Felt cupcakes as favours

I'd like to share one of my last crafting accomplishments that will happen before the baby is born (that mid-March due date is approaching fast!). Last weekend, we had a birthday party for my daughter and gave out "Make Your Own Cupcake" Kits as favours. Just a week before the party, I found a tutorial for making felt cupcakes by Rachel Meeks of Small Notebook on Alpha Mom and loved the idea. My daughter has been "baking" non-stop and I hope her little friends enjoyed these kits!

The mountain of felt scraps in my workspace after cutting out 32 cupcakes, 32 icing pieces, 32 baking cups and assorted decorations. I spaced out the cutting throughout the week and, surprisingly, my hands never got too sore!

Everything ready to be sorted into goody bags. Each child received 4 cupcakes (lemon, butter pecan (a family favourite), vanilla and chocolate), 4 types of icing (chocolate, purple, vanilla and light pink), 4 baking cups (light blue, hot pink, white and brown), and four decorations (birthday candle, star, heart and first letter of their name).

Cupcake components

The finished product!

Kona cotton heaven at Spool of Thread

Bolts upon bolts of Kona cottons

Lili and Henry at Spool of Thread Sewing Lounge recently got in all 221 colours of Kona cottons and I had to go in and check it out for myself! One wall of the store has all the yellows, reds, purples and blues, plus lots of greens. The other side has the rest of the greens and the neutrals.

I brought out my handy dandy Kona colour card and picked up some lovely solids to add to my stash. 

My little helper was happy playing with the felt board, giving me time to shop. Thank you, Spool of Thread!

My haul

I picked up some cactus, olive, cyan, mulberry, Chinese red, and a ton of white as well as a cute Lizzy House green and white stripe and a new chalk marker. Some of these fabrics will go out to the members of the Red & Aqua Bee, some will be used in a pair of Quick Change Trousers I'm making for the baby, and the rest is for the stash. All in all, a very successful trip!

Look what I got!

Dean obviously reads my blog because he surprised me with a gift of this Vancouver poster! Now that it's all beautifully framed I have the perfect spot to hang it. Thanks, Deano!

Auction for Baby Molly runs until Sunday

The Bamboletta Auction for Baby Molly has been live since Monday the 23rd and the current bid for my sweet doll quilt is $62.00! Everyone is being so generous for this good cause and I'm thankful to all the bidders.

There are over one hundred amazing handcrafted items that have been donated. If you want to take a look, you can see all the items or just the listing for my quilt. The auction runs until 7:00am PST on Sunday, January 30th. I'm interested to see how much money they'll raise for Molly's family!

1st quilt of 2011!

I have to tell you the truth. Although I founded the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild in 2010, I didn't complete a single quilt last year! Between organizing the guild, taking care of a busy preschooler, and fighting the exhaustion of the first trimester, I didn't find the time to finish any quilting projects. Since I'm due in March, I can't see myself getting much quilting time in in 2011 either, so I'm happy to say I used my time wisely in January and finished off a quilt! Here's my first quilt of 2011:

It's a 15"x20" pinwheel doll quilt that will be auctioned off by the amazing Christina of Bamboletta Dolls to raise money for Baby Molly Campbell's medical costs. Molly was born in Victoria on November 23rd, 2010 and at one month of age was diagnosed with leukemia. On Christmas Eve, she and her mom and dad had to leave her four siblings with family and travel here to BC Children's Hospital to start her treatment.

Here's Sophie holding the quilt to give a sense of scale

I first tried pinwheels for Karen's block in the Red & Aqua Bee and really loved them! When I heard about Baby Molly in late December, I knew I wanted to do something to help, and this pink and tangerine pinwheel quilt came together very quickly!

For the back, I had a perfect piece of Heather Bailey's Lindy Leaf left over from when I made Kristi a Barcelona skirt for her birthday. I quilted along the diagonals, using pink thread in one direction and tangerine thread the other way. Some Kona cotton in Cheddar was the perfect frame and I enjoyed hand stitching the binding.

The auction starts on Monday, January 24th and I hope my quilt will find a good home!

Snail Mail

Image from Canada Post 

Does anyone out there still send real letters? If you do, and you live in Canada like me, you should know that Canada Post's rates are going up tomorrow. It will cost 59c to send a letter anywhere in Canada, $1.03 to send a letter to the US, and $1.75 for International letters. Despite the cost, I still love sending the occasional letter and, of course, it's a treat to get real mail in my mailbox!

More info is available on the Canada Post website.

Montessori child's apron

I used Meg McElwee's Montessori child's apron pattern to make two aprons this fall and I love how they turned out! The pattern is available free at Sew Liberated and it's perfect for the 3-6 year old in your life. This ingenious apron is designed so the child can independently put it on, so handy! The neckband is elasticized and the waist strap has a velcro attachment on one side. What an improvement from the apron we had been using where I had to tie the neck strap and waist strap for my daughter!

Sophie in her apron, making porridge with Grandpa

I made both aprons using Alexander Henry's apples and pears print. Sophie has the brown one (with Kona red on the back) and the blue one (with Kona chartreuse on the back) was a gift to a friend who was turning four. Funnily enough, after I had decided to use that fabric, I noticed that Meg had used the same brown apples and pears print for the pattern photo!

My cooperative model in the blue apron

The pattern was easy to understand and went together smoothly for me. My only problem came with the velcro - I didn't realize there were both adhesive-backed velcro strips and sew-on strips available! You want to use the sew-on velcro for this project. Sewing machines and adhesive-backed velcro are not friends.

Thank you, Meg, for making a great pattern available for free! I hope to make many more in future!