March: Nursery

Today you get to see the nursery:) It's basically done, as in the walls are painted, the carpet is installed, the trim is even in!!! We have most of babe's stuff in there but haven't hung anything on the walls yet, nor have we figured out the queen size bed supports. Right now it's just a mattress on the floor with the quilt draped over it. But when Mom and Dad come they'll have somewhere to sleep other than the pull out couch with a bar that shoves into your backside no matter which way you lie. Our poor guests:P

This block is as finished as it is now. I made the queen duvet cover, crib quilt, change table cover and summer swaddle blanket.

Gifts and in progress shots of projects. Homemade baby wipes, burp cloths, receiving blankets, quilt planning, cradle (that Aaron slept in when he was wee), homemade cradle sheet, Aaron's "goodnight moon" quilt from when he was little and the mobile pieces.

The grunt work. The baby room has taken more time than any other project in our house! We ended up re-drywalling the whole thing as it was in such bad shape. At that point Aaron had the bright idea of twinkle lights and beams. I mean, why do it simply when you have the option of making it complicated?!?!

Project 360: Week 2

This week I actually took some photos. Here goes:

The bump at 27 weeks and one of my new maternity skirts! As in someone gave me an old like VOLUPTUOUS, twirly skirt and I remade it into something sane with stretchy stuff for the belly. The pattern is from Simplicity 2451 only I modified it. Substantially. See cause I got this growth....... If anyone actually cares how I modified it comment with your email and I'll give you the juicy details:)

homemade skirt for ME!

I had a mid calf length white skirt with gold beads along the waistband that I had bought on sale at superstore a loooong while ago. Yes, beads. I decided the beads had to go as I'm not really a bead kinda person ya know?! It took me hours to take them all off and they had stained the white fabric black wherever the beads had touched the fabric. So time to remake the skirt. I had a pattern that I wanted to try out so I took apart the skirt and saved the zipper and hook thingy and recut it. TADA! And then the cut out pieces sat on our bedroom chair for about a month as my sewing things are in disarray. Like massive disarray. Yesterday I figured it was time to bring orderliness to the sewing stuff so I organized while listening to an audio book of grace livingston hill (lame, I know). Then I went to work sewing the pieces together. WOOT a new skirt!!!!! (I also had to tear apart all my newly organized stuff looking for things like a very specific piece of interfacing that I couldn't remember where I had put. So now I need to reorganize everything. Poor Aaron. He comes home and the living room is covered from head to toe in sewing junk!)

Also. I did NOT miss my calling as a model (or a hairdresser). BAHAHAHA:P

This is made from a Simplicity 2451 view D which I tossed the pockets, added some length and adjusted the waist larger in order for the skirt to sit lower. There's some things I'd change but it went together pretty well. AND my first zipper! It pulls a little bit to one side but I don't care enough to fix it for THE MILLIONTH TIME.

in case my sister has a girl

So my sister was due some days ago. I think we all need to start cheering baby on so it'll come meet us all. I won't be meeting him/her until July so I guess it doesn't affect me but, poor mommy:( So I had this purse from a different sister that I got red pen all over and couldn't get the stain out. I thought I'd fix it by making something else. A wee shirt to wear with a turtleneck underneath and jeans. (Please ignore the lining that doesn't match. I wanted the inside to feel cozy and didn't.... ah.... like.... look at the combo before sewing.) Tada:

Yah. Unfortunately I forgot in my cutting frenzie to actually CUT THE STAIN OUT. So it's still there. AND I also accidently cut the fabric (sound familiar?!) so it has this weird zigzag patch. So, since I had made so many booboos I had to give it to someone understanding. So Carla gets it. Isn't that nice of me:P HAHA! Don't worry this isn't the real baby gift. That would be mean. If she has another wee boy it'll sit in Carla's closet until SOMEONE IN OUR FAMILY HAS A GIRL! Or we find someone else understanding. Here's the purse the fabric came from, I think it came from Payless?:

little boy gifts??

