Baby Showers

***There are pictures at the end, so if you are too bored to read this, at least look at the pictures!!***

I don't know why (perhaps its my current location) but everyone I know is having a baby. In the month of May, I have officially attended 3 baby showers, and there is still one more week left- maybe I'll make it 4!!

The first one, I thought it would be great to make a flannel blanket that I had seen that a friend of mine had. You take 5 pieces of flannel (I modified it to 4 because of the crazy COST of fabric) and lay them one on top of the other. Then, you sew them all together in 1/2 - 1 inch increments all the way across the blanket. Finally, you snip the top 3 layers, leaving a fun little ruffle, and voila! Beautiful, super simple, super absorbent baby blanket!

Not really.

It took me a while to find decent fabric that was within my budget, so there went 2 hours. I found a straight lined pattern, so at least my lines were straight. Sure, it took me about 4 HOURS to get all the lines sewn, but they were straight. I sat down next to my poor husband that had forfeited one of his last few precious date nights and started the snipping (1 more hour)...I assumed 1 inch would make it ruffle, but as it turns out...it didn't (at first.) Actually, the remedy would have been to wash and dry the blanket, but since we don't have a dryer, I attempted to make it ruffle by snipping the ruffles every half inch or so to make it a little more....fluffy looking.

Anyways, long story short, 2 more hours later, I had finished everything I could do, and I took it to a washer/dryer where I work with the lady I had made the blanket for. I didn't actually make it to the baby shower, b/c Jenn had come to visit from Alaska. So I pulled it out of the dryer, folded it up, and handed it to her. I should have said, "here is 9 hours of my weekend! I hope you like it!"...but I actually left the first part out.

Baby shower #2- Maybe a flannel blanket isn't the way to go. I know! I'll crochet a blanket!!

*note- crocheting and knitting is kinda like taking a road trip. You look at google maps, and you say "yea, I can do that! Las Vegas is only 5 hours away!" But then you get in the car and you just drive and drive and drive until you feel like you've been driving all night, because most likely, you have......Yea, that's what crocheting is like.

So last week I spent allllll week working on these squares that took me about 30 minutes to crochet, and I needed 49 squares. Where is the mathematician around here....yea, that's about 25 hours. Then you have to connect the squares, then you have to make a border. Another Friday night- gone. Lost to the world of baby showers. 3 AM, and I am exhausted, nearly finished connecting all the squares, and yet, I don't want to watch the Phantom of the Opera again. So I went to bed, and ended up an hour late for the baby shower, because I hadn't finished. I felt COMPLETELY over done when she opened my gift....but she really really liked it- and I managed to use her favorite color! I wish I got a picture of it, because it really turned out great. I'll have to get one later.

Successful, and yet, RIDICULOUSLY time consuming.

And finally, baby shower #3, I was only 30 minutes late! When I was younger, my mom used to make all kinds of things for baby showers, but my absolute favorite were the hooded baby towels. She used to put appliques on them, but I decided that my first would be relatively simple. I went to Wal*mart (after work on Friday night- the shower was Saturday morning!) and picked out a towel, the hood towel, and some ribbon. The selection was actually pretty lame, but the prices were right. We had a double date already planned for Friday night, so Ian didn't lose me this time. Mom said I'd need somewhere around 3 hours to make my first one, since I was still learning. So I did some after the date (and a wonderful late night walk with my hunnie) and got up with 2 hours before the shower started. My mom walked me through it on the phone, and I felt a bit clumsy, but LOOK what I did!

I tried just taking the picture, but without a model, it didn't look right.

Use your imagination that this is a toddler, not an adult :)

If you need a model, and force your husband to BE that model, but he doesn't really want to...this is what you get- TA DA!



So now, this is my new favorite. I bet I could even get really good and bring the time down to 2 hours or less! Not to mention it isn't as expensive- and on a poor-starving-college-student budget, that's a big deal!! Its either that or I would have to get a friend-divorce from all my pregnant friends, but I'm hoping that it will all come back around someday. (I'm thinking September would be a nice time for karma to hit on this one...)