One of my sisters is due to have her first baby -- a girl! -- in a couple of weeks.
She and I are very close, and I am so excited to meet this new little one, and to witness my sister's unfolding into motherhood. This is the first of my siblings to have a baby, and I really am almost as excited about it as I was for my own babies. There is nothing like sharing motherhood with your sister. It makes me a little weepy.
We had a shower for her a little while ago, and of course there were some handmade gifts for the new babe from our family. I still have a baby sweater on the needles for her, and I hope to be able to finish it before the baby's birth, but it's been a slow project for me.
Anyway, Elisabeth and I collaborated on a silk and flannel baby blanket. Elisabeth dyed the silk (using jacquard dye and my supervision!), and selected the flannel, and I sewed it together. We actually made several of these before Fiona was born (you can see bits of two of them here -- they were the first things we wrapped her in), but we did the kool-aid/food-coloring method which is commonly used for dyeing playsilks. However, with the amount of hard wear and washing that the blankets undergo, the dye just wasn't color-fast enough, and I haven't been very happy with that. So we went with the "real" stuff this time, and I am so, so glad we did. It was no big deal at all! (The silk is 8mm silk habotai from Dharma Trading Company. The flannel is from Jo-Ann, but many months ago.) I wish I had gotten a better picture of this blanket. I really love it. I always seem to find it challenging to photograph blankets, though.
I also made her a flag/pennant banner. My children have one of these and we just love it. I'm thinking of making a tutorial for these. Would that be of interest to you?
(it's really too big to photograph the whole thing at once. more photos of it on my flickr.)
We also included some Weleda baby care products (they smell so heavenly, and the diaper cream is by far the best in my experience), and a few other little treats (selected by my children). Now we just need a baby to arrive!
