PJs and an AWESOME gift from my dad

Here are 2 pair of PJs that I made recently, and hadn't gotten around to showing yet. First up are the kids Christmas PJs...of which I only have one modeling picture, and they're getting shown a bit late, because....well....they were made a bit late. :p

Each of the kids got the same PJs, with the only difference being the neckbands (there's green, red, orange and blue).

Then we move onto the "cowboy" PJs. I made a pair of these pants for each of the boys, but I'd only managed to make the shirt for this little man. I do have the embroidery done on another shirt, just haven't gotten around to sewing it up yet. *This was my very first embroidery project, and I think it turned out pretty well. I did learn a thing or two about placement (this one is a little bit for in my opinion), and I also decided that I'm going to go ahead and stabilize on the top AND the bottom when embroidering on knits*

And the grand finale....

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My dad came to visit me today, and he decided to gift this Cricut Expression (along with all those extras) to me!!! He had it laying around his house thinking he might use it (gotta say, my dad's a sucker for infomercials lol), and when he realized it was just collecting dust, he decided that I should have it! How amazing and generous is that?!?! I've been wanting to try one for a long time now, but I just couldn't ever bring myself to spend the money on it, especially when I didn't know how often I would use it. But now that I have one for FREE, I don't feel guilty about it at all! I've been wanting to get back into stamping and making my own cards, but now I'll be doing that with my Cricut! (Just incase you couldn't tell by all those exclamation marks, I'm totally stocked about this!! lol)

Another try at a difficult pattern

So you may, or may not, remember my post about sewing up a Jetro romper from Otto 4-08. Here's a picture of the original romper I made.

It had a few problems. Some where the way I sewed it, and some were just the result of the pattern itself. The placket was really hard to manage, and binding it was a nightmare. It's no surprise to me that I left that pattern alone and never came back to it....until last night.

You see, last night I saw a tutorial for modifying the pattern to be a full front snapping pattern, and I decided to give it another go. This is the result.

I'm very pleased with the outcome, and sewing up this version was much, much easier than the original. I did have a slightly hard time trying to get the snap placement correct at the crotch area, and I'll make sure to space it out a little better next time, but other than that, it was great improvement on a pattern that I thought I'd never touch again.

Back in action

I'm finally back in the sewing game after having my sewing room packed up for almost a year. We bought a house in December and finally got the sewing room painted and set up.

Here are a few pictures of the room.

Here is a picture of the last two day's sewing projects. I finally decided that I wasn't going to hang on to this fabric anymore. I'd rather see it get used than see it on the fabric shelf, so I used up the last of my Japanese VW buses fabric and made BBs for the boys. :)

I've also sewn up 9 pairs of pjs, but I haven't photoed them yet. As soon as I do, I'll get them posted on here.

And in very exciting sewing room news, I've acquired an embroidery machine...and even figured out how to use it!! I know how to center the design, but I just need to find a good formula for figuring out how high or low to place the design. I embroidered a pj shirt for my daughter, but the design is about 2 inches too low, and I'm sure there's a way to figure out the perfect placement without trial and error.

before and after pics

One of my very dear friends wanted to know what my sewing room was looking like now that I've gotten rid of so much stuff. I don't have a before picture from very recently, but this is a pretty good representation of how much fabric there was, just fill all the shelves and add a bunch more on top of the shelving units.

This is what I have left. The shelf of the right side of the picture, plus the box just to the left of it, has all the fabric that I still need to get rid of. The top shelf has a couple of boxes that are already sold (these will get mailed tomorrow) and some Christmas fabric I'm not sure if I'm keeping or not, the shelf under it has some more boxes that I've packed up to sell as a FRB lot and some Heather Ross fabric I have listed on Ebay, and then the bottom 2 shelves are things I still need to find a home for.

The shelving unit in the closet has what I'm keeping; 1 box of bamboo jersey, 1 box of knit prints, 1 box of wovens, and then my bamboo velours and fleeces.

Making PJs/Using Up Fabric

Did you know that sewing is a great way to use up fabric? What a novel concept! ;) I've been downsizing the sewing room, and decided last night that I'd actually sew up some of this fabric instead of just selling it.

Miss C has been going through a MAJOR growth spurt for the last month, and has outgrown almost all her clothes. About 2 months ago I was sewing a size 140 (or 10 in US sizing) for her, and today I made this PJ set for her in a size 152 (or 12 is US sizing). At least as an infant it took her about 3 months to go up one size, but she just grew 2 sizes in a month! No wonder she's had so many growing pains. :/

Anyways here's the photo. Pattern is from Ottobre 4/2004, leggings and girls shirt.

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.