Got lots of new projects

Its been a long time, while life has been crazy around here. I have made a little time to create and sew but didn't have much for blogging. So the first project I have been squeezing in is diapers and baby blankets to donate to a United Way baby shower.  Unfortunately I have only two blankets and 3 diapers done so far, its been very crazy around here. There has been a ton of mending to do and projects to finish. To tell you the truth mending is not a favorite thing to do around here. We are trying to reduce our carbon foot print, so blue jeans get mended until they are too small or too holey. If they can, the jeans go to someone else, otherwise they become something new like quilts. A quilted jean skirt would be cute, too.  Well I set a goal at the beginning of the year to make  a pattern a week from my collection. Well I am way behind, however I have made a couple of dresses for my niece. The first one is an pinafore dress in bright neon colors with ruffled edges. The dress needs to have the button holes finished and the panties made. The next dress is a A-line design, with matching panties. Two pairs of capris that have been modified from a zippered waist to elastic. My next few posts with be about these projects, once I get all the pictures taken and uploaded.

Diaper inserts fit G-Diapers! Make or Buy!

Couple of months I got a client who needed G-Diaper inserts for her daughter -in- law. I got to work and came up with the perfect pad (if I say so). It has a few layers of  absorb, 100% cotton batting, flannel, and micro- fiber suede. Love the micro fiber suede, its so soft against baby's skin and makes me jealous :).  This are really easy to make, so here is a quick tutorial.
The  inserts I made measure 5" by 13" for the medium to large sizes.
So get your rulers and measure out a rectangle that is 5" wide and 13" long on your paper.
Now if you want rounded corners take the edge of a coffee cup or cd. Then place the curved item right below the corner and trace to round it. Remember to make your curve meet with the sides. Repeat on the other corners. I liked having the square corner, so mine are not rounded.
After getting your pattern cut out, its time to cut out your layers: Flannel, cotton batting, absorb, micro-fiber suede or sweatshirt fleece. (Re-purpose that holey old sweatshirt!) The layer order for serging and zigzag stitch is as follows; Flannel (top layer pattern side up)absorb and cotton batting in middle, micro-fiber suede or sweatshirt for the bottom. Now for the bottom layer you want to make sure the soft suede side is or the inside of sweatshirt is facing out away from the cotton batting. This is so the soft material is touching baby's skin.
The next part is really easy once you get the hang of serging multi- layers. The different layers may shift as you serge do to speed of the serger. This shouldn't happen too much with the zigzag stitch.  Don't panic the edge may get cut crooked, just finish going to the end  then use a ruler to measure the excess and make a straight line with chalk then redo your line with the serger. If the sides are just a little (or a lot) off, its still ok and the pad works. So no worries! Now just finish serging or zigzag stitching around the edges.  Voile you are done. I hope these directions make sense, I'm not that great at it. Now if this doesn't sound like fun or you just don't have time, shoot me an email and we can talk about ordering 12 pads for $30.00 plus shipping. Unfortunately I can only take forms of payment through PayPal, unless you are local to Colorado Springs.
For some reason I can't upload my pictures at this time. So I will try to get them on the tonight.
So I have been trying to post at least one picture of the inserts for too long, but I'm trying again.

 Yay! It finally posted my picture! When buying through the e-mail please specify if you want boy, girl or neutral.

6 pocket pants in Cameo

So sorry about not posting for the entire month of December, but I do have a few things to show off. Lets see the holidays were good, but I'm glad they are over and now the rest of life can go on. After telling about my 2014 new year resolutions, may have stated this before, it is to use every pattern I have collected at least once. This means that things will be up for sale do to sizing. First one is a pair of sweet pants that I made for my son. It is a variation of the 1980's pattern I found and blogged about in November. To my mistake she had no more sweatpants so my daughter got fleece lounge pants in December because we had really cold days. I also made them from the patterns I got in November. (Need to take pictures of her pants once they are out of laundry) Also made myself a t-shirt pattern, will photograph when the neckline is put in from a 1970's pattern. The second resolution is to make more of my own patterns, instead of manipulating store brought patterns. I think these are do able goals and can't wait to blog about them. Here are the new 6 pocket pants in cameo blue. These are not great pictures of the pants, so will take more tomorrow.

Love the skinny legs with the cameo print. Once the pictures send from my email I will get them up here. 

Winter is here, so what happened to Fall?

