Cleaning and downsizing

That's what I've been doing in the sewing room for the last month. :/ My husband has decided that he's going to get out of the military and go back to school. Whoo-hoo! I'm actually really excited to be done with the military life. It's been good for our family, but it's time to move on. Unfortunately, he still has a little over a year left before he can get out, and he got orders back to Iraq for another 8 months, leaving in the next couple months. Sooo, the kids and I are moving in with my mom and dad in February, where we'll be until Josh is done with school. (he wants to go to school in Seattle, and we just can't afford for all of us to live there)

That brings us the the cleaning and downsizing. Since most of our stuff will be in storage for about 3 years, we decided that we really needed to downsize, and the easiest place to start is the sewing room....of course. LOL Actually it hasn't been traumatizing at all. In fact it's been pretty liberating, being able to get rid of so much of my fabrics and threads
(I've gotten rid of 97 spools of serger thread so far, and I still have over 50 left! Who on earth needs that many??). I have/had so many fabrics that I love, but unfortunately I loved them so much I couldn't even bring myself to use them (like this huge stash of Heather Ross fabrics). It feels great to be able to rid myself of them, because I know I'll never use them, so they may as well be sold so that someone else can use them (or maybe they'll just horde them too lol). :)

I'm limiting myself to 5 boxes of fabrics that I can keep, and that IT! I have one box for my bamboo jerseys, which I use for sewing my shirts, one box of knit prints, for the kids, one box of wovens, and then 2 long totes that will hold my bamboo fleece and velour that I use for diapers (which I'm still hoping I'll have a need for sometime). That'll still allow me to have enough fabrics and variety that I'll be able to sew anything I want without having to buy any extras.

I've sold quite a bit of stuff on sewingmamas.com (a sewing forum I'm on), and ebay (for the more valuable stuff), but I've got so much more fabrics to sell that I think I may just list it as one big lot on craigslist. Has anyone had much luck selling or even buying fabrics there?

Christmas Eve PJs

One of our family traditions is opening one gift on Christmas Eve. My parents did this with my sister and I, and we've carried it on. However my husband and I streamlined this a little bit by always giving the same gift; pjs to wear that night. :)

Sometimes they have matching pjs, sometimes not. This year I decided to go with matching, because it's been a couple years since we've done it this way.

I found a super cute penguin flannel at JoAnns, and bought was I thought was "more" than enough, and ended up only having about 2 inches left over. :/ At least there was enough though, and I didn't have to hunt down more. I used a different, matching, color of cotton/lycra jersey to make shirts for each of them, so they match, but not too much so. Cortney has pink, Ryley has red, Jacob has green and Jordan has orange.



Please ignore all the string on the floor. It makes the sewing room feel a little more used if I leave them there. :p

Blocked no more!

I think I finally got over the sewing block, now I just need to get over the picture taking block. lol I've sewn 4 shirts for myself and 7 cloth diapers in the last week, but I haven't photographed a single thing yet. I cut out a pair of pjs for my 7 year old, but I haven't gotten around to actually sewing them yet, but I'm going to try to get that done today. And I'm hoping to convince my DH to play photographer, so I can get some pictures updated.

So what have all of you been sewing recently, and are good sharing photos of your latest work?

Sewing block?

If writers can get writing block, does that mean that sewers can get sewing block? I think it must be possible, because it's happening to me. I want to sew, really I do. But I walk into the sewing room, see all the fabrics, look through all the patterns, then uninspired, I walk back out of the sewing room. Anyone know how to cure sewers block?

another Soap Nuts giveaway!

Passionate Homemaking is doing another giveaway for Soap Nuts, only this time it's a liquid version!! To be entered you just need to go the the website and leave a comment, and then for a second entry just blog about it.

A few more burp cloths and an outfit

Here's another outfit with a matching bib (pattern here) that I made today. I really need to just wait until it's daylight outside before taking these pictures, but I never remember until it's dark, but I hate the horrible lighting. Anyone one know of a good, and cheap, artificial light setup for photos?

And here's 6 more of the burp cloths that I shared yesterday. I really, really can't believe how fast and easy these are to sew. I can see myself making loads of these when I want to sew, but don't know what to sew.

Burp cloths, receiving blankets and onsies

A friend of mine posted a link to this free New Conceptions burp cloth pattern, and I decided to try it out yesterday.....

