Blanket pants for the little mr. in your life

We are spring cleaning this month and I started with the youngest kid's room. Found a few of these old blankets that come with stuffed figures. Well my kids are to big to sleep with them, as I have been told on a few occasions (like every time I put them on their beds.) So in spirit of spring cleaning I found a great way to keep the blanket, yet make it usable.  I made lounge/sleep pants for my "little" man based off the tutorial at The Ribbon Retreat Blog, that my mom used. It's a great blog spot, so check it out. The tutorial is pretty easy to follow. The blanket was too small in length so I used the leftover material to lengthen the pants, plus used material for a waistband. My son loves his jammies!
http://www.theribbonretreat.com/blog/pajama-pants-tutorial.html

Red Rocker Girl Skirt!

Finally perfected the pleated skirt in the "new designs coming post," so love the wide pleats. Now this skirt has a exposed metal zipper with red tape (with placket), to give it a rocker feel. This skirt sits low on the hips and looks great with black or white tank tops or t-shirts. The fabric is mock dupini silk and has a great sheen to it. It's a perfect skirt to go dancing at the school  dance in. The prefect rocker girl outfit.



Side view with zipper

It also has a Monster High feel for the more "grown-up" girl, which

is my duaghter's new fave.



Front View

                                                                                                                       

 

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.

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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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.