.  Boo.

I have 2 pieces of exciting {to me} news - first, the nursery dressers arrived.  Yay!  I've been waiting to wash all of the baby blankets, clothes, etc that are going in the dressers until they arrived.  It feels good to get that job started.  The room is a complete mess, but once I get it organized a bit I'll show you all some pictures.  I really love how it's coming together.

{someone claimed to want a photo with me, but then wouldn't look at the camera.  

oh, toddler.}

The other exciting news is that I finished the baby's quilt!  I haven't made any quilts in awhile and forgot how much work they are.  It didn't help that I tried a completely new pattern {which I mostly made up myself...} - but, I l-o-v-e how it turned out.  Well worth the effort.  Pictures of that to come as well.  :-)

This week bugaboo is the size of a...durian?  Really?  Ok.  She's between 4-5 pounds and is growing like a weed!

How far along: 33 weeks

Net weight gain/loss: 18 pounds

Maternity clothes: yes

Stretch marks: no

Belly button: fully popped

Sleep: hit or miss

Baby movement: oh yes - she's very busy.

Gender: it's a GIRL!

Food cravings: crushed ice

Food aversions: pork chops

What I miss: being able to go, go, go without getting completely worn out and sore

Looking forward to: getting the rest of the nursery furniture delivered!

Best moment this week: finishing ladybug's quilt and getting her room arranged

Milestones: baby is now keeping her eyes open when she's awake

{phone dump friday}

This has been a crazy busy week for us. I still haven't gone through all of my photos from our time at the beach last week, so here's the Instagram version of our vacation recap!

We tried to make the 9+ hour ride up there as painless as possible for all of us by keeping Asher busy. What better way to start a long trip than with donuts!

 

Actually, this is post-donuts which explains the coma look on his face.

Later I pulled out a dollar store surprise - pinwheels! Asher loves pinwheels so these kept him entertained for quite awhile.

 

After a lot of traffic and a lot of rain slowing us down we were so happy to arrive at the beach house and start our vacation with Drew's family. First order of business {the next morning} was to hit the beach. Asher played in the sand a ton - he's still not a fan of the ocean.

 

His favorite thing was getting buried by Daddy. Oh my goodness, he requested this over and over!

 

It rained our second morning there - yuck - but luckily there were cars, books, and fun cousins to keep us entertained.

 

 

Asher learned a couple new tricks last week, including how you sleep in the sun...

 

and how to drink from a water bottle sans straw {it's hiding under his towel}. Check out those lashes - I die.

 

Since Papa Gene celebrated his birthday the week before we had to have some "happy cake" for him. Asher was so excited! And big cousin A? I'm not sure what he's up to. :-)

 

On our last day I woke up early with Ash and we took a sunrise walk on the beach - just the 2 of us.

 

 

The ride home was long, but without the traffic or rain so we're calling that a win. Plus Asher did a fair bit of this...

 

Also a win. :-)

There are some real beach week re-caps coming soon - assuming I ever get my photos off the big camera. Until then, happy weekend friends!

 

his first day

Yesterday was Asher's first day of preschool.  I've mentioned a few times that he would be starting a school program this year and Tuesday was the beginning!

I don't think he totally understood what "going to school" meant, but Drew and I talked it up a lot and Asher was excited to wear his backpack and "go school, play kids."

Of course I had to get some photos of my little big guy on his first morning.  I didn't have a cute sign that I've seen so many other mamas using - maybe in the spring.  This is what happens if I ask him to say "cheese" - it's very literal.  :-)

Initially Asher was much more interested in ringing our doorbell than in standing still and looking at me. 

As someone who photographs a 2.5 year old by myself all the time, I've come to expect this and tried to roll with it.  ha!

He did eventually look my way {to point out a pick-up truck driving by...} and I took full advantage.

This is such a classic Asher smirk.  Love him.

Once we got to school nerves took over a bit, for both of us.  His school is at a church, but not the one we attend, so Asher wasn't quite sure why we were there.

After a couple seconds of hand holding he was ready to speed ahead of me.  :-)

We found his classroom, hung up his backpack, and got ready to say goodbye.  Asher tried to pull me inside to "play mommy" and it broke my heart to say I'd see him later and leave him in his teacher's hands.  They were SO great about giving me a comforting smile and distracting Asher with toys. 

I hung around out of sight, but within earshot for a few minutes to see if he would lose it.  He didn't.  He did fantastic - no crying at all.

