cozy quick blankie project from the purl bee

The last few nights have been cooler in Adelaide, and this got me to thinking about cozying up with luscious blankets. Blankets are a bit of an obsession of mine, particularly baby's and children's blankets. I just can't seem to resist a beautiful pattern or a splendid fabric.

Although I have very little spare time now that I have two under two, I still dream about new sewing projects. The Purl Bee is a beautiful shop/website out of the USA, and I often visit it to check out their latest tutorials/projects.

Here's a beautiful one that I hope to get around to completing before the cold weather really hits ... a cozy quick baby blankie. The tutorial has detailed instructions and helpful photos, so I'm hoping that it won't be too hard to tackle in the evenings once the children are asleep and I'm still at least half-awake!

Image from The Purl Bee

free amy butler patterns

I am currently obsessed with Amy Butler fabrics, patterns, books etc and I just found these free patterns that you can download in pdf format.

And here are some simply beautiful fabrics from Amy Butler to swoon over ... enjoy!

Images courtesy of Modern Retro Textiles

sew your own baby burp cloths

With only 4 weeks to go until baby number 2 arrives (!!!!), I have been in full nesting mode. This has included borrowing my mum's sewing machine and attempting to sew for the first time in 15 years! Having loved sewing at school, I have felt inspired by my many crafty friends and fellow bloggers to take up the activity again.

My first project was making sheets for my toddler's new room - a simple exercise which allowed me to practice simple straight stitch and hemming. I am now onto baby burp cloths - another fairly simple project that I found at chikaustin's beautiful blog. You can find the tutorial here.

I bought a pack of 12 "softies" cloth nappies at Target and some fat flats from Spotlight for the decorative fabric. I'm not sure I'd go the fat flats option if I were to repeat this project, as they were not wide enough for the nappies - this meant I had to cut the nappies smaller and then hem them again, which was more work than I'd anticipated when I started this project. Next time I think I'll just get fabric cut for me.