In between sewing for everyone else along with too many other projects under the sun, I have actually managed to make a few little things for the new baby. I found a sweet and simple crochet pattern for these little mary janes, and they are so incredibly tiny and cute. They are made using cotton yarn, and work up in less than an hour for one pair. I can change the size of the finished shoe depending on what size hook I use, so it’s been fun playing around with the pattern.

I also whipped up a bunch of burp cloths since they are such a necessity, especially during those first few months. When I had my first baby oh so many years ago, I found myself always grabbing a spare receiving blanket for most spit ups and burps, I liked that they were thin enough to really mop up the mess without being too bulky and I always seemed to have several close at hand. Several babies into motherhood and I began to see all of those cute burp cloths women were making using gorgeous plush fabrics, two layers thick, and embellished with lots of cute trims and what not, all  under the guise of being more absorbent and super soft to use on your baby. Even though I secretly felt that these were really made for the mom to look cute and posh as her baby threw up on her, I still bought into it and started in making some for my 6th and then 7th baby. Using chenille and minky I stitched up a bunch of them, adding oodles of trim, ribbon, decorative stitching and more, and had them all ready to use before each of those babes was born. They looked so pretty and expensive as if I had been shopping all along at some high end boutiques. And guess what. I hated them. They were too thick and awkward and didn’t do any better at cleaning up the baby or guarding from accidents than the single layer of flannel on those old receiving blankets I used to reach for constantly in the beginning. So all of my hard work was for naught as those plush burp cloths ended up getting shoved to the side as I again grabbed what really worked, and the fancy-shmancy burp cloths were given to my girls instead to be used as fancy-shmancy blankets for their dolls and stuffed animals.

So for this baby I have resisted the urge to sew up any more of those plush, expensive looking and useless wastes of time and fabric in favor of something that I will not only use, but that will actually work for my intended purpose.

Using some prints from my stash, I cut the flannel into easy to handle sizes I would use, rounded the corners, serged the raw edges and I was done. These will easily drape over my shoulder, on my lap, and can still mop up any messes on or around the baby. This is what works for me, and I am happy with my utilitarian ways. I prefer “practicality”over “posh” any day.

It’s finally hot. And with the heat comes a need to dress in as few items of clothing as possible, especially when pregnant. I prefer to wear skirts most of the time to try and keep as cool as possible. Unfortunately, I have a hard time finding skirts that are actually long enough to come to my knee (at the very least) since I am just tall enough and have legs just long enough to keep me out of the average lengths available in most clothing. Yet I am not quite tall enough to really wear “Tall” sizes either, and I usually end up having to trim a few inches off of them to get to my perfect length there too. So in order to bypass all of that clothing drama I decided that I would just sew some skirts myslef so that I could get the fit that I want and need. For my first try I cut my fabric out and then cut out matching pieces in tissue paper for the front and back piece of the skirt. Any time I cut or trimmed anything  from the fabric pieces, I then cut the same amount from the tissue paper. So once I was done I then had the exact pattern piece for the skirt I had made. It worked like a charm.

So far I have made two skirts from that pattern along with yet another jeans-to-skirt refashion only this time I added a stretchy panel to make it maternity worthy. I have worn all of these to church and well as around the house, they are all so comfy and have been perfect for beating the heat.

This skirt was the prototype, and also the one that made me realize just how important it can be to add lining to a skirt. The first time I wore it was to a family party earlier this month, and it drove me crazy as I continually flashed anyone and everyone as it constantly crept up in the front as I walked no matter what I did. Needless to say, I have since added lining to this skirt, and made sure to add it to the next one as well as I sewed it.

This one is my favorite as I not only love the print but the fabric for both the skirt and stretchy panel were both only $1 a yard, so this skirt cost me about $2 to make. Score! These first two skirts hit me just at the bottom of my kneecap and I like to wear the front of the panel right right under the bottom curve of my belly so that the skirt fits like I’m pregnant and not like I’m just fat. Such an awkward stage of pregnancy isn’t it.

And of course I re-purposed a pair of too-short jeans for yet another skirt. Although it looks much lighter in this pic, it’s actually a very dark wash which looks great dressed up or down, and I have worn this one the most. I love it. The stretchy panel is long enough to wear it pulled up over my little belly, or folded down like a demi panel, whichever suits my mood at the moment. It’s also able to accommodate my tummy as it expands over these next few weeks, because there is definitely going to be a lot of expanding in the next little while. But that’s good, and expected, so no complaints.

