Baby Bumps + Breeding Buddies = Baby Blanket Bonanza

Alright, I know this past winter was a long cold one. I know there were a couple boring snow days here and there. I know the long nights can be lonely, but buy a heated blanket, people! Seriously, baby bumps everywhere! I could be wrong, maybe all the bumps are just a few winter pounds that need to be shed, (God knows I have a few) but I don’t think so. That having been said, I feel like half my friends are part of this newly curvy populace and have joined the breeding frenzy.

One of my blossoming buddies, Brandi, told me about her baby back in December. Right away I started planning a gift for her. Naturally, I wanted to hand-make it. It took me about five seconds to decide on a baby blanket. For anyone that has not met Brandi, she is one of the sweetest, funniest, and quirkiest people I have the privilege of knowing. Brandi marches to the beat of her own drum, and if I had to dedicate a song to her it would be Sandi Thom’s “I wish I was a Punk Rocker With Flowers in My Hair.” I knew I wanted her baby blanket to reflect that personality.

My other newly bulbous bosom beau, Nikki, also told me about her baby a while ago. However, due to various social complications and school, Nikki’s baby blanket was up in the air until (VERY) recently. Again, for anyone that does know Nikki, she is another one of those sweet, funny, and quirky people I have been very lucky to meet. Where Brandi is bohemian chic, Nikki is a rock star. In my mind, her song is Guns N’ Roses “Welcome to the Jungle.”

When I started Brandi’s baby blanket I didn’t know she would be having a baby girl (name undisclosed, presently). For this reason, I wanted the blanket to be more gender-neutral. Also, I hate cutesy baby crap most kids get. Pastels just are not my thing. Instead of the typical young animals that get arbitrarily thrown onto the baby blankets sold in stores, I decided Brandi’s “lil bey-bey” would have a mythical creature. Since the especially loved baby blankets are carried by toddlers into older childhood, I wanted the beast to look strong, noble and as if it were protecting her. Thus, I selected the graceful Phoenix. Phoenixes are commonly seen as symbols of rebirth and immortality, a perfect match for a new baby in the world.

Nikki’s blanket happened under an EXTREME time crunch. I knew I couldn’t devote as much time to detail work that I did on Brandi’s blanket to construct the phoenix. Also, I knew the gender of Nikki’s baby: a boy. His name is Ethan Allen (last name is still to-be-determined) and I already love the little guy.  Since I know he will be as much of a rock star as his momma, I also wanted his baby blanket to be as non-traditional as Brandi’s. In my heart, I knew Nikki’s little man would need a masculine blanket. Incidentally, do y'all know how hard it is to find fabrics for a masculine baby blanket? Take as hard as you imagine it . . . and multiply it by five. Ethan’s blanket is meant to comfort him, but still help him to be strong.

Now that I have fully psycho-analyzed my blankets post-production, here’s a few fast facts about baby blankets:

• ·      Swaddling is an ancient practice of wrapping babies tightly in blankets to keep the limbs of the child tightly restricted.
• ·      The first examples of swaddling come from ancient backboards migrating mothers would carry their children in.
• ·      Ancient Greek and Romans had statuaries of babies wrapped in swaddling clothes. (Ancient idols or baby dolls?)
• ·      In Tudor times, mothers would wrap their children in linen to keep them from growing with physical deformities.
• ·      In the 17^th century swaddling feel out of favor because it was seen as unneeded.
• ·      Now, when a mother gives birth, her child is more likely to be loosely wrapped in a receiving blanket than in swaddling cloths.

And now, onto the tutorials! I’m going to break my usual format just a bit. When I was making these blankets I didn’t really take step-by-step pictures because, to be honest, I didn’t know I’d be making multiples or posting them.

Brandi’s Baby Blanket—The Phoenix Rises

Always lay out your pattern to make sure you like
the way it looks on your fabric.

This is what the back looks like after you have
embroidered around the edges of pieces.

Lay out your front piece and your back panel
right sides together.

Sew around the edge. 

