the year-end wrap up and some upcoming plans

First off, my last sewing projects of 2018. I had enough free time the day after Christmas to whip up another matching set of Brindille & Twig ringer tees for the boys, in long sleeves this time. I made Hobbit’s in the 4/5 size, and Padawan’s in the 24 month size. (He’s a bit of a peanut, and not quite out of the 18 month clothes even though he’ll be turning 2 in the spring. I strongly suspect I may have to sew several pairs of pants for him this fall, since he seems to be pretty slender for his age.)

And now, all the nerdy number things!

This year, I’ve made:
Pajamas, just pants- 1 (I had a top to go with this)
Pajamas- 4 sets (3 with knit tops instead of pj pattern)
Tops for me- 5 (refashions- 2)
Dresses- 3
Boy shirts- 4
Toys- 2.
Quilts- 1
Shorts- 1
Swimsuit- 1 (3 piece set)
Coats- 3 (1 for me and 2 for boys)
Jeans- 1 (yaaaaaaay!)

Total: 26 projects for the year. Not too shabby!

Yards of fabric used: 51.5 on record, probably closer to 55. I did have to purchase some fabric to make the boys’ coats, and it never quite made it into my spreadsheet. Neither did this dog jersey.

Total yards in my stash currently: I started the year with 342.5 yards, and now have 394.49.  So that’s a net gain of about 52 yards. Oops. Admittedly, most of this was Christmas gifts from my mom (I just added it up and got nearly 73 yards!!), all tagged for specific projects, as we spent quite a bit of time over the fall chatting about what I needed most in my wardrobe. I love every single piece, and they all fit very well within my color palette that I’ve slowly been refining my closet to, so I know they’ll get used. It’s just a matter of having the time to make them up!

I also had to buy some quilt fabrics, as I kind of got suckered into agreeing to assemble some quilt kits that my mother in law bought several years ago. But I know I can’t just quilt for months without losing my mind, so my plan is to use any sewing time I get at my parents’ house where I don’t need to cut projects out will be dedicated to this until it’s done. (And I totally plan to reward myself with a fun sewing treat when I’m all done, since she’s paying me.)

I also wanted to reflect on some of the long term challenges I took part in this year.

First, the RTW Fast from Goodbye Valentino. I did get through the entire year without purchasing any clothes for myself, aside from some desperately needed bras once I finished nursing, and that fell into the guidelines. I was gifted a few things, though. Like my mom surprised me with several knit skorts over the summer, because I had virtually nothing to wear on my at home days where playing on the floor in skirts isn’t the most practical/it took so long to just make one pair of shorts due to fitting. I think that there was some value in participating, but I don’t plan to continue in 2019. For one thing, it’s bothered me the whole year that the restriction extends to purchasing secondhand clothes. I’ll admit that in the past, I’ve binge-shopped at the thrift store without much thought between “oh, that’s cute” or “I can use this as fabric!” And this did prevent me from doing any of that this year. But given that sewing time is a precious commodity for me, I can see value in supplementing my handmade wardrobe with a few carefully chosen thrifted pieces, especially in categories that I’m not necessarily interested in sewing like exercise clothes. Also, from a sustainability standpoint, it seems ridiculous to force people into feeling like they need to purchase fabric to make some basics if you can save a perfectly good existing piece of clothing from getting incinerated or thrown in a landfill, provided that fit isn’t an issue.

I also didn’t particularly enjoy the Facebook group. I’m not on there as much as I used to be, and that was the sort of group that was constantly filling my news feed because of the sheer number of posts. Plus I didn’t like that people were getting called out/kicked out for things like, one example I remember from early in the year when I was following more closely, one woman getting surprised by a ski trip and needing to buy a coat because she didn’t have one that would keep her warm enough. It just seemed like a lot of ridiculous policing and no grace for life happening, so I stopped following it partway through the year. I think I’ll stick with the Stashbusting Sewalong for my Facebook sewing fix, since that one is all about cheering each other on and laughing when we end up getting more stash anyway.

The 2018 Make Nine was a more positive experience for me. Since I decided to swap out one top for jeans, I got 7 out of 9, which is very good! I also like that that one is more about celebrating the wins, and any projects that get done. I’m also going to let that one go for next year, though I would participate in this one again in the future. I think that after the unemployment scare this fall, and all the derailing of plans that happens with young kids, I’m feeling very reluctant to plan too far in advance. And since I’m also trying to be realistic in my goal making/more carefully build my wardrobe, I think I’ll be better off if I take it season by season rather than a year at a time. So after much consideration, I’ve decided to do the Seasonal Sew 3 challenge instead.