So this week we have winter in Colorado. Now I have to whip up a ton of winter ready clothing for the kids. Have been sewing hats and gloves for the kiddos and myself, I am hoping to get enough hats made to donate to a local shelter or families in need. Not sure where to start looking for this goal. Anyone have any ideas? I'm open to suggestions! When the wind kicks down, I'll be able to open my storage shed for more fabric, the winter stuff is hiding in there. The kids are getting double layered pants and long sleeve shirts to wear under their t-shirts. Gotha love layers!
For this project I will be using patterns, I got from the Arch for less then $.50. This one is for my long legged daughter.

 Most of the patterns that I have collected are used and from Goodwill or the Arch.

Here is the pattern for my son, it needs a few changes made to it. The waistband needs updating and the pattern its self has been cut of a size 14. He wears an 7 with the length of an 8. I have pretty tall kids for their ages

 Can't wait to get started today!

 

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Just between Friends Sale

So I decided to consign at the Just Between Friends event next weekend. So excited about it too! So I have a few items in the sale so far. A Jungle Babies (design by Patty Reed) pack n play sheet, fleece skirt, batman dress, nursing pads, jungle babies comforter and two pairs of Capri, plus a pleated skirt.

 

SIDE NOTE!

I have a few more days so here's to hoping that sewing can be done soon! More designs in the works! I saw a fur coat at Babies R Us that I want  to copy for my niece! The coat is by Heidi Klum and the brand is Scrumptious or Truly Scrumptious. I liked the design style and she needs a coat. I have a spotted blue faux fur to use for this design.

Reuseable Nursing Pads

Got milk? Got spillage? Need these?

After visiting with my new niece, my sister was in need of these nursing pads. She doesn't like having to pay a minimum of $15.00 for a box of disposable  pads, who can blame her? It gets expensive when your maternity leave is not paid. Little sister gets a set of 4 nursing pads. We even went looking around at Baby's r Us for a set of nursing pads and they wanted between 10.00 and 39.99 dollars for their available brands. So she has tried these out and they work wonderfully. My sister can't wait for me to make her a few more nursing pads! I think they will make a great baby shower gift too. I'll post when I get some made up and for sale on eBay. Right now eBay is the cheapest platform for my sewing right now. I am looking forward to setting up an etsy account by the end of the year. Does anyone else have an idea on where to sell? I am on a very tight budget.

Up-cycled Batman Dress for sale on eBay

This dress is made from a t-shirt I found at Good Will, its too small for me and too big for a kid. So I down sized it with the serger to be a size 8/9. I love the tulle on this design, it makes the shirt so much cuter. The tulle is so much brighter in person then with my camera phone. I have it posted for sale on eBay it has one day and 17 hours left on this auction. The cost of the dress is $10.00. It is such a great dress.  Look up the name Up-cycled t-shirt dress size 8 girls! or my seller name, helping2pay4school. Please check out what I am selling.

Baby shower was fun plus more sheets!

The baby shower was a hit! My niece will be clothed until she is 6 months old. I'm sad and happy about that, was hoping to make her some clothing. Moving on to a brighter note; I have made two Pack n Play sheets! The theme is  jungle animals (of course) with polka-dots and a matching solid brown with polka-dots.  Please forgive the awful pictures, so need to find my camera.

 These are so cute because they are so little! I just love the way each one has turned out. I will be posting this set of sheets on eBay before the weekend.

 The next sheet is for an Ambi bed and just can't get enough of the Patty Reed jungle babies fabric.

 Have to say making sheets for  baby's bed is really easy and fast. Each sheet takes about 20- 30 minutes from start to finish, it takes me longer because I have to locate my sewing bags for each project.

No sewing or designing makes me very sad.

So life has been very crazy around here! I have not had much time to post or do any sewing, which is so very bad.  I have the general idea of the pleated skirt dress ready and still need to draft the pattern for the skirt. The last two weeks have gone by in a rush of job searches and stressing over student loans which are due here soon. Yikes, the total repayment amount is that of a 3 bedroom apartment in the city. Before the craziness began I was working on the lettering for my sister's baby blanket. They have chosen a long first name with 9 letters. So after printing out the name in different fonts, I have decided to go with white flocked letters against the pink jersey knit. It will look great against the pink fleece, maybe I can get it done tonight.

 Just to refresh your memory, above is the fleece and below is the  pink rib knit.

