Threadmade by Rebekah Stewart

A sweet couple from our church is having a little one soon.  We are seriously growing our kids ministry from the ground up at Green Hills!   Her baby shower was this weekend and it was beautiful.  My friend Tabitha hosted it and she had the cutest things set up like these cards to write a prayer for the baby.

They want the gender of the baby to be a surprise so we helped them come up with some names.

Side note: Tabitha has the cutest, most perfectly decorated house of anyone I know.  I only wish I could have a small amount of her style.  I’m thinking about hiring her to decorate mine.

For this gift, I tried something new and went for a simple cotton blanket on one side and soft minky goodness on the other, then used a coordinating fabric for the binding.  Simple was good because I squeezed this project in amidst our kitchen renovation projects.  (When the grandparents have the baby for a week you can do stuff like that!).

I love this bicycle print by Michael Kauffman and thought it could work well for a little boy or girl.  I was surprised by how heavy it was when I finished it, but it gave a really nice drape to the blanket.

Congratulations Abby and Jesse!

Most of the things I make, I give away as presents.  But, this one belongs to Adeline which means we get to keep it.  I bought the charm pack this quilt was made of on our anniversary trip to Maine a few years ago.  I thought it would make a really nice quilt for our baby one day.

The charm pack itself wasn’t enough to make full quilt, so I used some vintage fabric from my grandmother’s stash.  They coordinate so well together, it is hard to tell what is old and what is new.  I quilted the squares on the diagonal and then used a wavy pattern on the boarder.

I kept it simple on the back with one piece of fabric and used yellow for the binding.

I think she will like it just fine.  :)  It has already found a permanent home on the side of her crib and we find it with her each morning.

Sadly, Ben’s step father passed away on March 29.  He had been in the hospital since December with many complications and his body just couldn’t fight anymore.  It was a hard decision for the family and a life ended all too soon.  He was loved by many people and left a lasting impression on those in his life.  We are thankful he was a Christian and loved Jesus.  He will be greatly missed.

Mom and Dad came down to visit for a week in March.  While they were here, I took some time off as well.  We had a great week and Adeline got spoiled rotten by her grandparents.

We played around the house, did lots of walking up and down the steps, and experienced new things like bubbles and wagons and dirt.

We also went to the zoo to see the real animals. (Thanks Clay and Beth for our zoo pass, we love it!)

 And it gave Ben and I some time to get things accomplished around the house, like planting the flowers and PLANNING OUR KITCHEN REMODEL!!!  So excited that this is actually going to happen!  All in all, it was a great week.

Our close family friends, Luke and Heather, just had their first baby.  Baby boy Declan arrived a couple of weeks ago and is a cutie!  Well, from what I can tell on Facebook at least.  :)  We won’t get to meet him until our annual beach trip to Florida in June.  We can’t wait!

I finished this project a while ago, but then life got in the way and I finally mailed it off last week.  Which means I can finally show it to you all!  I have been wanting to try the half square triangle chevron pattern for a while and this was the perfect opportunity.  I found this great navy blue houndstooth print and thought it would work well.  I added a pop of orange to break it up.

Congratulations Luke and Heather!  We are looking forward to seeing you soon!

This girl is 15 months and has so many expressions!

We love her.  A lot.

I do have some crafty things in the works to show you soon, I just need to find time to finish them!

My friend Monica got a new Kindle for Christmas and asked me to make a cover for her.  She picked out a few on Pinterest and sent me some fabric ideas.  I researched Kindle cover tutorials and ended up combining features of a few to create this.

It has a flexible inner piece to put the Kindle into and a flap with a velcro closure.  I lined each piece of the cover with interfacing and used a single layer of cotton quilt batting to give the cover the structure it needed.

 This was a really quick project and I really liked how it turned out.  I think Monica liked it, too.  :)

It’s 2012 and time to for a new journal.  My old one is full of records of many hard and wonderful things in my life.  With the new journal is the promise of what is yet to come.  What will fill these pages this year?  What events?  What life lessons?

My journal of choice is the moleskine.  I like that they will always be the same shape and size.  I like the feel of the pages and the way it lays flat when you open it.  This year, I chose red on a whim rather than the classic black.  I’m still not sure about it, it is more orange than red, but it’s growing on me.  I made a pen holder for the front so my pen is always right there.

I divided my journal into 3 sections this year.  One for daily writings and sermon notes.  One for prayer requests and one for Eucharist Deo, one thousand gifts inspired by this book.

Finally, I am committing to reading the Bible daily this year.  I had a really good routine going prior to Adeline’s arrival.  Once she came along, that quickly went out the window and I have struggled to get back on track.  I am determined to make the time each day to spend time with the Lord.  To help with this, I am going to try this Bible reading plan.  I like that changes enough each day to keep it interesting.  I printed it out and glued it onto an index card that can go with me anywhere.  And it has boxes to check off.  I like checking off boxes.  So, we’ll see how it goes.

New year.  New beginnings.  The promise of great things yet to come.

Now that Christmas is over, I can finally show you the items I made for family and friends.  I tried to keep it really simple this year due to lots of demands on my time.  Each year, I choose one item to mass produce for all of the ladies in the family.  This year was a hand embroidered felt ornament.

These turned out quite nice, I think, and were a lot of fun to make.  I really enjoyed the embroidery.  I can see more of that in my future!

For some extra special ladies (the mothers and sister in law), I chose to make casserole carriers using this pattern.  Now they can carry their potluck dishes in style!

And there you have it!  Handmade Christmas 2011.

Our close friends, Mike and Tabitha (aka the pastor and his wife), are having a baby really soon!  Abigail Elizabeth is set to join this world at the end of January.  The ladies from the church got together last night to throw a baby shower, which means I can now reveal what I’ve been working on!

This sweet quilt is a simple patchwork of many vintage floral prints, cut into 4 inch squares.  I used the pink fabrics to make a stripy binding and used one large solid teal for the backing.

The quilting is straight lines on the diagonal.

Sophie – “Are you trying to take a picture?  Here, let me help you.”

All wrapped up and ready to go and with some of my favorite flannel burp clothes to go with it.

We love you guys and can’t wait to meet little Abigail!