Sweaters and Swaddle Blanket Finishes

I finished up my two main projects just in time for a fun Friday post. I made two sweaters testing for Grits and Giggles' latest pattern - LOVE! I also made four flannel swaddle blankets with six matching burp cloths each! The latter was a lot of work and I'm so glad to have them finished and crossed off my Q2FAL list.

I'm currently running a giveaway for surpassing 50,000 views. You can find it at the bottom of this post. It will close on Wednesday when I put up my next WiP post.

Let's start with the sweaters...

Can you believe the cuteness of this!? My adorable girl combined with this super-cute sweater is just so fun. The gray stripes on the fabric are quite sparkly and perfect for her personality. The sweater is called the Jennifer Sue Cardigan and will be available soon from Grits and Giggles.

Here's a closeup of my favorite details - the gathered sleeve and the ruffle with top stitching. The fabric is knit, which is always a challenge, but the pattern is really really easy to follow and fits true to size. There are only three pattern pieces to cut out. The first one took me a few hours because of various unrelated disasters but the second was a breeze and I flew threw it in less than two hours!

Here's the other one I made for my smaller but equally adorable girl. Having now made it twice I can certainly recommend the pattern to anyone. I'm a total beginner with garment sewing but I think it turned out great with Jenilyn's awesome instructions and pictures to guide you.

While sewing the first sweater I made the totally avoidable mistake of running over a pin. It got bent and stuck into the hole where the bobbin thread comes out. So I stopped sewing and tried to get the pin. Well, it fell into my machine - forty-five minutes, some disassembling, and lots of shaking later I did manage to get the pin back from the depths of my month-old Juki. Phew! That was a close one!

I went on to finish the last of the blankets for my Q2FAL goal. They were a lot of work with four blankets and 24 burp cloths. I probably should have made them count for more than one thing but it is what it is. Two of these are going to my friends' babies and two will go into my shop later today.

This one is for one of my friends. She's naming her little guy Decker and I put it all around the blanket in my fun alphabet stitch. The k turned out a little funky but it looks pretty great anyway and I love that my machine has upper and lower case letters.

This is for another friend's baby Colin - a cute but frustrating name to try to sew. In all caps or lower case you couldn't tell the L from the I. I keep tilling myself it's cute anyway and she'll love it.

The is one of the ones for my shop. I seriously adore these foxes! Since I don't know who they are going to I just did a zigzag around the edge of the blanket.

The other one for the shop and my last blanket. It feels so nice to have these done now I'm going to make something for me!!

This is my next project and to finish it is my May ALYoF goal. This pile of lovelies is going to turn into the Honey Honey Layer Cake Quilt found at the Moda Bake Shop. It will be for me and I can't wait! It is also on my Q2 FAL list.

I'm linking up with Finish It Up Friday and TGIFF.