LOL I *LOVE* simple and quick projects, and this is both simple and quick, so I made up 10 of them and still have 5 more cut out. I used flannel as the top layer and organic bamboo fleece as the bottom layer. There's also 2 receiving blankets I made, one is done just by serging the edges and one done with mitered corners. Serging is definitely quicker, but I like te look of the mitered corners better.

Here's a few onsies I made yesterday as well. The 3 on the left are made using Kwik Sew 2433, and the 2 on the right are from Ottobre 5-06. the Kwik Sew pattern seems to run wide, but maybe I just don't remember how chubby babies can be. ;)

A sweet newborn outfit...

I made this sweet newborn outfit for a very dear online friend of I mine who's expecting a little girl. I'm super pleased with how it turned out, and I hope she loves it.

Gown and hat are kwik-sew patterns, and dipe is a very baby fitted.

I really want to sew, but....

my sewing room is a disaster!! I have several projects that I need to get done, including my sisters b-day present. (her b-day was last Tuesday :S ) I just can't do anything in the room when it's that bad, and unfortunately I know I can't, because it gets that bad frequently.

Anyone want to help clean this mess up??? LOL

Okay, I guess I'll have to tackle the mess on my own. Hopefully I'll get it done tonight....

I love giveaways!

A friend of mine posted about this giveaway on her blog, and I just had to enter. Passionate Homemaking is doing a giveaway for twenty 5 load samples of soap nuts. I've heard of soap nuts before, and I'd like to try them, but I've never quite gotten around to it. This giveaway seems like the perfect opportunity for me (or maybe you, if you enter too) to have a chance at trying them out for FREE! I love free things, don't you?

A slew of new shirts and single skirt, all for me!

Here are the shirts and skirt that I made yesterday. All the shirts are from ottobre 2-2007, and the skirt is just a self-drafted yoga waist skirt.

All of these fabrics are bamboo jersey. I absolutely *LOVE* my bamboo fabrics, you'll never find anything that feels so yummy against your skin. :)

In order, there's one more of the modified Rose tops (different sleeves, and knit band), the shirt in the first picture and the green and purple one here are both actually Rose tops too, I just changed the neckline and sleeves, then there's 2 tank tops.

Catching up a little bit

I really need to be better about posting what I'm working on. I've sewn a lot lately, but I never seem to remember to take pictures until I have too many things to post about. So here's just a few of the things that I've worked on in the last week or so.

Here's a few dipes from the Darling Diapers Unlimited pattern that I recently purchased. So far I like this pattern, though I've changed a couple of things about the soaker, where it snaps in (the snaps were *really* low, so I raised them up), and also the shape (just made it a little narrower and rounder at front).

A couple outfits from NCBE and a laptee set from Ottobre.

This Jetro romper from Ottobre was a HUGE nightmare for me, until I emailed Ottobre and asked if they had any other illustrations for this and they sent me a wonderful PDF that better showed how to do the front placket.

Here's a couple Rose Top shirts from Ottobre with self-drafted yoga waist skirts for myself.

A little late and a little early

I'm a little late in showing the Easter shirts I made for the kids on Easter morning, but here they are. I hadn't planned on making anything this year, but when I woke up that morning I decided that they needed something after all so I made them all matching shirts. I love how these look together, just like little Easter eggs. :)

Then I'm a little early with the baby outfits, since we don't have a baby on the way yet. Hopefully we'll be expecting again by the end of the year. For some reason I have the assumption that we'll have another boy. I have 16 outfits made so far, and 14 of them are for a baby boy.

Ottobre 3-08 Baby Romper Sew-Along

Hopefully this all makes sense, and helps you make this outfit.

Cut out all pieces, and mark snap placements according to pattern.

There are 2 different front pieces for this pattern. Both are pictured here, though a little backwards, because the one on the right side, with the crotch seam (which I'll call pattern piece "B"), will actually be on the left side and overlap the other piece, without the crotch seam(which I'll call pattern piece "A").

This piece is the one that was on the right in the upper picture (piece B), the one with the crotch seam. Make sure that you remember NOT to sew this shoulder seam until AFTER you're done binding. I learned the hard way the first time I made this, so I wrote it on the pattern, and I also mark this shoulder with a pin so I can't sew it. :)

Sew the back pieces together.

Sew the shoulder seam of pattern piece A (the one without the crotch seam) to the back.

Sew on the sleeve.
*I had already done the binding on both sleeves*

Line up crotch pieces of pattern piece B and back.

