Monster mash

I am continuing to make Christmas presents for the little ones. My latest project is a monster plushie for R. I looked online at a lot of patterns and decided to just wing it and make my own. The body looks surprisingly like Jabba the Hut. I was going for large monster slug and I think I came very close. I made the body out of recycled cotton velour and the eyes out of knit scraps. The back is open and I made a separate insert for stuffing in the body. The insert is filled with rice so it can double as a warm soothie. I made the legs and horns from scrap woven cotton prints. The fun part is I made legs and horns as separate pieces that can be snapped on the main body. My goal is to make a few more and have the parts interchangeable. J had fun tonight mixing up the parts. R won't be able to snap on the pieces for a while but it will be fun for J to make different monster dolls for her.

Making progress

I'm making progress on Christmas presents. I have the two poofs done and a pattern for the teepee. I bought heavy weight green canvas at the fabric store and I will use the same canvas from the poofs for the contrast. The pattern for the teepee is from Growing up Sew Liberated. I am not sure why I haven't seen this book before. It is fantastic. I love all the patterns. I have high hopes of making the art bag and also the play capes. I just ordered a zebra cotton knit and a light blue satin for the lining of J's cape. I am also going to make one for his cousin. I have a satin brocade with butterflies that I will use for her cape and line it with an orange cotton. So exciting to create all these fun gifts. For R I made baby blocks with ribbon taggies. I am also going to make blocks for her cousin who is due any day now. Very exciting. The blocks come together very quickly and are made from scraps of quilting cotton. I used 5 inch squares. So onward and we will see what else I get made before Christmas. J and I also had fun this past weekend making a Gingerbread House from scratch. He also enjoyed some holiday sensory bin fun.

Handmade Holiday

Happy Holidays!!

I decided this year I am going to make most of my Christmas presents. Funny really since this is the year I have the least amount of time for sewing since little pookie is here. No matter though and I am going to rise to the challenge. Yes I only have a few weeks but I tend to kick things in high gear when the deadlines are close. It always worked for me as PhD student and then researcher so I am confident it will work well also as  family designer and seamstress or that is the plan. It is interesting the comments I receive from others about my quest to sew almost everything for the family. I hear often that someone would like to make this or that but where would they find the time. I think most people have some time for creative endeavors but it is a matter of priorities. Maybe sewing or being creative is not high on your list and that is totally fine. However if it is one of those things you always wanted to do then find some time. Look online for a few fun tutorials and then unplug for a while. Well at least unplug from social media. If possible involve your children in the process. J is helping me make soft blocks for R. He is drawing pictures that I will scan and print on fabric for some of the blocks  He is also great at adding the filling. Yes, I sometimes have a mini sweat shop in my house but it is good for him. He learns the value of handmade items. He knows when we buy things that someone made that item and hopefully they did not make it in an actual sweat shop. Another good reason to sew your own clothes but I digress. So we will see how much I get done in the next few weeks. If you need any ideas then follow along with me on Pinterest. I am posting all of my ideas on the Handmade Christmas Board.

Happy Creating!!        

New serger

I finally bought a serger. Woohoo! I bought a Juki MO644d and it is awesome. I really wish I would have bought a serger sooner. It really is fantastic for sewing your own clothes. Anyway, I don't know what I did all these years without one. I am really pleased with the Juki brand also. It came already threaded and all I had to do was reduce the tension and pull new thread through the machine. It sews beautifully and is relatively quiet. Anyway as you can tell I am very happy with my purchase. If you don't own a serger then I suggest you purchase one very soon.

Baby harem pants

If you are looking for sewing patterns for little ones then you should check out Too Sweets! I found out about them through a friend on facebook. The shop had a giveaway a few months ago for three new pdf patterns and I was lucky enough to win. I received the best harem pants, circle tank and wide leg pants patterns. I just made the harem pants in size 12 months for my little sweetie. I took off about 3 inches of the length of the pants to make knickers. They fit awesome over her cloth diapers and are a cinch to make. I used recycled t-shirt scraps for the pants. The pink is a lycra cotton blend and the yellow is all cotton. The waistband is from a turtleneck. I plan to make longer ones for the fall. So cute and easy for diaper changes.

