Little Red Riding Hood Shower

I don't have a big beautiful house or a very big backyard but we do the best with what we have.  Saturday was my daughter's baby shower.  The two sisters and many former college roommates pitched in to do this happy day for Ashley, David and their new baby.

 

The theme was Little Red Riding Hood (LRRH)/Woodland in red and aqua.  The Santa Ana winds started on Friday night at 50 mph.  The shower was at 2:00 p.m. Saturday and I swear at 1:50 p.m. the winds subsided.  We hadn't hung up the pom-poms or little banners so we scrambled to get them up as guests arrived.  It was a little iffy there but we did it.

 

We used the EZ-up we use at the craft shows, three umbrellas and two canopies on the patio that are permanent fixtures.  I think we did pretty good provided shade in the 93 degree weather!

My daughter Kelley designed all the printouts.  We cut the pennants and ovals out with my Cricut and glued various LRRH designs inside.  I just love the color combination!

This is where we had Ashley sit to open her presents.  This is the glider rocker she got at Goodwill for $25.00 and I made the cushions for it.  The baby quilt is done and just needs a baby name so I can put the label on.  They want to wait to see the baby before deciding on a name.  Kelley drew the LRRH in the frame (Ikea frame painted Aqua) and leftover mushroom fabric from the quilt and bumper pads is in the background.

Ashley made the mushrooms out of Styrofoam.  We could not find any for decorations anywhere.  We cut the balls in half, Ashley painted them and put them together with skewers.  Kelley painted the dots on.

 

We had a few little candies like red vines, red hots and caramel apple suckers.  Ashley doesn't like cake so I made pumpkin pies and my co-MIL helped me make apple and peach hand pies.  

 

 

Kelley had some little brown paper bags from her craft shows so I used my zig zag rotary cutter to cut them down to a good size to hold the pies.  They were pretty tasty if I do say so myself.  :)



I found this little chalkboard at a floral supply warehouse.  Kelley wrote in the kind of pies we were serving.  She has the best penmanship for a Lefty!

 

You can see the adorable mushroom cake pops made by our friend Becca Gonzalez of Becca's Cupboard in Fullerton, CA.  She does such an amazing job.  Any cake pop she has tried, they are always spot on!  You can find her on facebook under Becca's Cupboard.  And if cute wasn't enough, they are Deeelicious!!  She made some for Ashley's wedding too!

 

It was so windy, we couldn't hang the quilt I wanted behind the table.  :(  I picked up two white chairs at the Long Beach Antique swap meet.  My son-in-law and soon-to-be daddy, Dave, painted them red for me.  All we need now is a little girl to warm them up with her bottom.  hehe  I found the ceramic mushrooms on ebay and we used the same jars from my hubby's going away party but tucked in some moss to make it 'woodland-ish'.  Now that the shower is over, I'm going to pop them in the garden.  

 

Before putting everything away, I took some pictures of the items Kelley printed up because I thought they were so cute.  Stephanie and Ashley glued the little wolf pictures to tongue depressors for fans for the heat, the other artwork was for describing the menu for the day.  The aqua frames came from the dollar store.



 

Because we expected a big group, the girls played simple games that wouldn't keep people waiting.  They played Bingo where you wrote in what you thought her gifts would be.  I love the little "free" space mushroom.  :) Stephanie wrapped the cards and added the little berries.  When I saw that, I thought these are the little touches that make things look so cute.

 

Here is my daughter Ashley in front of her gifties.  She's got one of those little basketball bellies.  She's 33 weeks now.  Yay!

 

 

This is daughter #2, Stephanie.  She hates having her picture on the internet so don't tell.  lol  I thought this was a cute picture of her (on L) and her school friend Cristalle.  Stephanie did all the mason jar favors, helped with the little details and helped me with shopping.  She also did a MOUNTAIN of dishes with the help of my friend Susan!!  

 

Other than the horrible winds and scorching heat, it was a great day.

Almost All Done!!!!

I'm almost done with the baby bedding!  Yay.  The back of the bumper pads are the mushroom print.  The "doily" turquoise design and the mushrooms were Ashley's favorites.  I finished the dust ruffle last night.  My friend Carolyn gave me a pattern for the pads and dust ruffle but the ruffle on the pattern was pleated.  I decided this fabric needed to be gathered.  :o)  And there is no crib yet so the ironing board is having to make do.

 

 

Here is a close up of the dust ruffle, which is the same focus fabric for the center blocks of the stars on the baby quilt.  The little "Red" and wolf are so darn cute!

 

I love the big gingham cut on the bias for the cording.  I ran out of the fabric because the Riley Blake pattern only had nine stars and I made 12.  I didn't take that into account when I ordered fabric.  DOH!!!!  I had to piece some of the fabric strips but I figured once they are tied on the crib, it won't even show.  And I used every bit of it up!!!  That's a first.