*I found some great tutorials on several different blogs, offering some cool ideas and tips to help make a maternity skirt, and all I had to do was google it and I had no end of places to browse.

Inspired by Korby’s simple tent, I set about making a play tent for my kids that I could hang from some of the trees in our backyard. This is my end result.

The kids love it, and spent all morning and afternoon playing in it, hauling their toys and books out there to read and play to their hearts content.

To make it, I took 3 twin size flat sheets I had picked up at my local thrift store (at one time or another), and a large scrap of fabric 18″ w x 30″L as a header to kind of designate the front opening, and stitched them all together on their long sides (except for the header piece which I stitched it’s short sides to either side of the front sheets). Then I folded the top edge over and stitched it to form the casing, cut a hula hoop in half and threaded it through the one part I left open when I was sewing the casing. Using several holes that Craig drilled for me near each cut end, I laced them back together with jute string and pulled them tight and knotted it off to keep the hula hoop together. It’s not a true circle anymore, closer to a teardrop, but it’s nothing that affects the function of the tent, so I don’t care.  I attached some rope to the hula hoop at four different spots and knotted them in the middle and attached a carabiner clip, then using the same rope, I tied a large metal ring to one of the branches of the apple tree in the back, so I am able to hang up the tent and take it down just as easily when needed.

 I am currently making a second one with a Care Bears sheet teamed with a solid pink, and a solid sunny yellow flat sheet for a bit of a girly-er version. These really go together quickly, and since there is only straight stitching involved this is a very easy project. The hardest part is maneuvering the yards and yards of fabric since you are working with 3 twin size sheets after all, but it’s still not that hard. Also, if you don’t want to cut the hula hoop, you could make this a bit more time intensive and make some fabric tabs that button closed and stitch them at even intervals all around the top of your sheets instead of making a casing. That way you could unbutton the fabric part and toss it in the wash if you ever needed to. I may try that version another time, but for now, this is it, I just wasn’t feeling patient enough that day. Sometimes I just want to keep it fuss free and as simple possible, and for me this was that way. Definitely not fancy, but fancy was not my main objective. So there you go, a quick and easy way to whip up a fun place for the kids to escape the heat and stay cool in the shade. (Thanks again Korby!)

…the colors yellow and gray. Loving these colors as a combination and even by themselves. Oh so lovely. The bird print is my favorite. Seriously, I love it to pieces.

I would love to make a quilt with some of the prints. Perhaps a cute zig zag? Or maybe mod charm squares?

After being begged by Haven to please, please, please make her an apron, I found a very cute pattern on Etsy, bought it, had Haven pick out some fabrics, and sewed it up for her. Unfortunately, once I was done I realized that the piping the pattern called for just wasn’t enough, at least in my eyes. It looked kind of unfinished as-is. In my mind it needed piping somewhere on the pocket and all around the edge between the ruffle and the skirt to really make it look finished. So when my cute niece Emma saw Haven’s apron and said how much she would love one too, I took her into my sewing room to pick out some fabric, and I set about making another apron, but this time with the extra piping in the places I mentioned before.

And it worked. I love the end result with the extra piping, and Emma was thrilled to be in the apron club with her cousin Haven. Haven and Emma loved their aprons so much that they wore them the rest of the evening.

Such cute little apron girls! And if you like the apron pattern, I got it from here.

See this?

Do you know where it all came from? My garage.

Do you know how long it had been there? Since we moved in Fall 2008.

It is now Summer 2010.

Haven’t you heard of slowly but surely?  I err on the side of ’slowly’.

And stop calling me Shirley.

And look, I found my yogurt maker! Along with a box of 5 extra glass yogurt jars.

Which will go nicely with the other box of 5 extra glass yogurt jars that I have in my pantry.

 Wow, 15 jars. That’s a lot of yogurt. I had better get busy.

And the totes? There are 12 of them. And 1 box.

Three of the totes have baby clothes in them. All that I have left after having 7 babies.

I thought I gave most of it away. Nice to be wrong.

