Big Boy Bed

Let me say first that I am generally not the type of Mommy that gets "sad" about my "babies" growing up.  Each new bit of accomplishment and independence I am wholeheartedly thrilled about - I have no wish for my babies to stay babies at all.  Little kids, bigger kids - much more fun.  

However, the crib-to-bed transition is such a one-way, no-turning-back-type transition that it makes even me pause for a minute and appreciate just how fast these little kiddos are growing up.  Really fast.  

Amy got her big bed at exactly the same age William is now. For her of course it was more necessary, as William was on the way and the crib was needed.  This time there is no one in line for the crib, and no real push for the change.  But William's favorite thing in the world is to get cozy under the covers in Amy's bed, and it seemed to us that this was simply a case of a boy ready for his own tucked-in and cozy sleeping digs.  

And I think we have a winner.  We put together the frame and mattress in the afternoon, and William made no objection to giving it a test sleep for a late nap.  I tucked him in and left him all alone and he conked right out, and slept equally well and easily last night, too. 

I opted for the bed rail this time; Amy did not have one but we had her mattress/boxspring on the floor at first.  Since we went straight up onto the frame for William, and since he does still move around a bit in his sleep I thought it would be good peace of mind and ease the transition overall.  This is a "hide-away" rail, but it doesn't slide away quite as easily as I would like, and I might not have the patience to put it away every morning when I make the bed.  Oh well. 

And of course, Amy always needs a piece of the action, so she got under her covers for a "nap" too.  Hers lasted oh, about 30 seconds.  

So, now what do I do with the crib? 

Design Wall and Quilt Progress

I have about ten minutes of Bob the Builder left to churn out this post, so I'm sacrificing style for content. Here goes.  I left off last post with some strips of pretty fabric squares.  After sewing the strips together I had this: 

Which is cute... but measuring under 30" makes it a bit small, even for a baby quilt... and I'm not in the baby business right now anyway.  So, what to do.  I tacked it up on the wall upstairs and stared at it for awhile, then got an idea.  

 

I whacked off the top and left side, and reattached the pieces on the bottom and right side.  And from there I whacked it into a bunch of pieces.  Now I have pieced squares and rectangles, each measuring about 8x8, 8x4, or 4x4.  And having the quilt up on the wall reignited my long-cherished desire for a design wall.  $8 and 2 yards later I came home with a big piece of white felt from Walmart, and we had this. 

 

Yippee!  It worked exactly as I hoped, and now I can slap up my fabric squares and move them around as much as I like.  It is wonderful. Amy thought so too. So for some extra bonus Mommy points I sat on the floor for an hour and cut shapes out of felt. 

 

Big hit. 

This is the most recent picture I have, but last night I finished placing the rest of the pieces for this quilt, which now measures about 48x60... ish.  I added more squares and rectangles of white and yellow Kona solids (which I had on hand) and a green floral print from the same collection as the little squares.  It was one of the few pieces of this line that I could find on Etsy... note to self: don't wait two years before starting a project; you'll never be able to find the fabric again. 

So, that's where I am. Bob is over now. Might I convince the little monkeys to go upstairs with me so I can do some sewing?  We shall see!!  Thanks for looking, and have a lovely day, folks. 

Projects and Sewing Math

Guess what I finished? My little friend is all done. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, though my one big glaring mistake is obvious in this picture.  And there were a number of less obvious mistakes.  But all in all it was good knitting practice, and all the switching between knit/purl and reversing it every five rows must have given me some anti-Alzheimer's points.  This is a kitchen hand towel... that reminds me a bit of drying one's hands on a sweater...  And it did not play well with others on its first trip through the wash and left pinkness all over a number of non-pink articles.  Oops.

Anyway, that's probably enough said about a towel.

Moving on.

These two sets of fabric are on my mind next.  All but the top print are from Children at Play ... I've had these for quite awhile (naturally) and have some vague plan to make coordinating-but-not-matching quilts for Amy and William. They currently share a room and I think it would be really neat to have their beds sort of matching, but yet with each quilt being unique to its owner.  Not sure yet how to make this all work... need more "boy" fabric but can't really find what I want. Tossed around the idea of adding in minky or some other texture, or swatches of baby clothes, etc.  I just don't know.

And then there's this one:

Which actually has moved along just since this picture was taken.  Turns out that if you spend zero time sewing, zero projects get accomplished.  (This is where the sewing math comes in). But even a few minutes of work means that - voila! - stuff gets done!  Who knew.  This little group of strips was a charm pack of "Dream On" by Moda... something like that. I hate being a fabric name dropper, but these projects happen to be my fabric indulgences finally making their way into use... it does make me a bit giddy to be working with such nice fabric and such beautiful colors.  I'll have to write more about this tiny quilt another time, because since I've sewn it all together I'm thinking about slicing it up again and repatching it with some solid white or yellow or something... to make it a bit bigger and space out those pretty prints a bit... hmm...

Anyway, that's my sewing-knitting stream of consciousness for the evening.  It's nice to be working on something. And once I get started I usually can get on a roll.  It's when I haven't sewn anything in awhile that a force field tends to form around my sewing machine and I just can't get back at it.  Now that the force field has been disabled I'm hoping to churn through a few things.

And here's one more picture, just for fun.  William is not asleep here; he'd just woken up for a nap and was being all cozy on Amy's bed.  She was bringing him one stuffed animal and blanket after another and he ended up quite buried.  Lots of giggles.  I particularly like the book (and random comb) by his head.  So this picture could be "Stuff on my Boy". Good times.

Up Close and Personal

Spent some time this weekend at one of our new favorite places around here. Just lovely.