Work In Progress Wednesday! (And my first post ever!)

What better way to begin a crafty blog than by finishing something? I'm one of those crafters who starts a project with the best of intentions, then gets distracted by a new project, only to toss the first project carelessly into a bin full of other projects that I never got around to finishing. It's a vicious, vicious cycle, and I am on a mission to end it! Every Wednesday (or more than likely every other Wednesday) I will post a project that I have rescued from the seemingly bottomless bin of cut up bits of fabric and half-sewn scraps.

Here is a photo of my scrap bin, just to give you an idea. It's about a 14 inch cube, stuffed completely full of stuff:



"Oh it's not that bad," you might be thinking to yourself. Well keep in mind that I have only been sewing about 6 months, and there are probably about 20 unfinished projects in there. It is that bad!

So, after rummaging around in my bin for a couple of minutes, I pulled out these cut-up rectangles of fabric. They were meant to be bedding for Princess's doll carriage that Santa brought her for Christmas, and I think they've been sitting in that bin since about the first of January. Yikes!



For the mattress, I just measured the inside of the carriage, then cut 2 pieces of quilted fabrc and a piece of batting to that size, then used a bowl and my rotary cutter to round off the corners. (Sorry I don't have pictures of the cutting processs, but you can probably figure it out).



Then I sandwiched the batting in between the quilted fabric, and basted it together around the edges with my sewing machine. Then I used some bias tape I got at the fabric store to "finish" the edges. I don't know if you can tell from these photos, but bias tape is not my friend. It looks awful, and this is the "nice" side. But Princess loves it, so thats what counts.



For the blanket, I just sewed together a rectangle of flannel and a rectangle of fleece (that I cut from a blanket I got on sale), turned it right side out, and topstitched around the edges in pink thread. I had 2 rectangles of flannel that I sewed together for the pillow, and after I stuffed it, I used Steam a Seam to shut the opening. (I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I was that lazy, but now you know).



A project done! If I were to do it over, I would have made the blanket a bit wider, I made it to fit inside the carriage, which is quite long and skinny, but it looks a little wierd to me. Live and learn I guess. Right now, I have a very happy little princess who has some very happy baby dolls. A very wonderful Wednesday, if I do say so myself!