Stuffed Animal Series: Monkey

I finally found some time to work on the last of my stuffed animals: the Monkey. There wasn't a true monkey pattern, so I worked from the Zebra and Lion patterns to put together this guy, improvising on the face and ears to pull it together. I'd like to make another one of these for a friend but I'm not sure if I'll be able to duplicate what I did here! I bought this yarn in Monterrey while on the Babymoon a few weeks ago. I used 'Sprout' 100% organic cotton yarn from the Verde Collection by Classic Elite Yarn. It's very similar to the Blue Sky Cotton I used on the other animals and produced similar results.
  
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Floor Pouf

I'm not sure what to call this exactly... but all the websites from which I got this idea called it a 'Pouf' or 'Pouffe'.  This is a large pillow or ottoman to rest your feet on while sitting in the rocking chair that's in the baby's room.  I got the idea from these that I found online, which are leather and rather expensive.  I drew up a similar pattern and constructed this one out of duck cloth and piping to highlight the seams.  I was a little disappointed with the proportions of the pouf, I wanted it to be wider than tall but that got lost somewhere in translation.  I had never worked with piping before... I really liked working with it.  Also, after a few attempts, I successfully installed a zipper.  I usually avoid them at all costs!  The pouf is stuffed with old towels and pillows.  All in all, I like this bright addition to the room :).

A-Z Plants Poster

This exercise in graphic design has been on the baby project queue for quite some time, and I'm so happy to finally see this work realized.  Many children's rooms contain some sort of art that features the alphabet.  I wanted to tie in a small lesson in plants with an alphabet theme.  So I sketched up this poster in which a plant is identified for every letter of the alphabet.

An aside to all my friends in landscape architecture: I wrestled with whether to use the latin names of the plants or the common names.  For example, did 'A' stand for 'Acer', the latin species name for maple, or was 'A' going to be for 'Ash', whose latin name is Fagus?  Eventually I decided to go with the friendlier common names and include the latin as bonus information.

I sketched a leaf for each plant and tried to highlight whatever features of the leaf that helped me to remember it.  I sketched in pencil, then finalized the drawing in ink, and then scanned each image.  I arranged these leaves around a stylized tree and manipulated the scans in Photoshop.  The text was organized in Adobe Illustrator.  Once I had decided on the colors (which were chosen to compliment the baby's room) and finalized the design I had the poster printed at Kinkos.  It is approximately 18"x24".

That doesn't seem like it would take that long... but this exercise took me quite some time.  I really like the way it turned out, but the process of drawing and scanning and cleaning up the linework to work in a digital format is very time consuming.... and fun!  I'm a nerd, but I really enjoyed putting this together and figuring out the best way to organize this information.  Sorry to add a watermark to the digital image above, but I hope to try to sell copies of these online through Etsy at some point.

And since we're talking graphic design... here is an update on the 'State Series' that I put together, now framed and hung.  These frames are 10"x10" from Ikea.  I put each graphic together in Adobe Illustrator and just had the digital file printed on 11"x17" cardstock.  I forgot to let you know what each print says (it's probably difficult to read in these images).  

LA - 'Your mother's home is in Jennings'

MS - 'Your father's home is in Tupelo'

NC - 'We met and married in the mountains of Montreat'

GA - 'Your father when tot school in Atlanta'

SC - 'We bought our first home in Columbia'

CA - 'We welcomed you to the world in Sacramento'

All the artwork in the baby's room is now hung, so, I promise to post photos of how it is all coming together soon!

Crib Skirt

Another quick, soft sewing project.  Keeping the crib simple I opted for just constructing the crib skirt myself and buying a plain solid colored sheet.  All the bumpers and dressed up cribs are nice.... but ultimately it turns out not the safest option for your kid.  It is now recommended to completely eliminate the chance of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrom) by embracing the 'clean crib' concept and not to include bumpers, stuffed animals, blankets, or pillows in the crib as they are all possible suffocation hazards.  All the baby needs is a sheet.  And a nice bed skirt:).  

I found this fabric on Etsy as well.  I love the vibrant colors and the bold print, but I was disappointed by the weight of the fabric.  It is very thin, easily wrinkled, and not hefty enough for this application.  So I designed the pattern to include a hefty interfacing to make sure that the fabric hung cleanly.  The skirt has 2 pleats on the long side and one pleat on each of the ends.  I underestimated the amount of fabric needed to complete the project (opps!) so the skirt only hangs on 3 sides.  Not a big deal since I anticipate always having the long side of the crib facing a wall.  There are a few ties on the back side to keep this from slipping out of place.  The project came together well and I love the way it looks in the room.  Soon I'll have photos of the whole room so you can see how all these projects are coming together.

New Swing Cover

Among the many borrowed and second-hand baby items we've collected is this infant swing.  Swings are one of those items that aren't necessary... some kids love them and some don't.  Just in case Baby Carlisle is really into the swing I put a little work into fixing up this one.  The swing belonged to Isabel, a little girl, and since we're unsure of our child's gender I wanted something gender neutral.  I was able to remove the seat cover and just using a simple slip stitch I recovered the pink sections of the upholstery with this fun orange print.  Now it's ready for either boy or girl and it looks great in the baby's room.  A really quick and easy fix!  I found the fabric on Etsy, it is either a Joel Dewberry or Amy Butler pattern of hydrangea petals.

