Sun hats for the fam

It's taken a few years, but I've finally gotten around to making a Betz White Reversible Bucket Hat for me! Not only that, but I even made one for my husband and a new one for Little Bear.

After measuring our noggins, I made a Small for Little Bear, Large for me, and X-Large for my husband. The sizing in this pattern is spot-on. Each of us got a great fit.

Motivation for hat-making came in the form of a family kayaking adventure. We signed up for a tour and in the instructions, it suggested that participants have hats to protect from the sun in the open water. Since Big Bear was the only one with a hat that fit, I got to work on hats for the rest of us.

And now the whole fam is rockin' the bucket hat!

We got a lot of use out of these hats this summer after our kayaking tour. They came in handy for trips to the beach, visits to the zoo, and on many hikes. The unstructured nature of this design makes it perfect for shoving in a bag or backpack. Now I'm thinking I may need to get some water-repellent fabric so I can make some rain hats!

"Playtime" for baby!

After being completed for a couple months, I was finally able to put the finishing touch (label!) on this quilt and gift it a couple of weeks ago.

I call it "Playtime" because the prints and colors are so dang happy and cute! That, and the pattern it is from is called "Playful" and I couldn't very well call mine the same thing. :) The design is from Cluck, Cluck Sew and it is an awesome, fun quilt to put together. The instructions are fabulous.

The print fabrics are from the Windham Fabrics "Little Menagerie" collection by Melanie Hurlston. I bought a fat quarter back of them back in 2010. So this project also gets cheers for stash-busting!

Pieced backs are a bit more work, but they are so fun. And I love being able to put the remaining scraps from the front to use!

I even snuck a bit of stripe into the binding.

I kept the quilting simple on this one with an all-over meander using Aurifil Mako 50/2 thread in 2130 ("Medium Butter"). It is soft and snuggly.

And, to finish it off, the label.

The quilt was happily received by mama and baby. Yay!