The other nine totes and the one box are filled with fabric. Filled. To the brim. Yards and yards of it.

Cottons, knits, flannels and fleece. And so much more.

I even found Ciel’s sewing machine buried in a box labeled “Kitchen Appliances”.

Ciel has been looking for it for over a year with no luck. I guess no one told her that you always skip the boxes marked “Sewing” and go straight for anything marked “Kitchen Appliances”.

Duh.

Nevertheless, she is thrilled.

Craig? Less than thrilled. More like annoyed.

He thinks I have a problem. He says no one should own this much fabric.

I totally disagree.

So I probably shouldn’t mention the 5 other totes of fabric still in the garage that I wasn’t able to bring in…

These were a bunch of knee high socks I bought last Fall, intending them for one of my younger girls to wear to school, but they were misplaced until recently, so I decided to put them to better use and make something for the new baby since I am due in the Winter after all. So baby legs they will be. (These will fit both babies and older children alike as I have made these for my 5 & 9 year old and they love them, so these are not limited to just babies!)  I found a great selection at Smith’s Marketplace in a 2-pack in the girl’s section for $8. I have also found that there were more knee high socks with prints and colors that would work for boys in the womens section as opposed to the girls, so make sure and look if you want to make some for your little guy.

You can use a serger or a sewing machine to make these, and they are totally easy and work up incredibly fast.

Materials:

-1 pair of knee high socks

-serger or sewing machine

-thread

-a pair of sharp scissors

Ok, let’s start. First, pick out a pair of either girls or womens knee high socks, they both work just as well for this.

 Lay them out flat and cut off the foot just before the “bend” starts, cutting them straight across.

Next, cut off the rounded end at the top where the toes go. Try to keep the rectangular portion in the middle about the same size as the other.

 It should look something like this when you’re done. The rectangular piece you cut out from the foot portion will become your cuff.

 Take the cuff piece and fold it inward onto itself, in half, wrong sides together, matching the raw cut edges up with each other. You want the right sides of the print facing out. It should look something like this.

 Slip the cuff over the cut edge of the sock, making sure that the raw edges from both the cuff and the sock match up.

 See, the sock is inside the cuff, and you just slide it up to the raw edge and even them up as best you can.

  Here are the raw edges of both the sock and cuff lined up.

 I don’t even bother to pin them, I find it easier not to when I serge/sew them, but you can pin them if it makes it easier for you, it really doesn’t matter.

 Here they are, all ready to be serged or sewn. I did one of these with my serger and one with my sewing machine so that you can see an example of both.

 I just hold the edges together and run it through the serger all the way around.

 And here it is, all done. I know it looks like the edges are all stretched and ruffled from being serged, but once the cuffs are turned out, it doesn’t matter. And after being washed once, it looks even better, so don’t sweat it.

  I stitched this one on my sewing machine using a simple zig zag stitch. I kept the aligned raw edges close to the edge of my presser foot for a guide and stitched it all the way around.

  Here it is all all stitched, and it looks pretty similar to the serged one, doesn’t it, and it too seems a bit ruffled after being sewn. Also not a big deal.

  Turn the cuffs up and you have a great little pair of baby legs for your little one that took you all of 10 minutes to make.

 Here is a close up of both cuffs. Can you tell which one was sewn with a serger and which one was sewn with a sewing machine? Neither can I.

 So there you are. Easy as can be.

 Now go crazy and make a bunch more. It took me less than 30 minutes to cut and serge all of these, and just like that I had 9 pairs of baby legs.

  Like I said, they’re incredibly fast and easy to make.

And just for a reference, the last three pairs of baby legs on the end at the right were all made from women’s knee socks (gray with rainbow pinstripes, navy & white stripe with green edge, and gray & white stripe with pink edge). The first 6 (starting from the left) were all made from knee socks from the girls section.

*Variation*-You can also use a pair of tights to make baby legs if you would like. Just cut off the foot portion the same as you would if using a knee high sock, except you will need to cut a second piece about the same size as the first cuff from somewhere on the leg portion of the tights to make a second cuff for each baby leg. So you will then sew a cuff to each end to finish them off since the tights don’t have a pre-finished edge like the socks do. This is a great way to use up outgrown tights you might already have on hand.