See the little hole? This is how you hide the
ugly seams. 

Pin around the edge again. 

And sew! This gives your blanket a classy
"finished" look. 

TA-DA!

This is my fully finished phoenix. 

You can add details to the face and "feathers"
with running stitch embroidery. 

The white part is the attached backing. 

1.     Wander around online and look at the various baby blanket ideas out there. Get some general ideas of fabric requirements for different types and sizes of blanket.

2.     Go fabric shopping. This is the second best part! Touch all the fabrics that catch your eye. I always go for the softest ones I can find because babies love soft things, and so do mommies! For Brandi’s blanket I bought 2 yards of the blue front fabric and of the white fleece back fabric. I also bought a yard of the red and gold fabric. Please note that I used a LOT less of this fabric than I thought I was going to. You could probably get away with ½ of all these measurements. ***The secret to this technique of sewing is to buy “Heavy Duty Wonder Under” from the interfacing section of the fabric store. I bought 3 yards.***

3.     Spend some quality time sketching your ideas. I drew all my pieces for the phoenix onto a large sheet of freezer paper and numbered them. Once you get a template you love, trace it onto the Wonder Under. You can move the Under Wonder around to maximize your space, unless you’re using a print fabric, the numbered pieces of the same fabric can go all in a group on the paper. REVERSE YOUR PATTERN—Otherwise everything you cut out will be a mirror of your actual pattern.

4.     Follow the directions on your wonder-under and iron the interfacing onto the back of your fabrics. Cut all the pieces out and lay them out on your fabric right side up to make sure everything makes sense.

5.     Follow the Wonder Under directions again and iron down the pieces to the front of your fabric. PLEASE remember to peel off the paper part of the interfacing first!

6.     Here’s the REALLY time consuming part. Ready? Sew around the edges of ALL your pieces. If you do not sew the pieces down, after a few wash cycles and a day or two of baby love, the blanket will fall apart. I hand-embroidered the edges of Brandi’s phoenix with a running stitch.

7.     Once you are done, lay out and center the front fabric panel and the back fabric panel (bad-sides out). Trim the pieces to the size you want for the blanket. Pin the edges (keep the blanket wrong-sides out).

8.     Dig out the ol’ sewing machine! Sew around the edges of the blanket, but leave a small hole at one corner to pull the rest of the blanket through so that the right sides face out.

9.     Pin the edges of the hole together and sew along the edge of the blanket to create a beautiful edge.

***Time estimate: If you have a big, complicated, appliqué like my phoenix, this could take you several weeks’ worth of free time. It took me the better part of a semester working on it off and on.

Nikki’s Baby Blanket: A Masculine Masterpiece

Make 2" or 3" strips of your fabrics. Run the
strips going the LONG WAY of the fabric to
maximize length. 

Do not use the salvage in your measurements.

Pin the strips into groups of three. 

Face the pin head out towards you, so that you
can take it out easily from any direction while
you sew.

You can trim off the uneven edges.

After you sew the groups, sit down and pin
them together to create one large piece.

Sew 'em up! The backside WILL look ugly.
The obsessive-compulsive folks out there may
want to press the seams all going in the
same way. 

Lay it out and match the front and back panels in size. Trim.
Note: The dog is not necessary to this step. She just loved the
brown "minky" fabric I bought and was sure this blanket was
meant for her. Silly Eve.

Same idea as Brandi's blanket, sew around the
edges on the back sides, turn it inside out,
and sew again.

Finished! Isn't he a classy blanket?

1.     Again, wander around online. Researching the construction of blankets, something that used to take hours at a sewing center or library, is fast and painless now.

2.     Fabric shopping! I love fabric shopping. Just go enjoy it. Breathe in the scent. Get inspired. Touch everything! For baby Ethan, I needed a fabric that would be strong but also not too strong for a baby. I got a yard of the pretty argyle patterned fabric, a yard of blue satin, a yard of light blue stretchy knit, and a yard of SUPER soft “minky” brown fabric for the back. Before you buy the fabrics, hold them all together and imagine them ON whomever you are making the gift for. Just because I fell in love with a peacock satin does NOT make it appropriate for this project.