So, here’s my winter plan!

1. I’ve had a plaid flannel Archer shirt on my Make Nine for 2 years straight, and failed to make it both times. But I still love the fabric, it’s one of the prettiest plaids I’ve ever seen, and I want it in my closet. I was procrastinating because of sleeve alterations, but I finally got it cut out yesterday, and am hoping to start sewing it up in the next day or so. I think it’ll be a great option to go with my gold jeans that I wear for work, and maybe even those turquoise jeans that I just made!
2. New Look 6417. I’ve been drooling over this one since I bought it last winter, because it’s so unique looking. I was gifted some cream ponte knit to make it this year, and I’m going to see if I have enough of this leathery looking fabric left from my old Gabriola skirt to make the binding. If not, I have some brown interlock left over from my first Tiramisu dress that I can probably make work. Given that this would go with basically every pair of pants I have, except maybe my grey jeans (I guess grey and brown can work? I mean, that’s the entire winter landscape here, but BLAH), I think this could be a good one to wear either for teaching or home days, as long as the boys aren’t getting into paint or I’m not cooking pasta sauce.
3. Since I’m most hurting for stay at home clothes, I think the third thing will be to try out the Hudson pants. I have some stashed grey ponte that I got to try out a sewing dare project from Gillian from at least a year ago, but haven’t been able to get to, and maybe I need to rethink what to do there. So I think I’ll try the fit out with those, and if it works, whip up a second pair with a funkier knit that I got for Christmas.

Bonus project: some matching Twig & Tale Trailblazer vests for my guys, to go along with the Sewcialists’ upcoming menswear theme month. Doug is really excited about this one, because my mom made the boys some matching vests a few months ago and he was half-joking about why he didn’t get one, so she bought him some fabric with his favorite hockey team logo plus some corduroy for the outside for Christmas, enough to make matching vests for him and the boys. Since he’s turned down every offer I’ve ever made to sew clothes for him in the past, I’m going to prioritize this one for the season, and plan to start it as soon as I’m done with the Archer. So if I do have to drop or swap something in my plan to something faster, I’ve already decided that the sweater can be pushed off. (Especially since I’ll have to make all of the bias trim before I can do that anyway.)

a stripey dress and the July summary

My third and final big project for July was a maxidress, made from a stripey/zigzagged knit that I picked up about 2 summers ago from this hole in the wall fabric store that I didn’t know existed near my house. Most of the fabric they had wasn’t all that exciting to me, being largely quilting cottons and weird polyesters. But the two older ladies who were running the shop chatted with me and Doug for awhile, since we were the only people there at the time, so I felt sort of obligated to buy something. This knit was pretty much the only thing that jumped out to me.

The pattern is McCall’s 6559, which I’ve made once before. I knew the dress still fits me fine, so I didn’t make any adjustments. But maybe I should have– this fabric is almost too lightweight to not see through, and it still pulls down in front quite a bit!

The first time I wore it out in public (to church, which was a mistake), I spent the whole service tugging the thing up, debating whether shortening the straps would tighten up the armholes too much or trying to insert a scrap of fabric into the neckline to act as a fake camisole would be the better move. My husband was adamantly against that idea. But I think I have a working solution now…

…turning it backwards!

(And hey, check out that stripe matching. The zig zags aren’t perfect, but I think I did pretty darn good on the straight lines. I did have to rip out a partial seam to fix, but it was worth it.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I think I’m going to like it much better like this.

Another thing that makes me happy about this project is that I was able to have it do double-duty for challenges again– the Stashbusting Sewalong theme for July was dresses, and The Monthly Stitch’s was spots and stripes. It’s nice to still feel like I’m involved in the more social aspect of this!

So, my quick stashbusting update for July:

I used up a total of about 5 yards. I bought 6.5, which have not arrived in the mail yet. Most of that is small pieces for Hobbit’s Halloween costume this year, and one piece is for the sewing dare that I got from Gillian, because I didn’t have anything on hand that would quite work. (Plus I needed $50 worth of stuff to get free shipping.) The bad news is that this purchase puts me back up to about 400 yards total, but the good news is that I’ve used up about 42 1/2 yards for the year so far. Which is really not bad, considering how ridiculously hard it has been to get sewing time in this year!

