37 of 52 - The Stash Busting Soft Furnishings for Baby Bears

Let me admit to it now.  I have a lot of crafting supplies.  My husband will be very pleased to hear me admit to that.  When it became obvious that I wasn't going to be going back to a day job for a while, or the salary that goes along with it, I knew that my plan of buying the ENTIRE Zeddy and Parsnip range from Mamas and Papas just wasn't going to happen.  I should mention I fell in love with that range when I worked there, please don't judge me :).  This meant that I was either going to have to look for a cheaper range, or come up with an alternative.

Fortunately I am fortunate to call some very creative people my colleagues now and I figured that I could just make some of it myself.  Not only that, but since my crafting space was destined to become the, as yet infinished, nursery I decided to kill two birds with one stone and use up some of my stash.  I refer here to two stashes, my yarn stash (which is getting a bit silly but I do love yarn) and my fabric stash which was made up of left overs, scraps and generally acquired fabrics that I was loathed to throw away.

So the fabric stash was the first to get hit.  As a lot of it was small pieces, I decided (in my infinite wisdom) that a hexagonal patchwork quilt was the way to go.  So I cut out this pile of hexagons.

Well, this is just the first pile of hexagons because I still have boat loads left!  Hexagon swap anyone?

But I am pleased with them because they have turned into a cushion.

There is some lovely fabric in there from Lu Summers and some Liberty fabric from ScarlettRose.  And just at the bottom is some fabric that was sent to me in the most awesome scrap bag from Julie of Moaning Minnie Designs.

And the back I added some lovely buttons which were sent when I bought some felt from The Fuzzy Fish

Then I spotted some off cuts that were big enough to do stripes so I made curtain tie backs (can you see where my little brain got a bit out of control?).

Then it was the big things.  The cot bumper and the quilt.  Both were going to take some time and I have actually never completed a quilt of any size before.

But, I think they came out looking good myself.

This is the cot bumper.  The gorgeous handmade binding is from Caro at Overspill and the backing is white with a white floral print on it which I got from a local craft shop.  It's very pretty.

And then the quilt!  I am very pleased to see this finished.  It has pretty binding from Overspill again and the same backing as the bumper.  Now, it's not quite square, and some of my stitching is a tad wonky (fur fabric is very forgiving!) but it was handmade by me and nobody has one like it in the whole wide world.  I kind of like that.

And my last stashbust effort was focused on my yarn.  I had lots of baby colours but with no idea of what the sex is so I decided that a mixed bag was fair game.  So a striped square blanket with a ruffled edge was created. 

There maybe a few more things to come but one thing is for sure.  I've enjoyed making all of this and I can't wait to see it all in the cot next week (I promise i'll share a photo!)