3.     The key to this simple striped pattern is to cut fabric strip of your three front fabrics into EVEN strips. I used 2” thick strips. Having done this, I strongly recommend 3” strips. They would be faster, neater, and I very much doubt a baby will care about the number of stripes on his or her blanket.

4.     Pin the stripes together in THE SAME ORDER. I grouped all the pieces in sets of three. Run over to the sewing machine and sew right down the edges of the fabrics. I used a ¼” seam allowance. Also, this technique took A LOT of thread. Have at least 2 or 3 spools on hand to finish the project.

5.     After you have all your groups of three sewn together, pin them together and sew the last seams to get one large panel of fabric. You will not use all the strips of fabric you cut.

6.     Use the same technique I mentioned above to cut the back and front fabrics to match. Pin and sew the edges. Reverse and sew to create a soft seam.

***Time Estimate: 5 hours if you have had some experience sewing.

A little afterward:

Brandi and Nikki both LOVED their baby blankets. When Brandi got hers, she threatened to steal it from “lil bey-bey.” I hope her daughter loves the phoenix as much as she did! Ethan’s daddy actually fell in love with his son’s baby blanket before Nikki even got to touch it. I foresee many father/son cuddles with this cozy number!

Cake Pops: One-Bite Wonders

     For those interested, I recently survived a rather severe bout of CID (Creative Idea Deprivation). I was living in a vacuum with no new ideas bubbling up to the surface. Luckily, I escaped this soulless state of mind with a little inspiration from an excellent friend of mine, Stephanie. She sent me a text message bragging about her recent dry run at making cake pops. For anyone who has not noticed this most recent trend that has swept blogs worldwide, you can think of a "cake pop" as "cake-on-a-stick".

     When Steph told me about her adorable Hello-Kitty inspired cake pops, I knew I had to try making the bad boys. For anyone curious about where to get the goods this week, I bought everything at Walmart in a 10-minute raid on the store after class. (And I spent under $10, SCORE!)

     Naturally, working on this most recent subversion of traditional cake whetted my appetite for a little bit of historical perspective. (Yes, that was a Ratatouille allusion, for my fellow Disney-Addicts.) It turns out that if your old cake recipe feels like it has been in the family since the dawn of time, it might have been!

     The ancient world possessed many “cake” recipes scattered throughout time. The Ancient Egyptians were the first to demonstrate provable baking abilities. Their closest cake concoction consisted of fluffy bread sweetened with honey. The Ancient Greeks, always ones to out-do the neighbors, cooked up a cheesecake recipe that bears remarkable resemblance to modern versions. The dreaded holiday-brick, the fruitcake, came from the Romans. They also came up with the tradition of wedding cakes. However, in Ancient Rome, a groom would smash a barley cake over the bride’s head. (If you’ve ever tasted a barley cake, you’d understand.) Britain during the 3^rd -5^th centuries had pastry delicacies calling for obscure ingredients such as lambs’ testicles, oysters, and coxcombs. (I'll pass on those aphrodisiacs . . .) Over the next several centuries the recipes evolved as sugars and honeys became more readily available. By the 14^th century, Chaucer recorded huge cakes constructed for special celebrations. Brides would have these delicacies, or smaller bun versions, at their weddings to ensure a productive and prosperous future.

     Cake was always a European dessert, though it became more prevalent in English-speaking countries. The word “cake” is a derivative of “kaka,” an Old Norse word. The European, and heavier, versions of cake are torte and gateau. These center more on the richer ingredients such as butter, eggs, and chocolate. The tradition of baking cakes is still especially prevalent in North America.

     During the 1950’s the ability to bake a cake was a basic survival tool for a housewife. ‘Nowadays’ the old cake standbys sometimes seem a tinge worn-out. To create a modern, yet delicious, spin on the old favorites, check out my basic recipe for cake pops below.

Not too shabby for my first time, no? 

What shape do you think I should try next time?

