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. 

6 Pocket pants for the boy!

So almost done with the 6 pocket pants for my son, well with the mock- up pants in white muslin with red Velcro. Instead of doing a full thigh pocket like the pattern I did a half pocket on both legs. For the pair in fashion fabric the pockets will have exposed zippers in place of the Velcro.  The pants are almost done I just need to decide if the closure will be a zipper and button or just an elasticized waistband. The pattern calls for an elasticized waistband, but what 7 year old wants that? So I have to do a fly zipper and button for the closure. Now to just find the perfect fashion fabric for him. Black fabric with blue bug fabric for the contrasting pockets and lining. Will have pictures soon as the kiddos go down for their naps this afternoon.

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.

Box pleated skirt!

Here is my first box pleated skirt, I just like the way it fits my daughter and can't wait to make one for my niece. I found this pattern on the site called www.fleecefun.com and it is free if you want to give it a try. I was having a hard time getting my pleated design to work, so I went looking for one to make to figure out what I am doing wrong. For her pattern you have to cut each piece and sew them together to make the pleats. For my pattern I was not making my pleat uniform in size, so I kept messing it up. When you have an impatient daughter it can get a little stressful. ( This could be why I sew when they are asleep or not around me.)

 I love her pattern but not the waist band, so I changed it. Instead of a thin elastic waist band, I had a ex-large elastic skirt band laying around..... Well I loved that look. I will take better pictures when I get a chance tomorrow, after I finish with work. I have a temp job taking care of some really great kids. I'll miss spending time with them once school starts.

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.

Gift for new daddy!

So my sister's baby shower is a week away and I just got the baby's name on the blanket. However the father of the child now wants to change it, nice, huh? So I don't know if I should finish sewing the name onto the fleece or wait, but my sister says that's her name. So what should I do? Has anyone ever run into this issue?   On another note, here is his baby gift from me.  I know.... they are having a girl but he is such a broncos fan that even her older sister watches the games every Sunday. Now he has a soft and warm blanket to wrap her up in.

The blanket is made from 1 yard of patterned fleece with blanket binding. I love this binding because it is so soft and silky against the baby's skin. I folded the yard in half so it will be warm enough during football season. Then you place the blanket binding around all the edges and pin in place. Make sure to not make the edges meet at the corner. it is very hard to get the binding to stay just right when you sew. Once everything is pinned sew using a blanket stitch (if your machine has one) or a wide zigzag stitch. Wow! its just that easy and the special daddy won't mind whenever you drop by. ;)

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!

Sewing question? Rib Knit Bias tape cut on grain or bias?

Have a sewing question for anyone, I am putting pink rib knit bias tape around the edges of a pink and white polka dot piece of fleece.  My question is do I cut the rib knit on the bias which is not as stretchy or on straight grain which is very stretchy? I know when you make bias tape from woven cotton it is cut on the bias for the stretch, however rib knit is stretchy on the straight grain. So how do I this? I only have one piece of the pink rib knit as it was the leftovers.

Stretched on the straight grain

                                       

Stretched on the bias

 

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.

 

First Teddy Bear

So I'm getting a little off course, but that's ok. My niece's 3rd birthday is coming up and I wanted to get her a bear like the ones my kids have. Since she is a rough 3 year old I decided spending that much money was not feasible. The bears are build a bears and we all know much that costs. ( Theirs came from their grandma.) So after searching the web for free patterns I found one that is close to the build a bear workshop one my kids have.  I got the pattern from, http://www.teddy-talk.com/viewtopic.php?id=10094, which is free, however one can not sell the bears made from this pattern. I didn't follow the pattern perfectly because I chose to leave off the disks and pegs for the joints. As I stated early she tends throw objects at you so I wanted it to be soft.

I did put blue flower buttons on the arms and legs to give them some movement. I love the green bubble skirt and the  80s inspired gym shirt. Sorry pictures are very bad, hopefully I will have my camera back soon.

New baby on the way, which means new stuff to make!

I'm so excited to say that my sister is going to have a baby and I get to make lots of stuff for him or her. We don't know if baby will be a boy or girl just yet, but that hasn't stopped me. She is going with the jungle babies theme and I love it. So far everything we have found is as cute as can be. I found a lot of the Patty Reed fabric in jungle babies at Joann's and Hancock's. So she is getting a crib set in third generation of jungle babies, I have the comforter made with a backing of monkeys swinging along. The crib sheet will the same monkeys as the back of the comforter.  I'll have pictures up soon and am just too excited to contain it. 

I wrote the top half of this post weeks ago, just thought I would mention it.

She is having a girl, so I have added pink to the collection. I do have a patty reed jungle collection blanket for sale. It is the 2nd generation design with swinging monkeys in blue as the backing.
Here is one of my fabric choices for the sheet set to go with her crib set. I love the print with the giraffes hidden in it.  Will post the picture as soon as I can get it off my phone.

A pretty girl gets a pretty dress

While in Michigan with my family, I decided to make a dress for my niece. So I went looking for a pattern. And after sereaching for a couple of days I found a cute one, which has a quiltted front with a wide skirt. It's a really cute idea I just didn't have enough fabric to complete the design. So I changed the elements and it became a bib dress. The top is made up of two fat quaters and the skirt is white muslin. The dress is 100% cotton and is just right for summer. The buttons match the purple flower base of the bodice. I choose to make it a tank top and used bais tape to finish off the armcyles.