More lovely photos of little sweetie

We had more pictures taken of little sweetie. She is almost 4 months old in the photos. We have a bunch of comparison photos which is really cool. It is so fun to see how much she has grown. I am so happy to have the wonderful photos. Here are a few of my favorites.

Peasant tops from mens shirts and baby sleeve pants

I found after little sweetie was born that I wished I had made more nursing friendly clothes for myself. In the winter time I wore a tank top under most of the shirts but it was really hot in the summer time. I had a few cotton men's dress shirts left over from from last year and decided to make peasant shirts. I wasn't sure what to do with the leftover sleeves so I made baby pants. Here is my little sweetie modeling the pants at around 3 months. I modified several shirts and have been wearing them all summer. I need to add photos of the shirts I made for myself, but here are photos of my sweetie in her cute sleeve pants.You may also recognize the t-shirt she is wearing. I made newborn baby gowns for her out of recycled t-shirts before she was born. I decided to cut them off and make t-shirts.

5 years old!

Little guy turned 5 years old on May 6th. We had a fun star wars themed birthday party for him over the weekend. It included jedi training exercises and of course a lot of sweet treats. I printed out really cute decorations including cupcake toppers from a package I purchased on etsy from Printmagic. It also included Darth Vader masks so pretty awesome. The cupcakes are the standard vanilla and chocolate from Vegan cupcakes take over the world by the amazing Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Here are few photos of the birthday fun.

Little sweetie is here.

Our sweet little girl is here. Little Ruby was born on February 8, 2013 in the wee hours of the morning and weighed 7lb 13oz and was 20 in long. Everything went well with her birth. She was 8 days late and I went to the ob that morning only to find out that nothing much was happening. I decided to try to move things a long a bit and literally walked about 3 and 1/2 miles that day. I also made lemon drop cupcakes. We have a cupcake place here that swears by their lemon cupcakes for inducing labor so I figured it couldn't hurt. By around 6:15 pm that evening I started having contractions every 5 minutes and was instantly in full labor so something worked. It must have been the cupcakes. Everything went well with little sweetie at the hospital and we were able to come home quickly. I did wind up with a crazy postpartum rash which nearly drove me insane with itching and lasted for about 8 weeks but other than that recovery was fine. J has been an awesome big brother which is great and I am happy he loves his little sister so much already. We were extremely lucky to have a wonderful photographer friend of ours take photos of our sweetie as a newborn She is going to take more photos at around 4, 8 and 12 months. I am so lucky!! The photos are fabulous as you can see. Amy is starting her photography business and  I will add a link to her website as soon it is ready. And yes I am starting to sew again. I am making more cloth diapers and why I didn't make bigger cloth diapers when I had the chance is a mystery. My fluffy little sweetie grew out of the newborn diapers in about a month and I am still scrambling to make more. I have also added a few photos of little sweetie in her flower newborn gown and swaddle I made for her before she was born. Well, on to the lovely photos of my sweet little girl.

Valentine newborn fitted diapers

Here are few more velour fitted newborn diapers to add to my stash. I used the same free newborn diaper pattern from Darling Diapers. I added rise snaps for size flexibility and also made snap-in inserts.The diapers are made with red recycled cotton velour on the outside and hot pink bamboo velour on the inside. The inserts are made with one layer of bamboo fleece, three layers of hemp and organic cotton jersey and one layer of hot pink bamboo velour. The fitted diaper requires a waterproof cover and I made four newborn pul covers a while back. I now have 18 fitted velour and 11 ai2 newborn diapers so should be all set for a few months.

I also made a cute swaddle blanket using the pattern from Lotta Jansdotter. It turned out really cute, but I realized I put the velcro on the opposite side but it will work the same so no problem. I used Amy Butler fabric for the outside and microfleece for the inside. I hope to make one more swaddle blanket before the little girl arrives but not sure if that is going to happen since I am due this Thursday. We will see when she makes her grand arrival.

Newborn pul diaper covers

I am still adding to the newborn diaper collection. I made newborn size diaper covers using sandwich pul that I purchased a while back from Swaddlebees. I used the newborn pattern from Simple Diaper-Sewing Tutorials. I purchased the 1 inch bright pink foe and touch tape from Diaper Sewing Supplies. The covers were pretty easy to make and the pattern has rise snaps so should fit her well for the first few months. I love the colors and hope they work well. I should find out in a few weeks and I am getting excited to meet our little girl!