 

I finished the binding on the quilt last night.  This picture is taken on my double bed so it's a good size little quilt.  I love how it turned out.  The original pattern by Riley Blake used red, aqua and gray.  I like adding the yellow in there.  It doesn't hurt that the yellow has cherries on it.  ;o)  I stitched in the ditch on the interior of the quilt.  The sashing is 1 1/2" and the blocks are 8" so it's nice and secure (I hope).

 

I outlined the stars and center squares.

 

 

 

For the outer border, I got input from my girls for the design.  I had several stencils and this was the top pic.  I love this little loop design.  It's just the whimsy the quilt needed without being too much.

 

This was my first time using my new sewing table and longer throat Pfaff for free motion quilting.  My stitches aren't perfect but they are okay.  More practice is in order.  All I have left to do are little things to complete everything....serge the under side of the dust ruffle, hand close the bumper pads (which I'm saving for Thursday night sewing with the girls) and a label.  Can't make the label til the new parents decide on a name.  That might happen after my little granddaughter is born.  :o)

Seeing Stars...

I didn't finish the quilt tops from the classes I took with my sister three weeks ago shared here but I decided to set them both aside for a little while. 

My daughter, Ashley, is in her 6th month of her pregnancy and I will be leaving for a trip to see my hubby in about three weeks.  Her shower will be a few weeks after I return home so I figured I better get to her baby bedding before the time has flown by in a blink!

I had to fussy-cut the center of the blocks and in order to get variety with both the centers and the star points, I had to do a little rearranging.  The design wall was great for this.  It's like playing on a flannel board, like back in Kindergarten!  :o)

 

Got the blocks all sewed together.  There were some repeats but it was bound to happen as there aren't that many designs on this fabric.  It's so darn cute, who cares?  hehe

 

My friend Irene knows I love cherries.  She asked me if I was going to use cherry fabric in the quilt?  I hadn't thought about it but when I came across this Riley Blake fabric when I was shopping for the Little Red fabric, I "had" to include it.  And I think the yellow helps break up the red and aqua.  I decided to just use this one print, instead of doing different yellows.  It was cute enough to be used several times!  And here's a close up of a few of the block centers.

 

 

 

Got the cornerstones worked out...

 

And the sashing on.

I started sewing on the borders and had a little (or a BIG) issue.  The borders were looking like they angled off at the edges.  I tried to be careful but not careful enough, I guess.  I could've lived with it or I could rip out the borders and redo them.  Guess what I decided to do???? 

 

And the last issue for this little quilt.  The free pattern I got for this quilt was from the Riley Blake website.  It is for nine blocks and finishes at 46x46".  I wanted it a bit bigger but didn't decide that until after I ordered the fabric.  I didn't buy enough of the border print, the one on the right.  I was trying to convince myself that the print on the left would be okay.  I called in the boss, my daughter Ashley.  She liked the one on the right too. 

 



 

The order will be delivered tomorrow.  :o)  I should be able to finish this by the weekend and get started on the quilting.  Until then, I'm in bumper pad and dust ruffle mode.

Umm, where am I going to put my new fabric?

Well, I'm almost done putting away my new purchases from last weekend.  The  problem is, I still had 'old' purchases that were still in a shopping bag.  lol  Those were from Road to CA in January.  Some yardage and bundles that I haven't started yet.  I decided to use my little shopping cart from the antique swap meet to hold my bundles, kits and project bags.  The two items on top are flannel from Joanns to make a matching blanket pillow set.  I left them on top because they should be easy and I will tackle those and have them ready for gifts or to sell.  That leaves, what?  6" of space?  lol

 

 

Good.  Because I have to fit this in there!  lolol  All of this except a panel and matching fabric are old "collections".  There a couple of layer cakes, fabric lines I want to keep together, etc.  I think it might fit.  Fingers crossed!!

 

These are my Moda Marbles that I got from the quilt run.  There are 14.  I will stop at the last shop I'm going to do tonight after work.  I will drop off my passport and be done.  I think I contributed enough to the economy and to keep the shops open.  I will put my blinders on when I go to The Calico House because they always have stuff I love.  Argh....what an addiction!!!

Just to take a 'brief' break from fabric, my daughter Ashley and SIL, Dave gave both of us moms one of these framed poems.  Isn't it cute.  Kelley, my oldest put the drawing from their wedding on there.  I think it's just so sweet.

 

Okay, back to fabric.  ;o)  That sweet little granddaughter-to-be is going to need some cute bedding for her bed so Ashley and I searched the internet.  We found this adorable Little Red Riding Hood fabric line from Riley Blake.  I swear, I love everything that company makes!  I found this online for a few dollars less than what cotton is going for in the quilt shops so even though I was doing the quilt run, I bought it.  I'm so glad I did.  Not one quilt shop of the 15 had any of this fabric.  It could be they did have it and it's gone already but I'm glad I didn't wait.

 

 

There are two more pieces coming that were back ordered.  Our favorite fabric is the aqua with scallops.

 

 

All three of the girls were together last night talking about shower themes.  I think they're going with a Little Red Riding Hood 'woodland' theme.  Kelley pinned a bunch of stuff on Pinterest.  It's freaking adorable.  I can hardly wait!