WIP Wednesday--Sleep/Play Mat

Before I begin with what I'm working on, I'm wondering if you've had a chance to vote for my fabric design on Connecting Threads? I have some tulips up there as well, but Purple Haze seems to be getting more attention. Vote here if you want, I'm the second row down. Also while you are there, Lee from Freshly Pieced has a really nice fabric and looks like she could even win this thing!

My Mother-in-Law and I had a wonderful trip to Ikea. I have to admit, it's one of my favourite places. While we were there we got a few cool things. One of which is what will become my new sewing desk! :o)


We also found this in the children's section:

Now while I won't be using a duvet in my daughter's crib (because of the risk of SIDS) we wanted her to have a nice sleep mat at my in-law's house. Now Ikea's idea of the size of a duvet and the duvet we already have are two very different things. Thankfully Ikea's is larger. So, into the sewing closet I go with one way too big duvet cover and a pillow case, and out I come with this:

Who doesn't love this fabric for play/nap mat for little people?

The pillow case with a seam added to one side at the top
and then I ran a ribbon through the seam.
I got the idea here from In Color Order.

And here it is all put away and ready for our next trip to my In-Law's

And thanks to Deborah from Whipstitch Fabrics and her blog post about Nancy Zieman, I turned out a really sharp corner with extreme ease (you'll have to forgive the fact that I cheated and didn't press a thing when I was sewing this). I'm super excited about many of the great sewing tips in Nancy's new book Sewing A to Z, especially when it shows me how to do great things like this. 

If I don't win a copy it will have to go on the books to purchase list, it's just that awesome.

I also got a whole 10 minutes while my daughter was napping to square up the HSTs I've been working on for my stock exchange quilt. Naps seem to be pretty short when you have someone using a jack-hammer on the balcony next door. Gee I wonder why. . .   :oP

Finally made it to the fabric store this afternoon and picked up a few things, including some red and white velour for stockings! Embroidery needles and thread to finish the border of the Brown Bear Quilt. And who could forget the $0.90 piece of Velcro to repair a couple of my daughter's diapers. 

Oh, and I can't forget a finish from this past week. I blogged about it here, but here's a picture of it again for eye candy.