When I came back to pick him up he was sitting with a teacher {there are 3 in his class}.  The instant he saw me the poor guy broke into the ugly cry.  Huge tears, loud sobs.  Miss Amanda said, "oh, he is so happy to see you and overwhelmed with joy that you're back - bless his little heart."  And it was true.  Asher didn't cry the whole morning, but once he saw me I think the emotional toll of the day caught up with him.

As we were leaving I asked what he did this morning and all he would say was "back with mommy." 

I missed you too, buddy.  He did fill me in on his activities a little bit later on - apparently they had "happy cake" for snack {a classmate brought cupcakes for his birthday} so it's no wonder he liked school!  His teacher warned me that often the 2nd day is harder than the 1st since a lot of the kiddos don't realize this whole school thing is a repeat scenario.  Asher goes again tomorrow so we'll see how he fairs!

Thanks everyone for your words of encouragement.  This is a big step for us, but we're excited to see what the year brings!

bugaboo {32 weeks}

Sorry I missed the update last week - we were at the beach! Yay! I had a few blog posts ready to go throughout the week, but couldn't do this weekly one ahead of time, so we'll just have to get caught up with the bug now. Here's the only belly shot I got at 31 weeks. :-)

We've since graduated to 32 weeks - only 8 to go! Ladybug has still been moving a ton and keeps me smiling with kicks, jabs, and rolls throughout the day and night.

I had a couple nights of bad sleep at our beach house last week. I blame a combo of 3rd trimester insomnia and sleeping in a strange bed. Hopefully it won't become a habit now that we're back home. I've also been having a lot of back pain {to be expected} and nausea {not so expected}. This pregnancy is totally different than Asher's was.

I'm still waiting for the nursery furniture to arrive and am starting to get less patient and more anxious. I've been waiting to wash a lot of her clothes and blankets until I have dressers to put the stuff in, but I feel like it needs to be done soon. Let the nesting begin!

Baby girl is now around 3 pounds and the size of a squash. She's still practicing her breathing and should be getting into head down position to stay soon. I can tell you for a fact she moves from head down to sideways to head up several times a day. Let's all hope she goes head down before she gets too big to do 180s.

How far along: 32 weeks

Net weight gain/loss: I'll see at my appointment this morning

Maternity clothes: yes

Stretch marks: no

Belly button: fully popped

Sleep: hit or miss

Baby movement: oh yes - she's very busy.

Gender: it's a GIRL!

Food cravings: crushed ice

Food aversions: beef

What I miss: sleeping well {you can just go ahead and apply this to the next year or so...}

Looking forward to: getting the rest of the nursery furniture delivered...soon, I hope!

Best moment this week: having our last vacation as a family of 3

Milestones: baby is now big enough to survive outside the womb with minimal intervention

----------------------------

Today is a big day for our family - it's Asher's 1st day of preschool! Full report and photos tomorrow, wish us luck! :-)

 

home tour {eating and living}

Happy Labor Day everyone!  We're enjoying some extra time with Daddy today!  I think the big plans on our agenda include eating pancakes, visiting Trader Joe's, going to the park, and grilling.

Want to see where we'll spend the majority of our time today? I think we're pretty like most families in that we end up spending a lot of time in the kitchen and living room.  Luckily for us these 2 rooms share 1 space in our house. 

There's a small breakfast nook that helps ease the transition from kitchen to living room.

And just off the breakfast nook is the screened porch that leads to the backyard.  This was a new one for me, but down south it seems like every porch is screened - having one wasn't even an option, it's just how they come.  They grow bugs BIG and plentiful down here!

The living room is such a nice space for us.  Plenty of seats, but not too huge.  I love a cozy living room.  We had a big 2-story great room in Ohio and it always felt a little too cathedral to me.  This suits my tastes a lot better.

We keep some toys for Asher in the cabinets below the TV so he has entertainment when I'm in the kitchen.  Most of his stuff is in his upstairs playroom, but we rotate toys from there to here to keep it interesting.  So far it's been working well for us.

Drew and I bought this rug 5 years ago when we lived in Cleveland.  We both fell in love with it and were so sad when our little Virginia townhouse didn't have a space for it.  The poor thing stayed rolled up in our basement for 2 years!  I'm pretty sure I heard it sigh in relief when we unrolled it here.  :-)

I'm hoping it will get cold enough a few times this winter for us to use the fireplace {although I have to admit, the stone hearth scares me to death with kids, especially once we have a truly wobbly toddler in ladybug - I'll have to find a protection system for the sharp edges.  I've heard that cutting a pool noodle in half lengthwise and wedging it over the stone lip works great!}.

Hope you all are enjoying this Monday holiday as well!