Gestation Quilt

For lack of a better term I've come to call this the 'Gestation Quilt'.  Shortly after moving to CA and learning that I was pregnant I wanted to start a project that represented this process of being pregnant, this time of prayer and anticipation and preparation.  So I designed this quilt, comprised of 280 hexagons, each piece of fabric representing each day of pregnancy.  Each side of each hexagon is about 2.5 inches.  The finished quilt is just large enough to cover a twin bed, approximately 4.5' x 6.5'.  It's a gift to my son or daughter and I hope it will become an heirloom that will be cherished for a lifetime.  The bold, primary color scheme also became inspiration for the color palette for the baby's room.  Playful and gender-neutral.

This quilt was so much larger of an undertaking than I anticipated!  The beginning was fun: designing the layout, searching for fabric, finding the right patterns and colors.  I even did some printing and stamped some of the pieces with custom patterns.  All the other steps after that could be described in one term: tedious.  280 pieces, each with 6 sides, all needing to be sewn together.  What was I thinking?  To keep myself on track I had to get on a schedule of working on the quilt for a couple of hours each day.  Every task seemed to last much longer than I anticipated.  Just getting all the pieces stitched together, even by cheating and using a sewing machine, took a month!  After that another week was spent just trimming and pressing the seams in place.  

I also used the sewing machine to quilt the blanket, more marathon quilting for a week or so.  Then I decided to complicate the project even more and finish the edges with a very complicated, mitered binding.  There was no way to cheat that part, it had to be completed by hand.  I went through spurts where I worked on this project exclusively... then I would complete a milestone and take a break and work on other smaller projects.  This was truly a marathon!

There are countless errors, puckers, and inaccuracies in this blanket.  That drives me crazy.  The architect in me knows that in theory all these sides and angles should line up perfectly... it's all math, right?  But fabric is stretched and pulled out of perfection.  My mother kept reassuring me that this small accumulation of errors is what give quilts their charm.  I hope she's right.  Now that the project is done I'm glad I stuck with it and I think it will be well used, as I intended.  If nothing else it looks nice in the baby's room :). 

BabyMoon

Matthew and I were lucky and were able to get away for a short 'babymoon' this week.  We savored this fleeting time we have together, the last moments of 'life before kids'.  We drove down to the California coast, about a 3.5 hour drive from Sacramento:  Monterey Bay, Carmel-by-the-Sea, and Big Sur.  We stayed at Asilomar State Park and enjoyed an affordable room by the sea, complete with a fireplace.  I made a tremendous effort not to schedule anything about the small vacation... no agenda.  We slept in, ate well, enjoyed the ocean and the sun and just played everything by ear.  It was great to spend some quality time together and dream about our baby and how life was about to change.  We're so excited and ready to meet the new Carlisle!

Driving south on Highway 1

Big Sur, California

32.5 weeks pregnant :)

Lunch by the sea at Nepenthe Restaurant

Waterfall at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Beautiful weather, and beautiful sunsets every night!

Sunset at Carmel

17 Mile Drive

Lone Cypress Tree, 250 years old.  Pebble Beach.

Point Lobos State Park

Sea Lion Point

Monterey Bay

My Matthew :)

Dramatic Surf (almost as violent as Hawaii).  And I love this succulent and it's vibrant color!  We saw a lot of this groundcover on the trip.

And here is another blast from the past... a few photos of this area when I visited with Max and my fellow landscape folks in 2004.

Point Lobos State Park, Spring 2004

Big Sur, Bigsby Bridge in background, Spring 2004

States Series

Early on in my brainstorming about the baby's room I wanted to include maps. Maps are cool, educational, and they usually have great colors. Also, I wanted to use maps to tell the story about our family's origin. I searched for 'state' artwork, then when nothing seemed to work I began sketching. Originally I wanted to put together a single poster with all of our various states but that just wasn't working out. So the format below is the one I settled on. I let each state stand individually. The images are 9”x9” each and will each be framed separately.

Matthew contributed a lot to this process. As a result each state conveys something about the unique character of the place and how we remember and know them. We really like the colorful, graphic nature of the images and how they subtly tell our story. I'll post again once they are framed and hung but I couldn't wait to share!

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Painting Baby Carlisle's Room

I had been debating for the last 4 months or so whether or not to paint the baby's room.  Just one wall as an accent.  Around Thanksgiving, noting that I was growing quickly now and the task of painting would be increasingly difficult if I put it off much longer, I decided it was a low risk experiment that I should go for.

My inspiration came from the fact that turquoise, in all it's variations, is among my favorite colors.  And from the nice results of the use of this color as featured on the blog Young House Love.  I was looking for a darker turquoise to contrast with the brighter dresser I already had painted.

All the paint chips under consideration.  All these colors look much different in the room, see the photo below.

'Plumage', 'Tropical Waters', and 'Scotch Lassie'

So here is my confession.  I painted this wall twice.  First time around I went with 'Plumage'.  But after a few days I decided it was just too dark and adult and not saturated enough to compliment all of the brighter baby colors that I was playing with in the room.  In the photo to the left you can see the difference in the two colors.  I repainted the wall in 'Tropical Waters' which has a lot more green in it, less dark and gray.

It is worth note that Matthew thinks I'm crazy.  Wisely he decided not to interfere with the pregnant designer and just let it my fickle experiment go without too much comment.  He didn't do any of the painting anyway.  He just woke up from sleeping off a night shift and the job was done.  I'm much more happy with the new color.

Unfortunately this is a really difficult thing to photograph.  Because of the window there is always a strong glare that makes this wall look darker than it is.  Until I get a great photo make due with these.  More photos to come soon.

The final wall color selection, 'Tropical Waters' in contrast with the painting I did for the room.