Global Spring, and Recycled Plastic Blooms

It’s SPRING.

I know, I’m late according to the calendar. However, I refuse to acknowledge the presence of spring until I see flower buds, smell the fresh breeze, and feel the cold sweat brought on by terror of finals. Just kidding about that last one . . .  mostly.

I don’t know about you folks, but my most poignant memories of spring center around the blooming of tulips. (What flower does everyone have? Tulips! Get it? Two-lips?) Bad jokes aside, tulips are truly some of my favorite flowers. They don’t last long when cut, but in the ground they are some of the most colorful and hopeful plants I’ve ever seen. Tulips originated in the Middle-East area, but have caught the eyes, and hearts, of so many peoples that they can now be found on 6 of the 7 continents. (Can you guess which Continent has no tulips? I’ll give you a hint, Santa doesn’t live there.)

Traditionally in the springtime Americans think of Easter bunnies, egg hunts, candy and (maybe) religion. In Japan, though, many of the world’s Buddhists are preparing for the annual celebration of Hana Matsuri, the Buddha’s birthday. The rest of the world celebrates the sacred day on differing dates, based on the Chinese Lunar calendar. The Japanese switched to the Gregorian calendar, and moved their celebration with it. (According to tradition, the birth was on the 8^th day of the 4^th month—April 8^th in the Gregorian calendar.)

Hana Matsuri, “The Flower Festival,” has some gorgeous traditions that may seem just as fantastical to outsiders as hunting colored eggs. People heavily decorate altars with flowers in order to honor Buddha. Then a bowl of water is placed on the altar and a little Buddha is set inside. Visitors are invited to pour sweet teas made from Hydrangea leaves on the figurine. The tradition mimics the belief that when Buddha was born he was either anointed with perfume by two dragon-kings, or bathed by a gentle perfumed nectar rain, depending on whom you ask.

If Buddha were around now, I’m fairly certain he would be a proponent of taking care of the earth. “I entrust myself to earth, Earth entrusts herself to me,” wrote Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk. In the journey of life, Buddhists work to consider each action before taking it, so as to not harm or kill. Naturally, this extends to taking care of the earth and the all the creatures therein. (Many Buddhists are vegetarians). Admirable, no?

Since Hana Matsuri is nearly upon us, and Earth Day will soon follow it, I thought it would be only fitting for my craft this week to be both something green and something having to do with “The Festival of Flowers.” My Recycled Plastic Bloom is made out of a plastic 2-liter bottle and a few dropps of nail polish. For the record, I did have a specific flower in mind (tulip, did you guess?) when I developed this process. However, I quickly discovered that plastic has a mind of its own. If your family particularly enjoys drinking soda, you might want to stock up on those bottles, it takes a fair amount of practice to turn out a perfect bloom. This time my list of materials is in the video, just a heads-up!

Ready? Here we go!

Heart's Desires and "The Mirror of Erised"

I registered for classes a few days ago, and suddenly the totality of my college career was laid out before me. In less than two years I will graduate, and be staring down the barrel of my future. Should I continue to graduate school? Should I attempt to seize a job in this market? Should I be thinking about a car and apartment? Will I need to think about relational long-term commitments? When I ask for advice, most people regurgitate the common saying:

“Follow your heart.”

Follow my heart? Please! Mine must have been born mute. I can see the attractiveness in any plan, and, honestly, am terrified to pick any one. And that’s when I started researching the mythology-epistemology-theology-ideology-psychology behind a “heart’s desire.”

My father is fond of quoting George Bernard Shaw. Something about the old Irish playwright must appeal to him, the man certainly had a way with words. Shaw once wrote, “There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.” I feel that man was on to something. Alexander Bogomoletz, a scientist who worked on a “life prolonging serum,” would likely have agreed with Shaw. He once commented, “One must not lose desires. They are mighty stimulants to creativeness, to love, and to long life.” Inspirational, no?