Here is flocked letters I will be using. And I got them on clearance, YAY!

Now let's see if I can do this without upsetting the two new additions to house. Oh yeah, today my brother drop his dogs off for a couple of weeks why they find a place and move in.

 

Love the sheets!

Here is the first and second sheets for my sister's baby shower gift.  I can't wait to see the sheets in her nursery.  Again I used the instructions on the site Dana Made It and it is so simple to do. The only thing I did different was shortened the elastic in the jungle print and it worked great. The sheet is snug and tight with no worries  of the sheet coming off the bed during sleep. 

First crib sheet is done!

Here is the crib sheet and its finally finished. I love this print, which I found at Wal-Mart for 5.45 a yard. I found the tutorial at http://www.danamadeit.com/2008/07/tutoria

l-crib-and-toddler-bed-sheets.html#comment-210010. This site has so much great information for anything sewing. Check out her site and whip one up today. The sheet was really easy to make as along as you cut it the right length. It would have only taken 30 minutes if I had not put it up for the night. Once I put things away they tend to disappear on me.  The next sheet I am making has some really cute animals on it, I just need to wash it first. It takes two yards of your favorite fabric cut to length of your mattress and enough elastic to stretch around your mattress. Dana from Made really did a great job explaining this so I'm going to refer you back to her site. I love this fabric so much she may get a dust ruffle too. I have more baby things to make today, like a monkey flannel blanket. It is plain white with brown monkey outlines which I plan on coloring a pastel pink with Fabric Markers by Marvy Uchida  and Sharpie. I ended up using four colors; bright and pastel pink then a pastel and dark purple. Then I will cut it to receiving blanket size and hopefully there will be enough for wipes, too. Back to work I go!

New designs in the works!

So I'm taking a short vacation from my day job and have come up with new designs. The first one is a tank dress with a box pleated skirt. I have the just the fabric for the skirt, it is a red and black plaid. Now to find the right material for the top and I am thinking a black jersey would be great. I have just enough for a girls size 8/10 top too. Here is my sketch for it.

I think a pattern print would work great with this too. However I'm on a no spend month in June and have to use up some of my stash. My stash has began to overrun my room and I can't really move around in there. So I will have pictures of fabric up soon. Long this line I'm thinking of drop waist dresses with feather fringe at the hem, still working out the design details on this one.

 

UPDATE to New baby on the way

Here are the pictures of the fabric for her baby! I love this giraffe print and cant wait to finish the crib sheet. Got this fabric from Wal-Mart for about $6.00 a yard.

Sorry I have the worst webcam. Here is one of the blankets that I will be selling on Craftsu.com.

This blanket has the Noah Ark scene on the front and tan leaves on the back. I'll post when I get a better camera or just find mine and will have pictures up for Craftsu.com.

This is the patty reed jungle babies blanket and it will be on Craftsu soon.

I will have better pictures soon.

 

Here are some pics

Some I haven't had a chance to get on and  show off my new creations. So here they are;

lite jacket

The rest of the dress I showed in a perivsous post. Its such a cute dress on my duaghter.

 Sorry we have had a long few months since I last posted.

Joined CRAFTSU!

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am now selling my designs on the site CRAFTSU.com. Right now I only have one item up but there will be more before the month is out. Also I currently have the zebra print dress selling online at eBay for the next 5 days, then it will be moved to CRAFTSU.



Here is the eBay  address: http://www.ebay.com/itm/280945422678?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649 Check it out!!

Just a quick note!

Since I haven't posted lately I thought I'd talk about a dress I am designing. This dress came about from one of my projects for fashion design class. The original design is for an adult, which I hope to make later down the line.  Okay I'll have to post a picture of both designs tonight after the kids are in bed, mainly because I need to find them (the pictures not the kids:)). Well the design is similar to a pinafore dress however this one has a built in bustle. The bustle allows the underskirt to push out from under the top skirt. With this design the under dress is only seen from the back. The original dress the over skirt attaches with a invisible zipper, so I am working to incorporate that feature in the child's dress. I have two sets of fabric picked out for this design. These fabrics are neon colors and very bright, just not in the pictures. The child's dress will have a full bodice without sleeves. I am still deciding on a sweetheart neckline or a rounded one. I will have a mock up done by this weekend  as long as every goes as planned.

The fabrics are brighter then in the picture.

The top fabric has neon colors in it.