The Friday Find

Apologies that this is so late. Blogger was down. Not only could we not post, but we couldn't see any of your awesome comments from days past. Needless to say, it's been a rough day. TGIF, for reals.

But today's Friday Find is really awesome. Worth the several hour wait. And it's brought to you by Design Mom. She turned regular, outdated ties into trendy skinny ties. Andy and Ben, don't be surprised if you end up with some of these because Anna and I are ready to roll up our sleeves and get crackin - errr...sewing.

You can find the tutorial here. Five ties cost her a whopping $5. Compare that to $30-$60 for one store-bought skinny tie. This is a total steal. And I love how they came out.

If you mail me your old tie maybe, just maybe, I will mail you back a skinny one :)

Photo via Design Mom

Happy weekend!

Baby blanket project

Since my sister shared her exciting news recently, I thought I would share a project I've been working on for her - a baby blanket!  I used this pattern - it is really more of a play mat, but I liked it because aside from being warm and snuggly, it can be taken on picnics, tucked into a stroller, or spread on the floor with toys.  Here are some pictures of the work in progress:

After I had the play mat sewn together in it's basic form, I basted it to keep the layers in place while I quilted it.  I used this tutorial since I had no idea what I was doing, and it was very helpful!

Once it was completely basted, I marked the fabric with tiny dots where I would embroider tiny X's.  I used this ruler (SO HANDY!) to make sure the dots were evenly spaced.

Then, I embroidered a small X on each of the pencil-marked dots.  This means the other side has tiny knots on it, but I decided that's okay since they don't compromise how comfy the blanket is.

Finally, I trimmed the blanket with this (bottom right) fabric.  It made the whole blanket much more exciting to look at, and was still gender neutral.

Since I am sewing the trim on by hand, I'm not quite finished yet.  I'll post pics of the final product in a few days. :)