Ahoy Matey Quilt

With me having little girls, it's pretty rare to see me sewing for a little boy... but one of my friends just had her very first baby boy last week and I couldn't resist making the new little guy a quilt.

I can't even tell you how much I love this Ahoy Matey fabric by Michael Miller . When I saw that it had a panel and that it was so darling, I knew that I wanted to try making a quilt using a panel. Usually I am not a huge fan of panel quilts, but this one may have changed my mind. 

To make it, I used one panel (which is the main part of the quilt with the ship and waves on it), and then I used the Navy Stay the Course fabric for the side sashing, and Dumb Dot in Clementine for the prairie points, Clementine Ship Shape for the binding, and then Quarter Dot in Midnight for the backing. 

I have been wanting to try doing prairie points on a quilt and I felt like this was the perfect quilt for it. I found an awesome tutorial for continuous prairie points on Sew Take a Hike. It was such an easy tutorial to follow! Love how they turned out!

As soon as I saw the panel for this quilt, I knew that I wanted to hand stitch along the outlines of everything. I love the way it looks around the waves, clouds, and boat. Once I washed it and dried it, oh my goodness!! I was in love... it was a tad bit hard to part with this lovely quilt. ha ha

But lucky me... I happened to buy two panels and have just enough leftover fabric to make myself this exact quilt- should a little bundle of blue pop up into my future.... And if not, I am sure I can find a loving home for such a darling little quilt- don't ya think? :) 

Happy Sailing!

xoxo, Ashley

Year One Cake

Although I have many hobbies- baking and cake decorating are not among them. 

But when duty calls as a mom, I try my best to live up to the challenge. 

Today that meant making my daughter's first birthday cake. 

These days with all the blogs, Pintrest, and social networking- I see a lot of really cute cakes, parties, and all the trimmings that go along with birthdays, but sometimes even when I see cute ideas it doesn't necessarily mean I can recreate them or even afford them for that matter. 

So for my daughter's birthday we just kept things simple. It was her first birthday so she definitely had no expectations! ;)

I wanted to keep with the Red, Yellow, and Blue color theme to match her birthday shirt. Pretty much the only decorations were the cake and some balloons. That meant that the birthday girl was the star attraction- which is how it should be. Right? :)

For her cake I used the Wilton Big Cupcake Pan which made the job a lot easier.

 Cake mix from a box.

Some store bought frosting.

Yellow food coloring.

Yellow sugar sprinkles.

Candy pearl sprinkles.

Leftover fabric for the bunting banner.

And skewer sticks to hold the banner up.

And then topped it off with a candle to finish it.

As for the cake stand, I tipped a baking dish upside down and used that to display the cake. Sometimes you just gotta work with what you have when you are on budget. :)

That's it! Pretty much the simplest cake you can make in my judgement.

Linked here.

1st Birthday Shirt

My little girl turns one this week. Wow... times goes by way too quickly!!

I couldn't find a birthday shirt that I liked for her to wear on her birthday so I decided that I would make her one. 

For her party I decided to do something different than pink. I know... I am probably breaking the #1 rule of thumb with a little girl's first birthday party, but I did pink for my oldest girl's 1st birthday party and I wanted to mix it up a little the next time around. 

So I choose primary colors!

Red, Yellow, & Blue.

 As I was walking through Walmart the other day my eye catch this darling yellow and white polka dot onsie. As I got closer I realized just how cute it was... It has tulip sleeves. DARLING. Plus it was $3.88. I mean- how can you go wrong there! So I bought one.

Once I got home I came up with this idea... Not quite sure how I wanted to do it, but I got brainstorming and last night after the kiddos went to sleep I came up with this.

To make it I used scraps of fabric leftover from previous projects and I ironed them to fusible interfacing (light/medium). Then I cut out a triangle pattern for the pendants of the banner and I got cutting. Once I had enough I decided that it would be a fun touch to have the #1 on the shirt so it looked more like a birthday shirt. So I got on the computer and found a font that I liked and typed the #1 and had it sized to be about 5x7 inches. Then I cut out some freezer paper (you can find it by the wax paper in the grocery store) to fit in my printer and printed the #1 on the freezer paper. 

*Freezer paper is thicker than wax paper and has wax on one side of it and the other side just feels like paper. So make sure when you are printing  that you feed the freezer paper in the right way so that it will be printing on the paper side- not the waxy side. *

Once it was printed I cut it out and ironed it (wax side down) to the fabric (with interfacing on it). Once the paper was fused to the fabric I carefully cut around the #1. After it was all cut out, I pulled the wax paper off.

After you have all your fabric pieces cut out, you can arrange them onto your shirt and then start sewing them on. Easy Peasy!

I love this Bunting Birthday Onsie! It's a one of a kind shirt for my one of a kind birthday girl!! :)

Linked here.