Here are the two projects I referred to in this post as the “new sewing I’m allowed to do because they have deadlines.”

For our friends Joella and Bryan, who are having a baby boy:

because who doesn’t need some bright orange in their life, right? 🙂

and our friends Caitlin and Rob, who are having a little girl:

I love that coral solid!

Usually I try to combine a small print with a larger, bolder print but this time, solids seemed to fit these two prints the best.

Also, in related news, I was lying in bed Friday evening, nursing Mark, trying to keep myself awake, thinking about sewing projects (as I always do, that and blog posts) and all of a sudden had this brilliant idea for how to cut out these blankets.  I’ll try to take pictures the next time I cut one out and write about it, but essentially, I probably cut my cutting time in half by my innovation.  How many blankets have I made in the last 5 years?  I’m just guessing here but 30? 40? 50?  SO MANY!  And I’ve been doing it a MUCH harder way this whole time!  I’ve written about the 10,000 hours concept before (especially related to sewing for me) but again, there really is something to the idea that it takes a long time to achieve mastery over something.  I’m not even going to tell you how I was cutting them the old way because you’ll probably say, “oh, that’s how I’ve always done it,” and then I’ll feel silly.  But I will show you my new way, which is awesome!!  It will just have to wait until another baby is getting close to being born.  🙂