My other exciting news is that I am finally making progress on getting Hobbit to take his morning nap in the crib! I haven’t made it into the sewing room every day, because I still have to do some stuff like get dinner thrown in the crockpot or occasionally clean something. But I did get enough time in last week to trace out the pattern for the Halloween costume, order the fabric, do some much-needed tidying in my sewing room, and cut out a project for myself. Which will not be the next thing I sew, since I intend to do some embellishing on the fabric first, but still– sewing time! During the day! How exciting is that?!

 

February in review

Now that it’s a third of the way through March, right? I’ll start off with another project that isn’t quite substantial enough for its own post. Having learned from my complete fail with Hobbit’s Christmas stocking, which is still cut out and completely disassembled, I decided to be more on top of things and make his Easter basket early! I got the instructions from here, and I’m not entirely sure I did it right, since mine looks very shallow in comparison with the picture. Let’s blame the fact that I’m still only averaging 90 minutes of sleep at a time before Hobbit wakes me up at night, ok? But it works. The outer light blue was from my stash, leftover from an apron that I made as a gift for a friend’s bridal shower. The stripey inside was from my mom’s stash, since she quite happily lets me bust her stash when I don’t have the right quilt cotton on hand. I tried to make it not babyish, so it can grow with him and be reused every year.

And here it is with the stuff we’ve collected to give him this year, minus one thing that I just can’t seem to quite remember to bring upstairs to put in it. Babies that put everything in their mouths but aren’t quite ready for finger food are hard to stuff Easter baskets for! Hopefully subsequent years will be easier.

(Yes, that is a stuffed BB-8!)

State of the Stash

Well, I added a lot more than I wanted to, since in-laws left unwanted fabric at my figurative doorstep again. But I’m only counting what I decided to keep, since I already gave one piece away and the other three bolts are not things I can think of any use for. So those will be heading to the thrift store soon. Also, I did end up having to purchase a piece of fabric for diaper inserts. But I did also give away a significant portion of my scraps and small yardage pieces to my sewing student– yeah, that finally started up again this month, and she’s more likely to make doll clothes than I will anytime soon. In fact, she jumped right into two of those pieces at her last lesson to do just that!

Fabric sewn: (3.25 yards for the Appleton dress, .5 for the Easter basket, for the Plantain raglan, plus scraps)
Fabric given away: (3.25 yards plus a bunch of uncounted scraps to student)

Total in: about 14.5 (3 for the diapers, about 11.5 for the two bolts that I decided to keep from the in-laws.)
Total out: about 8.75
Total in stash: about 416. Hopefully this month I will manage to use more than I bring it. Surely that has to be the last of whatever Doug’s grandmother wants to unload…right?

January in review

I thought that since I don’t necessarily have a lot to show for this month, it would be good to do a more behind the scenes look! So here’s what’s been going on in my little corner of the world…

1. I reorganized my stuff.

Though I technically started it in December, it was at least a week into January before I felt like things were put back together enough to actually start sewing again. But I’m glad I took the time to do this. My spreadsheet that I track my stash on is all updated now, I know where everything is now, and I actually did get rid of quite a lot of the scrap bin’s contents. I also came up with enough fabric/pattern pairings to keep me busy for quite awhile! Taking it all out and sorting it was a bit of a pain, but it really got the creative juices flowing. Now I just need to find a way to cope with my time constraints and the frustration that it’s been causing.

2. I finished a knitting project. And started some more.

Back when we were dating, I knitted a hat for Doug. It’s getting pretty beat up, since he’s been wearing it every time he leaves the house during the colder days for four or so years now. So I made him a new one. The pattern is called Le Dane, it was free on Ravelry, and I honestly picked it because it has a matching baby hat and I thought that would be adorable! Doug picked the colors, and also requested that I make the ribbing longer on his so he can fold it up around his ears for extra warmth. I’ve started Hobbit’s hat, but the smallest size is 9-24 months, and he has a couple of hand-knitted hats in his current size. Which, of course, he refuses to keep on his head. So I’m planning to just put it and Doug’s hat away to be ready to go for next winter. Look at me, planning ahead! Maybe by then, Hobbit will stop immediately pulling the hats off?

I also started my first ever pair of socks, since Craftsy is hosting a free class for it. It’s something I’ve been wanting to try, but putting off due to fear of tiny, fiddly needles, and how hard it is to find wool-free sock yarn. But I had this bamboo/nylon blend in the stash, so I figured I’ll try it out while I can watch free videos, and if hand-knit socks end up being really irritating to wear, I’m not going to feel obligated to continue like I would be for a paid class. We’ll see how this goes.