You can't sew a little boy a dress as a gift. So I wracked the internet and my brain for ideas. I first attempted some bow ties. My nephews vetoed that idea. "Too tight!!" I figured, what was the point spending all that time and energy making something that they didn't even like. One of my brother-in-laws also thought they were way too girly and not manly enough for his future business partner!)

I haven't solved my problem of finding things to make for big little boys but I did find a cute tutorial for wee boys (or girls). It's a goofball! I've seen them in stores but this took the guesswork out of sizing. There's a couple thing's I'd change next time but it worked out pretty well. You could also sew snaps, buttons or velcro to make the toy more entertaining. It's hard finding quiet toys for events/church gatherings so I thought this was pretty perfect. Oh- to stop an active kid from launching it as some old man's head??? Use a soother/pacifier clip to clip the ball to an item. I paired this with a burp cloth made out of two layers of flannel and voila! Baby boy gift!

Sorry this is an awful picture. I didn't have time to take one at home so I had to unwrap the present in the truck and take the photo on my lap. Oops. You get the idea though. (You can't see in the photo but I centered different animals in each section- a giraffe, monkey and lion.)

darning little lime dresses

You know that lime dress I made my niece? It was sitting on the ironing board along with two of Aaron's dress shirts. Not a big deal right? So I'm cutting some fabric for a burb cloth and I feel some extra thickness. Yes, I was cutting material on my ironing board. Oops. I cut the lime dress. I came about 1/2" away from cutting one of Aaron's dress shirts. Oops. Ohhhhhhh man. Now I need to figure out how to hide the cut. Right now I have some interfacing ironed on the backside but I think I might need to take the skirt off the dress and take in the side seam a bit. Fortunately the cut is about 3/4" from the seam. BLEH. Or I'll just darn it. That'll look pretty. Here it is the way it used to look before I attacked it:

busy busy and more busy (and I don't have kids)

This week's been crazy. Although I can't altogether recall what all has happened....

I. am. exhausted.

So here's another itty bitty dress sized up to a six monther (free pattern is from made-by-rae.com!!). I think. I kinda guessed. If I'm off she can wear it with a turtle neck and tights when she's two:P Anyway- I started making it about 4 months ago and finished about a week ago. I made myself promise myself that I wouldn't start any new projects until the old ones were all wrapped up!

See I have RED fabric for a RED skirt that I'm going to make me, and did I mention it's going to be RED?! I have been looking for one for a couple years and had given up. You only get to see it if it turns out though. See- it has a zipper. A hidden zipper. Oh glory be I'm growing up. I've never even looked in the zipper aisle in the fabric store before. It's scary. But see- I wanted a red skirt.

dresses, limes and summer

My mother-in-law gave me a stack of fabric that she wasn't using and one of the pieces was orange with limes and little red hearts. How perfect is that for a lovable mexican baby?!

It's also a Butterick B5107 size newborn but I changed some stuff up. (Note: this is NOT a newborn size.) It has only one tier for the skirt, I added a contrast strip below the bodice and I changed the back closure so I didn't need any notions. Unfortunately I didn't really think the whole "how is the lining going to attach to itself" and created a problem that made the dress take forever to make because I left it draped over the sewing machine and tried not to think about it. Anyway it's done and if I do say so myself it doesn't look all that bad unless you get real close! So please stay approximately 2' away from your computer while looking at these photos. Thanks.

(I go outside to look for something to take pictures of the dress on and realize there's this perfect and completely random hook in the side of the garage. Also a wind chime?? Never noticed that before!)

hairbow rerun

Is this better? And if you say no then I challenge you to take a picture of the back of your head while managing to not look deranged, get your head in the photo, get massive bow in the photo and to not look deranged. At least in these I only look like I'm in a raging mad mood.

Good quote: "Treat your kitchen like a business; you will spend more money there than anywhere else..."

houndstooth hair bow

I told my two sisters that I would make little bow ties for their little boys and this is what I ended up with:

I used a combination of numbers I had found online but it looked massive! Note: if you make one of these babies 6"x3" is too large for a two year old. I had Carla measure T's neck width and am going to make the next one that wide (3.25" finished width). I'll also use a wider strip of fabric down the middle- more like a neck tie knot.