Lately the idea of a “heart’s desire” has popped up numerously in popular fiction, songs, advertisements, and movies. In the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, the notorious Jack Sparrow (“I believe there should be a ‘captain’ in there somewhere, mate.”) possessed a compass that would guide him to his heart’s desire. Naturally, this caused moments of confusion, hilarity, and surprising depth. Musician Kane’s song, My Heart’s Desire, talks of the two-sided coin that a heart’s desire can be; on one, you have the bliss of possession and love, on the other, the pain and torment of longing. Advertisements use the powerful emotional plea of satisfaction of desire to sell numerous products, from lotion to pottery. One of my absolute favorite authors, Lois McMaster Bujold, wrote of the issue in her book, Memory, saying, “Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.”

The woman is an artist with phrasing. *dreamy sigh*

And yet, a heart’s desire so often leads to pain. Asian philosopher Lao-Tzu endorsed avoiding unreasonable desires. “Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires,” he counseled. Aristotle wrote, “I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies.” “We desire nothing so much as what we ought not to have,” opined Publilius Syrus.

Perhaps no more beautiful an example of these thoughts has been broken into simple concepts than in the work of J.K. Rowling. Her first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, contained a beautiful prop called “The Mirror of Erised.” This mirror had the magical ability to display “the deepest desires of your heart.” Can you imagine being able to look into the mirror and see your dreams and goals laid out neatly? A week ago I would gladly have gazed upon the image in order to determine just what I truly want. The mirror held a special allure for the orphaned main character, Harry Potter, as well. When Harry discovered the device, he would spend countless hours staring into the mirror to see his parents he could not remember.

"Men have wasted away before it, not knowing if what they have seen is real, or even possible,” Albus Dumbledore told Harry in one notable conversation.

Humor me, and think about that for a moment. Is the magic of “experiencing” your heart’s desire in a reflection powerful enough to paralyze a person?

Did you think about it? Good. I am still mulling this concept over. Rowling, merely the latest in a string of thinkers and writers, certainly offers an interesting visualization for theory. For this reason, I thought making a model of the “Mirror of Erised” might offer me my own chance to glimpse my inner motivations.

I know what you’re thinking “ON WITH IT!” So here we go!

The Monstrous “Mirror of Erised” Tutorial

Supplies:

(For the Antiqued Mirror Surface)

Mirror

Spray Bottle of Paint Stripper

Hydrochloric Acid (Muriatic Acid)

Hose

Box (to set your mirror on)

Paint Brush (just get a cheapie)

Old Milk Gallon

Exacto Knife

Screwdriver

Metal Scrubbing Pad

(For the Mirror Trim)

Antiqued Mirror

Black Foam Core Board

Hot Glue Gun (are you surprised?)

Spackle

Spackle Blades

Sandpaper

Paintbrush

Gold Spray Paint

Wood Varnish

Black Ink

Concentrated Bubble Elixir (Bubble Juice from a child’s bubble bottle for anyone confused out there…)

LOTS of Newspaper

Various Colored Paints to Embellish

***A Note Before We Begin***

Crafting this mirror seriously kicked my @$$. I owe MAJOR credit to my father who sacrificed his weekend and Monday night to making this sucker possible. For anyone who is going to attempt to antique a mirror after seeing what I have done, please, please, PLEASE, think about the time of year you are going to attempt this. I did this in the cold. My acid and hose froze over at one point. I think everything would go MUCH faster in the summer. And you will not risk the light case of frostbite on your fingers I got. Trust me, heat is a crafter’s friend. If you are going to mess with acid, take due precautions and cover your mouth, nose, eyes, hands, and feet with protective gear. I got the acid on one of my rubber gloves and it started to bubble and boil up. You do NOT want this on your skin. Read the directions of ANY product you use. No craft is worth your health. Also, throwing scissors at mirrors, even by accident, will break them. I learned from experience. >_< My goal with the aging of the back of the mirror was to make it able to both reflect your image back at you and be seen through. (So you can place the image of your heart’s desire behind it.)