With the warmer weather finally here, I decided it was time to get myself in gear and make the girls some summer pajamas and nighties. I bought some plain white tank tops at Wal-Mart for $3 each along with several yards of a classic cotton print, and in no time I had them sewn up. For the nighties, I used the same basic idea from my tutorial for the long sleeved tees into nighties, cutting the tank top off at the bottom, attaching the gathered skirt to it, and then adding a ruffle to the bottom edge with the same fabric as the skirt. These work up so fast, I love it.

For the pajama pants I just used one of the simple pants patterns I always keep on hand, except I cut a few inches off the bottom edge to make them a cropped pant, and hemmed the bottom edges. Then I cut two strips of matching fabric that were about 2 inches wide and about twice the circumference of the bottom edge of the pants, serged both of the edges to finish them and stop any fraying, and sewed the short edges together, right sides together, to make a continuous circle. Then, using my longest stitch length I ran a gathering stitch directly down the middle of each one on the right side of the fabric, pulled the bobbin thread from the wrong side of the fabric to gently gather them, and evenly pinned them to the pants, wrong side of the fabric on the ruffle against the right side of the fabric on the pants, matching the bottom edges of the ruffle to the hem edge. Then, I sewed down the middle of the ruffles, using the gathering stitch as a general guide, and stitched them in place using a regular stitch length.

Haven loves them and they make the perfect summer pajama pant, as they provide very light and airy coverage for the warmer nights. In the end I was able to make 3 nighties and 1 pair of pants, with 3 more nighties and 3 more pairs of pants left to sew. Now if I can just stop obsessing about sewing cloth diapers long enough to finish them…

Look what arrived this morning, two weeks earlier than expected…

My new snap press. (Yay!) Along with two sets of snap dies in sizes 20 and 16, 1000 complete sets of white resin snaps in size 20, 200 complete sets in size 16, and an awl. They even threw in a little sample pack of stamped colored snaps for fun. And while I only bought the snap dies to do plastic resin snaps for now, this model also has dies available for metal snaps and grommets should I ever decide I need them. My main purpose for this snap press right now will be to attach snaps to cloth diapers and on any baby clothes I end up making, but I am sure I will find many more uses for it as I go. Do you have something that needs some snaps? Well, come on over!

I have decided to use cloth diapers for the new baby. And now you must really think I’m crazy. Well, maybe a bit, but I have quite a few good reasons for doing this. Some being that I can sew most of the diapers myself, it would be nice not to have to plunk down $12 every week on diapers, and I just really want to do it. And cloth diapers have come a long way from when my Mom and Grandmother had to do it when they were having babies, things are vastly different in that regard. So I am currently looking up  and reading online anything I can find that is cloth diaper related, googling any question that comes to my mind about it, reading any and all advice from experienced cloth diapering moms, and I am feverishly stockpiling fabrics, notions, and patterns so that I can start my sewing frenzy and make myself a good stash of diapers. Yes, you can buy cloth diapers pre-made, but I want to see just what I can sew before I start buying them just yet.

Heidi’s very good friend Kim was ever so kind and let me come over to her house to show me her cloth diaper stuff and answer a bunch of my questions. Kim has been doing this for 7 years, so she really knows her stuff. I came away with a much better understanding and idea of which direction I might want to go and what diapers would work best on a new baby as opposed to an older one. Kim is a fountain of cloth diaper knowledge. (Kim you are aweosme! Thank you again!)  And, on Kim’s advice, I hit the local thrift store today and found three 100% wool sweaters that I can felt and then turn diaper covers, and I only paid $13 total for them. I also found out that JoAnn’s just recently started carrying PUL (waterproof diaper fabric) for $9.99 a yard and and they also have suedecloth (stay dry diaper lining) for $6.99 a yard (on sale it’s $2.99 a yard!) which is so much cheaper than I can get it online.

So, right now my brain is pretty much filled with all things cloth diapers (seriously my husband is so sick of me talking about it the poor guy), and I am focusing all of my nesting urges in that direction. And with only 2 more weeks until we (hopefully) find out the baby’s gender, I am absolutely dying to be able to really get into my sewing and start making stuff. Gender neutral fabric is fine, but I have so many gender specific fabrics in my stash already for either a boy or girl, I feel like I am at a standstill until I find out.