Recent sewing items

Sorry I haven't been a very good blogger. I do have a few new items to post if blogger will allow  me to post pictures. The first item is a dress made of condoms for the Boulder Women's Health center  Condom Couture back in September. My model was great and looked awesome that night.

The next item is a monster high bustle for my daughter's birthday party.  I did it in yellow and gery because those were the colors on hand. It was a fun and fast project, the total price was less then $10.00, so I'm not complaining.

I guess that is all for now. I will be back soon.

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 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.

Halloween Costume pieces

So it's been busy around here, we have had health issues to deal with and birthday parties to plan.
Now that its calmed down around here...... I have been working on Halloween costume pieces for the kids. My daughter is going to be a princess, but all the dresses we found at resale shops are sleeveless. That doesn't work well for the weather here in Colorado, so I came up with a crop jacket with bell sleeves and "gloves." The gloves are glove less and come up to mid-arm, I currently don't have a picture of these. They are still getting gold glitter designs for a more detailed look. Here is the jacket to go with the pink princess dress. The gold glitter really adds the finishing touches to the jacket. It looks like I bought them together, so happy with it.

The next piece is a Spiderman cape for my son. We are doing recycled/handmade holidays  this year, so his Spiderman costume is getting make over with a spider web cape and hat with the same design as his costume.  We found the mask to his costume this week. It was in a box still unpacked from a trip back in February. I'm still working on the hat.

 So I think the cape needs a backing fabric like red or blue, something that matches the color of his costume. My husband thinks it looks okay like it is.

 

Costume change for Batman dress!

The Batman dress gets a costume change! I love the red tulle so much more then the pink and I added a tulle flower. Plus I found another sweet character shirt that can't wait to be something new!   This dress is going in the Just Between Friends Sale next week (much to my daughter's disappointment.) She loves the dress and wants to buy it with her allowance. I'm torn about giving it to her or selling it, the shirt was bought to make and sell but she wants it. Anyone have any thoughts on my issue?

 The first dress with pink tulle, the red is so much better!

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.

Capri pants for Fall 2013

With Fall around the corner, what does one make for the new season? I think Capri pants are perfect for the hot days and then warm evenings. So going through my fabric stash I found a gorgeous gingham and a denim looking stretch cotton. The gingham is a soft teal with petite squares, that looks adorable on my model. I just didn't getting pictures of her with the pants on :(. The denim is dark blue with orange on the inside. The third pair is sparkly purple plaid with teal lines.

 This is a bad picture for the stretch denim, but they are still cute! I used a contrasting material for the inside waistband which really goes with the orange. I so need to get pictures of these on my model. Here is a better picture with a third pair of Capri.

 The pair on top is the stretch denim with the contrasting waistband. I love the rounded pockets on the teal gingham, and sparkly purple plaid has a contrasting waistband in teal green. What's great about these pants is their length! I love how they work for cool and hot days. 

Upcycled boys t-shirts!

Do you have a pile of kids t-shirts that are full of holes, but the design is still good? Well as spring/summer cleaning has taken place, there are a ton of shirts that need a new purpose. So here's how  you diminish your old wear shirts, when Michaels or Jo Ann's has plain colored sheet on sale buy as many as you need. Then cut out the design with a small edge around it, either hand sew or machine sew the pieces to the new shirt. To make the designs look different you can dye, or stitch different directions through the design. The limit is your imagination! The two shirts I did, had so limits to them, one has plastic one it and other has puffy paint which doesn't work so well with the needle.

Handmade BookBags for the new school year

This post is very late, due to my niece tossing a cup of soda on my computer. I had to wait until I could afford a new one or a cleaning. Which I went for the cleaning, here is my backpack post!

 My kids needed new book bags because their bags ripped by the end of the year. Which in itself is pretty good, due to the cheap quality of Wal-Mart products. So being as cheap as Wal-Mart, we dug through my fabric stash and found a bolt of bag fabric. Having found this at Good Will, over the summer, for $4.00 it was a steal. The original plan was to sell it on eBay, but I kind of got attached to it. I do that with all the fabric I buy or find. It's a bad habit, when you need to downsize your stash. The first bag is a messenger bag for my girl. It is a white base with pink, neon green, and brown polka dots. I had some quilted pink for the lining. The supplies for this bag came totally from my stash (yay!). The pattern for this bag came from another messenger bag, but I added way more pockets on the inside and one on the outside.

 The next bag is a backpack design, which I used his bag from last year as the pattern, however I know for next time, there needs to have at least 3 inches added to the pattern to make it big enough. I seem to have forgotten that little boys love to pack everything they can into it for school. (Even if it shouldn't go to school.) So this bag cost me about $8.00 to make because I needed 2 yards of black fabric, half yard of bright yard fabric and iron on letters. I would have made the letters however I could not find the interfacing when I needed it. We all know that kids like new book bags on the first day of school. So one of his shirts has a batman sign on it and I used it for the design pattern by free hand drawing the shapes. The straps came off of another bag that was beyond repair. The zipper is from my zipper box, you can find the best deals for zippers on eBay.

If you would like a yard of the Polka Dot bag fabric, just leave a note in the comments and I will get back to you details.

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.

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.

 

New swim suit for my picky 8 year old.

Note to self when packing up a swim suit make sure you have all the pieces in one box. I have been searching for the bottoms to her suit as the summer days heat up by 830 am. Well after weeks of looking through boxes and boxes, I'm giving up and trying my hand at making one. So I sat down and traced a pair of her undies, made  a mock-up and did a fitting. The first mock-up was too short in back area with her crack showing. From there I made a better pattern with a new mock-up which fit great! Now it's time to cut and sew the real thing from swim suit/ dance wear fabric in neon green. It's doesn't look like neon green with the web cam, but it is (I so need my camera back.)

 

This goes back to packing things that go together in one box, one day I will learn my lesson (Battery charger and battery go together).  So the first try in the swim suit material needs to be fix the elastic is too loose and back to the sewing machine I go!

So this is the swimsuit bottom before I fix it. Once I get the elastic pulled off I will redo it and update the post.

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.