2012 was definitely a baby boom year among my friends - I love the excuses it affords for making lovely little gifts. I'm always doing so in a rush and seldom manage photos but this was definitely my favourite of the year.
A soft baby book with applique animal faces! I have to say I think this worked out well and I would love to have made it for my kids. If I was being critical I'd say I don't love the red bird - I think I prefer the slightly less aggresive colours!
Now, the reason I am quite proud of this is that it is for a lovely little boy born to really good friends of mine. He gave his Mum a pretty rough ride during pregnancy so for him to be here and her to be feeling fitter is great for everyone. Soppy reasons aside, I am also very proud because the pattern was *horrendous* to follow.
It's from the same book as the Awake-Asleep doll but the amateur/improvisational approach the author takes caused me a *lot* of problems.
None of the templates include seam allowances. Even those that are both drawn and give full dimensions. How ridiculous is that to draw a picture and give precise dimensions, that the reader then has to recalculate?
And, in the instructions to cut fabric to create pages, she gives dimensions "including seam allowances". What she means is "adding seam allowances". I cut every piece for this project twice. Thank goodness I have a lot of scraps.
It's a really fun project if you have scraps from quilts or cotton clothing for kids. You get to combine lots of colours for the front colour and then coordinate them into a colour scale on the inside pages. You could of course take a more eclectic approach throughout the pages. The benefit of the pattern would then be the directions on how to assemble the pages... well, it would be if any of it made sense! I'm actually going to rewrite this pattern for my own use so I don't go so crazy next time around.
