Sew much for more nesting

I haven't touched the sewing machine for two days now. I think I really am officially done. I even began putting away the fabric that has been sitting on the ironing board begging to be used somehow. The other day I organized all my fabric by color so when I do go back to making things perhaps it will be easier to know what I have to work with.

So, here are my final projects:

I had come across a blog/tutorial for making gauze swaddling blankets like you can buy for a LOT of money at the store. I decided to pick some of the fabric up at Joann's and make my own. I ended up getting four different colors (white is not pictured here). All I did was hem the edges. Simple, simple. My favorite is the tye-died blue/purple one. It just so happens that I received a package in the mail with the very swaddling blankets I was trying to make. I was glad to get them though so I could compare the fabrics. I would say the bought ones are a softer fabric, but gauze is also supposed to soften with each washing so mine may catch up over time. Either way, this baby will have a lot of nice blankets to be wrapped in :)

My MIL made a bean bag frog YEARS ago and gave me the pattern so I could make them for the boys. The pattern  has sat in my sewing cabinet for just as many years. I finally decided to do something with it because I wanted to make something for them. I made three - Jared's is the camo frog, Aaron's is purple, and Baby's is green like a frog. Aaron and Baby's are made from flannel so they are nice and soft. The camo is from Matthew's old BDU's. I think they turned out pretty well. 

They're supposed to be a surprise for them, and when I first started working on them I'd tell the boys it was a mess when they'd ask what I was doing, but by the third (baby's) Jared finally recognized it as a frog. I filled them with poly fil beads, and I love the way they turned out. I was going to use buttons for the eyes but I would have had to add them before sewing them all together. Even for the stuffed animal eyes I ended up emptying some of the beads in order to get the eyes done. If there is a next time, I would do the eyes either before filling or even before sewing the whole thing up. Jared's was filled from the side which makes for a cleaner stitch, but it made it much more difficult to do the eyes. The other two were filled from the top back - much easier for filling and doing the eyes.

Once the frogs were done, I had some leftover beads and decided to make some bean bags. I ended up making a total of four. They have been quite the party favor! If I had more beads I'd make more. We spent a good couple of hours today playing bean bag games.

This isn't much to look at, but it is a T-Shirt swaddler. I used an old college bookstore tshirt. I liked the video tutorial, but there were just enough unanswered questions in it that I was kind of making it up as I went along too. I am curious how it will actually function in action. It is fairly simple to make once you know what you are doing.