Dolly Quilt

We found this sweet little baby basket on a thrifting day last summer, and stashed it away for later. Now that Freyja's starting to play with dolls, we took it out...but it didn't seem too cozy, so I made some quick bed linens for it. In an evening, I worked up a little cushioned mattress, a pillow, and a doll-sized quilt from some left-over fabric, batting, seam binding, and yarn I had in the stash.

I think it came out pretty cute! Don't these babies look snuggly?

Mama to Mama and Teeny, Tiny Caps

In the spirit of the coming Thanksgiving, I decided to take part in a little project through a new blog, Mama to Mama, which was created by one of my favorite blog authors, Amanda Soule of SouleMama. The purpose of the new blog is to reach out to other moms throughout the world using craftism...giving through making, rather than monetarily. The first proposed idea was the Caps to Cap-Haitien Project, and it's goal was to make cotton jersey hats for newborn infants, which would be put in home-birthing kits in Haiti. To learn more about the project and why this is needed, see the above link, or check in my side-bar. It's such a great thing.

Here are my completed hats. Despite some initial insanity with sewing knit fabric on a regular machine, I had such a nice experience doing this. It felt so good to take part in a project which I knew would help other mamas...women like me. Although our backgrounds and needs are different, we all need help sometimes. As I was working, I was thinking about all the little children who would be wearing these caps, and sewing those little thoughts into each one.

A New Birthday Tradition

In my last post, I mentioned that I made a felt crown and wreath for Freyja's birthday, but I didn't really go into any details about it. I thought I would do that here! Plus, since my last post, I've had a chance to take a much better photo of both, which I wanted to include for everybody to see!

The concept of the birthday crown and wreath are, from my research, both European traditions, and they are often used by children of families who raise their children using the Waldorf method, but lately (as I describe below) it's become a popular trend, and many people are now making them, regardless of their particular method of parenting or seasonal/yearly traditions.

The first time I saw the birthday crown being used, it was on a blog which I absolutely love and read daily, Soule Mama. The author, Amanda Soule, has several blog entries where it's discussed, including here and here. She also describes the whole process in her book The Creative Family, which I don't have and haven't read yet...but because of it, a simple google search for "birthday crown" will generate a ton of other blog entries whose writers have posted images of birthday crowns they've also recently made. I swear, these things have become so popular overnight. I began sewing Freyja's crown before all of this creative insanity began and took my inspiration for the project from the Soule Mama blog, as well as from another blog I love and also read daily, Uncommon Grace. The author describes her birthday crowns and wreath, as well as their family birthday traditions, here and here, and lists her inspiration for the first birthday crown she ever made as being from The Birthday Book (which I also haven't read).

The crown I made was loosely based on a pdf pattern I was able to find on Jelly Baby Blog (also a nice blog!), but for some reason (although I did save the pdf to my computer months ago, thankfully), I can't seem to find it online now! I'd be glad to send you the pattern and tutorial she posted if you're interested. I also noticed today (while gathering up my links for this post!) that there is another good tutorial here at the blog Balancing Everything. I'm sure, if you do some research of your own, you'll find all sorts of other great information on the whole birthday crown phenomenon too...

The crown I made is constructed of two layers of felt and a layer of low-loft cotton quilt batting in between. You can achieve a similar affect by using two layers of plant-dyed felt (which is thicker), or instead of quilt batting, using interfacing in between the two layers of felt to add stiffness. I sewed the three layers together by machine on the edges of the top, bottom, and sides with a 1/4" seam allowance, and inserted an elastic band in the back (also covered in felt) to allow the crown to be adjustable, so Freyja could wear it for several years. After I was done with the machine sewing, I blanket-stitched the crown by hand on the top and bottom in a contrasting wool thread.

I decided to decorate the crown with felt flowers, which I designed and cut out by hand. The flowers have three felt layers each, and are machine sewn vertically through the petals with contrasting thread.

The wreath was made in a similar way. The base was wrapped in a long chain of felt, and then decorated with felt flowers of various shapes of the same thickness as above, which were machine sewn as above. Pastel buttons were sewn to the centers of the flowers, and then they were all sewn individually to the wreath base.

Well, I think that's about it!

I hope Freyja's birthday crown and wreath become a favorite part of her birthday every year...