Now I need to decide if a hair bow looks ridiculous on me!

aprons and wee dresses

I made an apron for Hannah's (my sister-in-law) shower gift and had some extra scrap so I made an itty bitty baby dress. I got the free pattern from made-by-rae and it's super easy- no buttons or zippers!! She also has a number of other tutorials and free patterns that look cool, although I haven't tried anything else yet.

The photo was taken on the living room floor. I cannot wait until it's refinished as it gives me a million slivers a day. Very annoying. I promise it looks way better on Hannah than on the floor but her schedule was too packed for a photo shoot.

Oh- by the way- we just went through a snow and ice storm so it no longer looks like spring:(

houndstooth skirt

Our bible conference is in a week and being newly married there isn't gobs of cash floating around for a new outfit that I have no need of. So I remade an old skirt. It was a winner. Trust me. I know I have pictures of it somewhere but haven't looked. Anyway- It was about 3 inches higher than my ankles and was a-line to my knees then had big pleats from the knees down the rest of the length. I had gotten it at value village way back when. (My sister-in-laws would call that one of my awkward stages.) I haven't worn it in years.

So I hacked the belt off, brought in various seams, hemmed it up to my knees and put in a gathered pleat thing in the back. I might bring it in a tad more and do a blind hem but likely not.

What think ye?

Funny how large it looks compared to baby clothes. The background is the people door to the garage.

inside out fabric

I'm up to 17 followers!! And I haven't even offered you guys anything free! Maybe one day....

So another wee dress done. I'm not as happy with this one as I made it up out of my head and it isn't as poofy as I thought it would be. (Note to self: sometimes math helps when figuring out the width of tiers of fabrics to make them poofy..... OR looking at other patterns for guidance instead of winging it!)

My mother-in-law gave me this fabric from her stash and it's a little thin. So I figured I'd just make the whole dress lined and instead it turned into a reversible dress. Unfortunately, the side I like better (which was supposed to be the wrong side) I accidently sewed one piece in backwards so the wrong side is facing out. ARGH. This one is also going to Penny's girl.

Oh- and it was hard to take pictures of the dress because it was so floppy, so sorry these aren't the greatest. The backgrounds are the floor upstairs (which we are carpeting eventually) and the wall in the spare room (which is now serving as a materials room).

dove grey pillow shams that are all about love

Some pillow shams that I made for our bed but..... I don't know.... the colour's off or something. So here they are hanging on the wall in our stairwell (because that's where everyone display's pillows!).

I did a cheat closure on the backs because I am scared of zippers. Like even that isle at Joanne's scares me. One day I'll have to learn how to put one in. Oh- haha! about learning new things. My sewing machine was really acting up two days ago with the top thread breaking every couple of stiches. I tried my hardest to fix it/force it into submission. Nothing worked. Called my mom. She suggest I read my manual. (And change out my heavy weight denim needle for a light cotton one. oops.) LAMMMMMEEEEEEE. I found out that I had been threading my bobbin clockwise instead of counter-clockwise. Problem fixed. I felt very stupid.

sewing little dresses

Aaron's sister, Penny, is having a little baby girl in about a month and so I've been doing some sewing for her. She lives in Mexico so I don't need to worry about sizes corresponding to summer dresses! Because sizes are a pain. This pattern said this was supposed to be for a 6 month baby but it doesn't look that wee. Anyway, whenever it fits, it fits. And if it's always too chubby for her babies she can give it back to me when I have some as I'm sure to have chubby ones:P

Now the bloomers. I have no idea what bloomers are supposed to even look like but these things look rather unproportioned. My mother says that, that's what diapers do to kids rear ends but I guess I've never had to notice?! Also notice some threads I forgot to clip showing up. Oops. Just ignore them. Oh- and that's the siding on our front porch, as with it all it needs some tlc (or a sledgehammer).

Happy Birthday to David and Penny's little one!

This is a Butterick B5017 size small (13-17lbs).