#15 Make Baby Food

I think I can safely say I have accomplished this goal. My youngest is now almost 10 months old and I can count on one hand (and I don't even need all the fingers) the number of times she has had food out of a jar. We started off with sweet potatoes, and now we pretty much give her anything (including steak and chicken). A good friend let us borrow her portable food grinder and we LOVE it! We can just grind small portions for her. We tend to use it multiple times daily.

For bulk baby food making, I found that I prefer a hand blender to the tabletop blender. We then put the food in ice cube trays. Once frozen, they would get placed in a gallon size ziploc labeled with the item and expiration date (usually 2-3 months).

This was SO easy and I highly recommend this to anyone with babies. Not only does it save a ton of money (a huge factor), but you can also control what your baby eats. Most of time time I use organic produce for the kids, so that I can be a little more cautious. I really enjoyed putting my heart into this. It really didn't take took much time and surprisingly I really enjoyed it. If we decide to have more children in the future, you can bet that I will do this again.

#1 Learn to Sew

I am SEW excited! Haha, get it? Sew? Yeah, I'm a dork, but I'm okay with that. One of my fabulous friends taught me. Actually it's more like she gave me the basics and enabled me to learn myself. I still haven't finished my first project (a quilt from Bend the Rules Sewing), but I did finish my second project. Yeah, I'm a little backwards, huh? I started - and finished - a drawstring a-line skirt from Sew What! Skirts. I found this wonderful fabric by Amy Butler at my favorite local fabric shop (lfs).

Apparently drafting your own pattern isn't very common among newbs to the sewing world, but that's just what I did for this skirt. Ok, so it wasn't perfect. I was off by a few inches and had to rip seams, cut and re-sew. I made sure to make the changes on my pattern as well so that when I make another one I won't have to re-do everything. I also didn't do the piping right, but now that I know how to do it I'll do better next time. The perfectionist in me wants to rip it out and do it right this time, but I have decided to leave it for the time being. When I see it I remember all the lessons I learned in my new craft.

Some of my lessons learned:

• When drafting a pattern, you don't have to add extra inches to your pattern "just in case" - they have done that for you. It will only result in ripping and stitching again.
• It is important to wash the fabric first....and iron it! It's not just something they recommend, it really does make a difference.
• When attaching piping, do not, I repeat, do NOT cut the piping before you are almost finished sewing! You may (and likely) have not pinned it perfectly and you will be short and have to rip it out, buy more piping and start all over again.
• I really like the almost instant gratification sewing offers. With knitting it takes a while before you can really see a big result, unless of course it's a quicky, and I like immediate results.

I can't wait to get started on my next project. Oh, and yeah, I suppose I should finish my quilt too, huh?