A Froggy Hippy Hippy Snap

A gift for an online friend who's expecting a baby girl:

The nitty gritty:

Hippy Hippy Snap pattern

flannel outer

killington flannel hidden (*love* this stuff!)

cotton velour inner

Aplix closures

lay-in contour soaker of terry topped with matching cotton velour (not pictured)

I hope she likes it!

Whoops!

Earlier this summer, I had a little piece of denim left over from another project and decided to make T some shorts out of it. I very cleverly maneuvered the pieces to fit them onto the fabric and use up that itty bitty piece. But . . . I neglected to pay any attention to whether or not the right sides were facing up! LOL!

I let the pieces sit in my sewing basket until a couple nights ago, when I decided to say "heck with it" and sew them up and consider the mismatched pieces a "design element" instead of a flaw.





I *love* them! I wish I had sewn them up right away so T could wear them this summer. At least we usually have plenty of warm days in September.

Every Little Boys Needs a Star Wars Diaper

I think this is my favorite diaper I've ever sewn. I just like everything about it. :-)

It's a pocket fitted from the VB AIO pattern. The outer is flannel, and the inner is two layers of birdseye. Love the birdseye!



The front pocket is so easy to sew. I think I may add a little flap of some kind next time to encourage the insert to stay put:



And since my new sewing machine has an alphabet function, I stitched in a little something to help me remember this diaper is a size medium long:

Just in Time for Summer

I finally finished the BBO mei tai I've had cut out forever. I love it! I put T in it and walked around the yard for a while, and it felt pretty good. Then I put it on again to show hubby when he got home, and it felt even better. I think I tied it just a bit diferently, and it felt more secure and the weight was distributed better.

Here it is in all it's rumpled glory (I couldn't get a decent shot of it all spread out, and this actually shows the fabric better.)

Just in time for summer trips to the zoo and hiking. Hope it works for hiking! We shall see . . .

More Sewing for T--Birthday Outfit

That's right--a birthday outfit! I can't believe my baby boy is two!



(Pardon the little stray thread on the front of the shirt--I just noticed it as I was posting.)

The shirt is from Kwik Sew's Sewing for Toddlers, and the pants are from Kwik Sew pattern no. 2858.

I still need to hem the bottom of the shirt (it's currently just serged with white thread ), but my regular sewing machine is out of commission, so I'll just have to wait until my new one arrives. (Oh yes, I'm getting a new sewing machine! I'm over the moon excited!)

I see lots more of these little t-shirts in our future--especially since knits come in 60" wide pieces.

Thanks for looking!

My First Kwik Sew

I got my Kwik Sew's Sewing for Toddlers in the mail yesterday, so I promptly traced the pattern for the T-shirt, hacked into my favorite old long-sleeve T-shirt that's too well-loved for me to wear any longer, and made this little number for T.



I messed up the neckline, but other than that I'm fairly happy. I even salvaged the wrist cuffs from the original T-shirt and cut the body pieces so that I kept the original cover-stitched hems (my regular sewing machine doesn't have stretch stitch and doesn't handle knits well at all.) I tried to do a neck band of self-fabric, but even with the addititonal length that they suggest for self-fabric neckbands, there was no way I could get it to stretch all the way around the neck hole. So I trimmed off the offending fabric and used some gray ribbing from my stash (not really a matching gray, but not too bad). So the neck is pretty saggy baggy. My next try will be better, I'm sure! Really, Kwik Sew must be pretty idiot proof. If I, with my newbie serger skills and a recycled T-shirt, can make something cute and wearable . . . ? I'm sold!

I just bought a bunch of cute interlock at Joann's to make him some more T-shirts for his birthday. I think I'll try the raglan pattern next.

A Bunch of Sewing!

Here's the result of a recent burst of diaper-sewing productivity:


Medium Mile Hight Monkeys fleece cover


Two medium Fattycakes pocket fitteds with side-closing Aplix


Medium Chloe Toes pocket fitted, turned and topstitched


Medium Chloe Toes pocket fitted, turned and topstitched


Rita's Rump Pocket one-size-fits-most flannel pocket fitted


Medium Fattycakes pocket fitted


Medium Chloe Toes fitted with Aplix, and an RRP

Fattycakes and the End of the Wool Soaker Parade

My first Fattycakes diaper. (Can you tell this flannel print is my practice fabric? Not the most boyish print--ahem!--but it's covered up by a soaker, and it was cheap, cheap, cheap.)



Turned out cute, don't you think? I don't have a snap press, so I had to wing it with some snaps and a snap kit from Joann's. The snaps are pretty wonky and not placed quite right (too far in from the edges on the front), but it works. I may try front-closing Aplix next time. I just wanted to follow the pattern as closely as I could the first time around (though I did tack and encase the elastic instead of zig zagging it on, since my Lastin isn't here yet and all I have is polybraid, which doesn't work well with the zig zag on my sewing machine.)

And here's the final soaker for T's summer stash of woolies. Sorry about the crummy pics. Apparently, my camera doesn't like this color, or maybe the lighting is just bad today. The bottom photo shows the color better. (It's still not quite right though--it's a sage green. It looks exactly like the color of sage leaves to me IRL.)




Pattern: Fern and Faerie pattern #406
Yarn: Patons Classic Merino, sage
Needles: US sizes 3 and 5 and (and 4 for the flat knit portion of the body, since my tension is looser for flat knitting than knitting in the round)
Mods: started with fewer stitches for the waistband and then increased for the hips in the first row of stockinette.

I really like this pattern. The cool thing is that it includes instructions for both a soaker (flat or in the round) and longies (flat or in the round), and they're all customizable to the body measurements you need. You knit a gauge swatch, take a few measurements, plug the numbers into the formula, and voila! The perfect fit for your babe. Awesome!

Another Diap = Another Post!

I got my Chloe Toes diaper pattern in the mail this afternoon, and I just finished my first diap from it. Love this pattern! It was my first try at FOE (fold-over elastic), and I flubbed it up pretty badly. (It doesn't show in the pic, but trust me, it's not pretty!) Note to self: Buy 1" FOE. 5/8" is a PITB! Crummy binding job and all, I'm still really excited about how the diap turned out. I think I'm an FOE convert. And, of course, a pic:

No Pins!

I did a bit of sewing during T's nap today. I wanted to try a turned and topstitched fitted diaper. (I made two fitted cloth diaps a while back, but they're pitiful. I tried to just overcast the edge on my regular sewing machine to simulate a serged finish, and it looks pretty crummy. They're somewhat usable but ugly. You can see one of them here.)

I think this one turned out pretty nice. It's not perfect, but I like it.




I used the free Ottobre pattern online. I made the smaller size (which is supposed to fit newborn to six months) and turned and topstitched without adding a seam allowance. It turned out way big (which I had heard, so that's why I did the smaller size). It's more like a size large, which is perfect for T. Now I just have to try it on him and see if it's a good fit.

I used a single layer of flannel for the inner and a single layer of flannel for the outer, and I sewed in an interior soaker of microfiber terry and flannel. It's pretty thick and cushy, so I'm thinking I shouldn't have to boost it with a doubler. We'll see . . . I've never used microfiber before.

UPDATE: The legs are pretty gappy. If I make more of these, I'll be sure to add a seam allowance, at least around the legs. Otherwise, it fits pretty nicely.

A Little Bit of Sewing

Last week I was itching to do a little (very little) bit of sewing, so I whipped up this sock sack using this tutorial. It's not perfect, but I love it anyway. There are definitely more of these in my future. (Do you recognize the sock--or I should say yarn from the former sock--that's currently inhabiting the sack?)