Quiet Book Page 9: Tie the Laces!

When I was figuring out what pages to put in my quiet book, I decided I wanted the majority of them to teach something. This page with little pretend shoes is perfect for kids to learn how to tie shoes. I love it!

Page 9: Tie the Laces

Teaches: How to lace up and tie shoes

Throughout the process of making my quiet book, I was so grateful for templates to follow. They made the pages so easy to do. This was one of those template pages. I got the pattern from here and just followed all of her instructions. 

Here is my page: 

For the most part, my page is just like hers. As far as differences, I used larger grommets and I did not use glue for anything; the whole page was hand-stitched

"tie the laces" up close

I think this page turned out so cute! I look forward to when he will be able to use it.

~K.A.N.

Owen's First Birthday

I had been thinking a long time about what to do to celebrate Owen's first birthday. I looked on Pinterest of course for inspiration, asked my little sister what she thought, and tried to think of the very best theme, date, time, etc. 

Eventually, I concluded that it was all a little too overwhelming for something he wouldn't even remember. I decided we would do a very simple celebration with a couple of friends on his birthday. 

Then my two younger sisters came to visit, and last minute, we decided to throw him a party before they had to go home.  They wanted to help with everything and be here to celebrate, so I figured, why not?

We chose a circus theme and I think it turned out great. He had fun and so did we. 

The first thing we did was make some decorations. We loved this idea from pinterest. It was so easy and looked great! Kennedy and I used cups, bowls, and small tupperwares to make different size circles on bright colored paper. We cut them out and taped them to black thread and then taped them up on each side of the ONE letters that Katy had made. 

We loved the highchair decorations from this party, so Katy and Kennedy made some just like it. Super cute!

I had red and white stripe fabric in my stash that went perfectly with the theme. We hung that up, used the extra paper circles to add decoration, and hung balloons. 

For food, we had homemade corndogs, homemade mashed potatoes, fruit salad, circus animal cookies, cherry sours, and of course cupcakes!

Owen got an extra large cupcake all to himself (pictured in the center).

After eating dinner, Owen opened his present from Mark and Caitlin. He took the top tissue paper out, took his present out (a sheriff onesie!), and was so excited about the last tissue paper. To him, that was the real present!

We loved having Aunt Katy and Aunt Kennedy here! They were so much fun and so helpful and we sure do miss them!

We took a little break after dinner and before dessert to let the food settle. Owen loved playing with the big dice! 

 Here is his cake smash outfit!! I just thought it was the cutest thing. 

Hat tutorial found here. I printed the pattern on cardstock, made the hat, then hot-glued the chevron fabric on it. I made the pom-pom for the top and added yarn to tie under his chin.

Tie tutorial and pattern found here. I printed the pattern and followed her tutorial and it turned out great!

Diaper cover tutorial and pattern found here. As with the tie, I printed the pattern and followed the tutorial. I used size 12-24 months because my little man has a big bum! It was a little big, but the elastic made it fit just fine. 

He didn't like the stickiness of the frosting at first, but I think he was enjoying it by the end. 

 After a nice bath to clean up, he relaxed with a bottle, then went to bed. 

Happy birthday to my sweet boy!!

~K.A.N.

Tie a Quilt

At church this week there were a few baby quilts that had been made for charity and just needed to be tied. I have never tied a quilt before, but I thought I would try. This was the quilt I picked. I love the fabric!

I already had everything I needed:  a yarn needle and matching yarn. I am currently away for the summer, so I didn't have many color options for yarn...I apologize if the white is hard to see. 

First step was to thread the needle. I did a double strand because the yarn I used was not very thick. I pulled the yarn through the eye of the needle just a few inches on one side. At first I used a very long piece of yarn to do several stitches, but found it easier later to just make the yarn to be just longer than the width of the quilt and do one row of stitches at a time. 

I then decided on the spacing of the ties. To be honest, I didn't measure; I just eye-balled it and used buttons to keep the spacing even. 

Using my yarn needle, I went down through the top layer, batting, and backing, over just slightly, and back up through all three layers. 

I pulled my yarn all the way through until there were just a few inches left on the right side of the stitch. Without cutting I moved to the next stitch (where the next button was placed) and did the same, pulling the yarn to fit the distance between without being too tight. This was repeated until I ran out of yarn. 

Above, I have done three full rows of stitches. As mentioned above, I later found it was easier for me to do one row at a time, but you can do as much as you would like.

Next, I cut the yarn between the stitches. This will leave you with yarn going in one side of the stitch and out the other. 

The last step is to tie and cut the yarn. I did a double knot to keep it nice and secure, then pulled it out and trimmed it to a length of just a couple inches off the quilt. 

On the front, you will have several little ties of yarn and on the back, there will be small dots of yarn.

And that's it! A finished tied baby quilt!

~K.A.N.