Sew together.

Now, sew the side seam closed on the side that you've attached the sleeve to.

Starting at the shoulder on pattern piece B that you haven't sewn together, apply binding to right side of fabric, and go all the way around until you get the shoulder on the back of the outfit.

Fold binding over and topstitch down.

Sew together that shoulder seam now, then sew on sleeve and bind the other leg. Then sew the side seam. (my picture doesn't show the side seam sewn, because I forgot to take a pic of that step)

Now I take 3/4" twill, tape fold it in half, then half again, so it's now 4 layers thick. I sew on a piece to the wrong side of the fabric at each spot where the snaps will go on pattern piece A. This way I won't tear the fabric when unsnapping.

I also use twill tape that I sew onto the seam allowance, as shown, so that I can apply snaps to the inside of outfit and don't have to use ties as the pattern originally calls for. Just make sure that the twill tape sticks out enough so that you can apply a snap to it.

Here's what it looks like on the inside with the snaps.

And here's the outside, all finished up.

More baby sewing!

Here's a couple more baby boy outfits that I finished up yesterday. All the patterns are from Ottobre. I'm really hoping that someone I know has a little boy, so I can send these to a good home. Either that or our family needs to grow. :)

I was so proud of the dye job I did on the brown in this set. It matches those brown monsters perfectly!

Dipes, dipes and more dipes!

20 diapers in 2 days. I know that may not seem like a lot to some, but wow, I don't think I'll try to do that many again any time soon. Here's 20 size small Very Baby fitted dipes, 10 of them are side snap (my preference) and 10 front snap (my DH's preference). I decided to just go with a natural bamboo interlock for the outer layer that way they're gender neutral, since we don't know if we'll need them for a boy or a girl, or both. :)

Inner layer is OBV, and absorbent layers are bamboo fleece.

Here's a closeup of one of the side snap dipes.
And a closeup of a front snap dipe. I added extra snaps to these after I took the picture, so that I can cross over the front wings to make the waist smaller.

Baby sewing!

I absolutely *love* sewing baby stuff. There's something that is incredibly satisfying about it for me. So I was very excited when I learned that a very dear friend of mine in Texas had another little boy, and also to receive a invitation to a baby shower for an acquaintance.

These first 2 outfits are for my friend in Texas (I'm really hoping that I actually get to the PO and mail these before her baby outgrows them). The dinos outfit is from the New Conceptions Baby Essentials pattern, and the romper is KS 3090.

These 2 outfits are for tomorrow's baby shower. The robots outfit is from the New Conceptions Baby Essentials pattern, and the gown is KS 3090.

Here are some wool diaper covers that I sewed up today also. I've, at times, thought about breaking into the WAHM cloth diaper business, and so I like to tinker around with sewing dipes and covers. Maybe one day I'll feel confident enough to actually go into business, but until then I'll just keep sewing these cute little things that I have no need for. :)

I got the pattern for these covers from Katrina's blog. After I traced the NB size I thought that there was no way they were going to fit a baby because they looked sooo small, but there they are next to a NB diaper, and they fit over it perfectly. There's even a picture showing how well they fit over the dipe. The pattern is so easy and goes together very well, I will definitely be making more of them.

Sew along for binding in the flat...

Here's a tutorial for how to do binding in the flat.

Here my tank top front and back pieces with one shoulder seam sewn together. (when you're sewing in the flat you only sew one seam together before attaching the binding)

Before sewing one the binding I adjust my stitch width on my serger to the widest setting.


Take your binding strip and lay it right sides together on top of the neckline for the shirt.
I leave my binding strip overlapping a little bit so that it's easier for my coverstitch machine to grab it later on.

Start serging it on, gently stretching the binding as you sew.

Here it is once it's all serged on.

Turn the binding strip over so that it's now covering the threads.

And turn it down once more so that it's now looped to the inside of the shirt.

Now coverstitch (or top stitch however you normally do) the binding in place.

Now take your other shoulder seam and serge it together.

Stitch that seam down, I always do it so that the seam in pointing towards the back of the shirt.

Here's what it looks like once it's stitched down.

And here's what it looks like when you're done.
(Obviously the whole shirt isn't done, but the neck binding is.)
If you're binding the arms (like I will be because this is a tank top) then apply the binding to the arm holes now, coverstitch it down, and serge up the side seams.