1)                   Make a list of everything you need and go to the store. Just to speed you up, I recommend going straight to a large home improvement store. You will get everything in the matter of a half hour. Much faster and better than confusing the whole staff of Wal-Mart on a fruitless hunt for Hydrochloric acid. Hard-won wisdom, that is. Bear it in mind.

2)                   Disassemble the mirror. You need to get to the back, so whatever screws, papers, etc you need to yank off the back of that sucker, DO IT!

3)                   Select and set up your area for acidifying your mirror. Lay your mirror on a box face down and make sure it is level.

4)                   Spray on/apply your paint stripper. Allow it to sit until the gray sealant on the back of the mirror bubbles up. That’s the theory, anyway. Mine froze over…So I rinsed it off and went straight for the heavy-stuff.

5)                   Cut your empty milk gallon in half. Fill it with your Muriatic Acid. I went through a series of traumatizing stages of water mixed with the acid in various concentrations. My (again, hard-won) wisdom is that the concentrations with water were useless. Just paint on the acid, nothing is getting through that gray sealant except the strongest sh*t you can get.

6)                   Wait. And Wait. And Wait. I let the acid sit on the mirror outside all night. (Did you know acid can freeze? I didn’t!) You can check on your mirror’s progess by sticking your phone underneath and snapping a picture. DO NOT TURN IT OVER!

7)                   Rinse off the acid. If the reflective surface only comes out in tiny flakes, feel free to reapply acid and wait some more. Then rinse off the back. I had to move my mirror to my shower (my hose froze >_<).

8)                   The mirror in the movie had a cloudy look to it, so I took out one of those crinkled metal scrubby pads and put some elbow grease into scraping the back of the mirror.

9)                   Now, print out a picture of how you want your version of the “Mirror of Erised” to look like. Take out your black foam-core board and start sketching out the frame shape. Then cut it out with your handy-dandy Exacto Knife (same thing as a box-cutter). Add whatever depth/extra layers of foam-core you need to build up your design.

10)                Hot glue the foam-core down.

11)                And this is where it all went wrong for me. I was cutting foam-core and my scissors went flying off the table and straight into my mirror. Can you imagine the colorful language? Trust me, it was the most powerful cursing a muggle has done. If you wind up with cracks, too, you can trace them with hot glue on the back. It heals it right up, and adds to the effect of age. (Or so I am telling myself)… The mirror shattered in the movie, right?

12)                Start spackling. You just build up the spackle-gunk in areas you want higher and more detailed. You can carve/paint in the detail later. Allow it to dry thoroughly. (Overnight, for the impatient pokers like me.)

13)                Take out a thick piece of sandpaper and start smoothing down your sides and edges. You don’t want to obliterate your details, they add to the glamour later, you just want it more contrived looking.

14)                Cover the glass areas with painters’ tape and wax paper.

15)                Lay out a section of newspaper outside. Place the mirror in the center. Spray paint that sucker gold! Try not to breath the fumes, they make you a little silly.

16)                Once the paint has dried, cover the frame in wood varnish. Allow to dry.

17)                Mix black ink (paint would work too) with the previously explained bubble elixir. Coat the mirror’s frame with it. Allow to dry. (Are you seeing a pattern?) I hit the mirror frame with a second coat of the black ink. I dabbed off any excess wells I didn’t want in any certain areas.

18)                To make the cracks on your mirror (if you dropped/broke it) stand out, you can dab some black ink across the crack and wipe it off just the surface. I also ran the black ink around the edges of the frame to hide any spot I may have missed with the other layers of paint.

19)                The mirror in the movie had more of s smoky-ghostly effect. I frosted the glass on my mirror with a little “frosted glass” spray paint. I also spattered some champagne and bronze paint specks onto the surface of the mirror. Don’t forget to write the Mirror’s language on the top!

20)                If you have a distinct image of your heart’s desire, be it socks, a car, etcetera, you can place it in the back of the mirror. Find a suitably Hogwarts-y place to hang your mirror. Or just hang it on your wall. Either way. Now, whenever you check your reflection you can muse on your “heart’s desire.”