Baby Quilts for Cool Babies

Ok, you can't leave a blog to die with the last post being a dead cat post.

So here is a new one.

I recently made a baby quilt. I have made quilts before. I have made baby quilts before too. So I almost, almost know what I am doing...kinda.

baby quilt by blacklilypie

So I had a bunch of fabrics already, and I kind of wanted to do something not too cutesy...I thought lightning bolts would be a good idea. I searched Pinterest to see if there was anything that would catch my eye and right away I saw a pattern that I liked. Why try and figure out something if someone (who actually knows how to quilt) has already done it...

 

Go here to buy the pattern from SLOstudio on etsy

Soo much easier than figuring it out myself. Instant download and I am on my way. Please buy it if you decide to make a quilt like this. Be cool.

I decided to only do one big lightning bolt block, then add some kinda modified triangles without the lightning bolt around it. The rest is just solid black quilting cotton pieces. It was pretty easy, the only thing that was challenging was keeping the patchwork patterns from touching each other.

I had originally thought I would add more red to other parts of the quilt, but I liked just the pop of colour in the centre. I can never stray too far from my black and white lifestyle! I ended up just using a black and white fabric for the binding.

Its backed in a pretty bad-arse (for a baby) flannelette with drum kits and skulls and stuff. I know from experience that having a back that has a busy pattern can hide a LOT of flaws and generally make your life a billion times easier and better.  I just bought all these fabrics at my local Fabricland.

I did some quilting with red thread around the outside. I had intended to do a bolder, fatter red, but didn't have a needle to fit it for my sewing machine. Oh well.

Oh and here is a pic for scale.

See, its baby size. I think this is after washing it, which I always do to make it all rumpled up and vintage-y looking. I also took pics of it in case it got lost in the mail, which I had nightmares about.

The only major fail I had with this quilt is using Warm and Natural quilt batting, which is nice and all but fibres from it started coming through the quilt top. Its called "bearding" and you can't really fix it unless you take the quilt apart. I usually avoid this problem on my toys and dolls by adding a layer of thin interfacing on the back of the fabric. Fixes it perfectly, but I didn't think of it. UGH.

So yay a non-cutesy little wild-child baby quilt.

Lets wreck some something!

My partner just up and exclaimed that our nightstands were friggan' ugly. I kind of agreed. They are standard ikea ones, a kinda greyish white striated finished laminate. They had also seem better days. 

Why did we even buy them??! 

We hate them now. 

SO lets wreck them!!

 Ugh, so boring. The laminate is peeling a bit from those bottom cut outs too. I peeled off any edges of laminate that were sticking out, glued and filled the edges then sanded them. Then I  took off the doors and the little shelf.

The internet is like "Oh use chalk paint, its the best" I TRUSTED YOU INTERNET. Ok, I am sure chalk paint is great when you get the right materials, but my DIY plaster/paint mix was chunky AND translucent and pretty much garbage. But we are WRECKING these things, so no matter, just try and make it pretty smooth, and do a few coats and it will alllll work out...

Oh, did you like that subtle, chalky finish? That is great but ohmygosh so dull. Lets wreck it more by dripping black inky paint on it. Also use a straw, dip it in paint then blow forcefully through it to get amazing spatters. Let each side dry before moving it.

Hey, that is pretty neat actually.

Ok, now once it is all dry you have to clear coat it. I used a satin polycrylic with a pretty small brush. Do a few coats (let each one dry) especially on the top where it will get wear.

Ok, they are pretty weird.

But they are SO MUCH BETTER than the boring ikea grey joykillers. I didn't even have to change the knobs like I thought I would, because they disappear. YAY.

Now we can relax. 

If you are thinking of trying questionable projects, you can't beat using an old Ikea piece as a starting point. Literally every step of this was a disaster, but I pressed on and the end product is super neat! 

The nightstand update is literally the first thing I did to my standard beige rental bedroom. Better find some more stuff to DIY/wreck...

Heat Transfer Patches

I had some heat transfer paper squirrelled away, and I decided on a whim to try to make some heat transfer things.

I took a bunch of images I had created lately and printed them on the inkjet transfer sheets. I had a few Dark T-shirt sheets, and a few Light T-shirt ones. I generally like the Dark T-shirt ones better because I use a lot of dark fabric, and I like pressing it onto black cotton. But the Light T-shirt ones work well for certain images. It was also way easier to press with the iron and peel the backing paper off.

Tip: Make sure you use a de-fuzzing sticky roller or something to remove fluff from the fabric before ironing. Even the most microscopic bit of fuzz will be super visible on the white parts of the image after you iron it. Go crazy on the fabric and brush off the transfer with a dry paintbrush.

I thought I would include some pics of my horrible failures. You know, so you can feel better about yourself. I mixed up The Dark and Light T-shirt transfers when pressing them, and since they have different processes, this happened. That black and white teapot is part of the disaster sheet.

The full page tea set was going to be a zipper pouch, but I neglected to remember that after sewing a zipper pouch, you press it flat, and you cannot iron a transfer once its set on paper. So...I am going to make something else with the tea set. Appliques probably.

So once the transfer was on fabric, I backed it in black cotton and zig zag stitched around the outside. My early 2000's Singer did not like to do this at all. But my early 1970's Singer just breezes through.

I made a few, photographed them and listed a couple of them in my Etsy Shop. I am keeping the "1st Place in Disinterest" for my own jacket, because I try not to care about things that are stupid. Its a lifestyle.

So I guess the experiment was a partial success. The images look crisp and they are nice and flexible. I still think this counts as a "test batch" though as none of them are quite perfect. 

Heat transfers are fussy, and its easy to mess up, and every time I make a project with them there are some failures. So if you try it, and royally screw up some images, just remember this post and then immediately go and eat a cookie.

Lil Project: New Coat Buttons

Back in the day, I worked in a clothing store that sold coats. I would often mention that changing the buttons on a coat was a good way to make it look better.  The store where I worked would sell every coat with cheap tortoiseshell plastic buttons, and that made me barf. Nice coats ruined by ugly-ass buttons.

When I suggested that sewing on new buttons would transforma a coat, the customers would looked at me like changing the buttons on a coat was the most work any human had ever had to do. Its not a big deal! Sewing a button is something every man,woman and child should at least know how to do.

Lets do this.

Buy an "affordable coat"...Ok, boring/cheap/whatever coat. This one is a very normal one from H&M which I bought because I needed a "lady coat."

See, cheap buttons. Horror.

Figure out how many buttons you need, buy 'em. I bought mine off of Etsy, by searching in the supplies category. They were extremely affordable. 

I had a hard time finding buttons I liked that were also the same size as the old crappy plastic buttons, so I gambled a bit and bought slightly smaller buttons. I knew I may have to sew up the button holes a tiny bit if they ended up too small.

See, tiny! Oh well.

Sewing them on is easy but boring. Only 5 of them actually keep the coat closed, so I focused on sewing those on really well and kind of phoned in the other five. haha. No one will ever know.

In the end I only ended up replacing the double row of buttons on the jacket, not all the pocket, collar and shoulder ones, it was just too many white buttons. I think it was a success! I didn't even have to sew up the button holes more because of the smaller buttons.

I had TONS of people compliment me on my coat, and its is all really the buttons. FOOLED YOU.

Ever since working at that clothing store, I feel its my mission to rid the world of hideous plastic cheap-o buttons. I banish you.

Do it!