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.