3. I’m sewing diapers. Again.

What can I say, Hobbit is a big, growing boy! Same pattern, same process, this time in the large size. My mom is helping again, both with cutting and with giving me hands-free time to work on them at her place. So we’ve gotten as far as cutting out all of the waterproof layer and linings, and putting snaps in the front of all but about 4 or 5. I ran out of snaps at that point, so I’m waiting on an order. In the meantime, I’ve been spending some time this weekend busting through random flannel pieces to make emergency extra diaper inserts. We recently moved him up to the last size of diapers I’d had made up, and for some reason, the soakers aren’t filling them out as well. So this is my desperate attempt to stop him from leaking through every single article of clothing I put on him. Sorry if that’s TMI.

4. State of the stash

I didn’t buy any fabric, patterns or yarn this month! Just thread and zippers and buttons for planned projects. Since I only count fabric as busted when the project is finished, here’s where I ended up:

Fabric out due to my miscalculations– this is due to duplicate or never-updated items in my spreadsheet that I caught after my initial post this year: 4 yards
Fabric tossed: 1 yard. It was an ugly quilt cotton, and a small piece of yardage from my first attempt at the vest I made for Hobbit’s Halloween costume, which was too small to really do anything with.
Fabric sewn: 3.8 yards (2.8 for the pajama pants, 1 yard of flannel)

Total in: 0 yards
Total out: about 12 yards
Total in stash: about 411 yards

I’m very close to finishing another project, because all I have to do is hem it. I just got sidetracked by those diapers.

State of the Stash Address

I’ve been working pretty hard over the last week or so to get all of my more recent fabric acquisitions washed, folded, and tallied up. I like to start the new year with a clean slate, and see where things really stand. It also ties in with the current theme in the Stashbusting Sewalong, which is stash organization. And, well…my one Stashbusting Sewalong goal for 2015 was to end with less fabric than I started with. In this, I failed. Epically so.

To be fair to myself, I did have two destashings land on me, from my in-laws and from a friend of my grandmother’s. I was certainly not planning on that. And as I was going through things, I did find about 19 yards’ worth of older fabrics that I just hadn’t added in, or leftovers that I didn’t think were big enough to be worth measuring. So my numbers at the beginning of the year weren’t entirely accurate.

But I did buy a few pieces near the end of the year that were specifically to test a few newer patterns, after checking my stash and seeing that I didn’t have anything appropriate. (Or, in the case of the Ginger jeans pattern that I finally just bought, I didn’t want to sacrifice the stashed stretch denim until I’d tested it. Because I bought that denim in Paris, and I may never be able to fabric shop there again.) And I got a lot of fabric for Christmas this year. As in, nearly 30 yards of it!

Oh, you want to see the pretties? Twist my arm, why don’t you?

These 6 pieces are actually more for Hobbit, but I get the fun of sewing them up! The ones on the right are for another batch of diapers. I’d mentioned before that I made newborn, small and medium sizes. And I knew there was the possibility that I’d have to do the large size as well. Well, at 6 months old and well over double his birth weight, he’s pretty much at the largest setting that the small diapers will go at. I really doubt that he’ll stay in the mediums long enough to get to a good potty training age. So to be on the safe side, I’m going to make a batch of larges. The two fabrics on the left are knits, so I can finally try out some of the cute stuff in the two Ottobre magazines that I picked up over last year. Between the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the hockey sticks in the Canada print, my mom was definitely working to keep my husband happy!

And then there’s these 10 (!) pieces for me. There’s a plaid flannel with an Archer shirt in mind, and two more flannels for some much-needed pajama pants. There’s several knits, which is great, because my stash of print knits was almost non-existent by this point. And you all know how I love my prints. There’s a couple of pieces of denim, and a Cotton & Steel voile that I just want to wrap around myself like a blanket. It’s like a silky hug.

I think that I have the totals pretty accurate now. I’m only counting it as yardage if it’s full selvage-to-selvage width, and more than 1/4 yard. So without further ado, here’s the (scary) totals:

Stash at the beginning of 2015: I’d originally said 375. My adjusted number is 394.

Stash at the end of 2015:  Just over 426.

Yards used up: about 91.5. Considering everything that was going on in my life last year, I think that’s pretty good!

The difference: A net addition of 34 yards. Honestly, I probably shouldn’t be too hard on myself, because that means that even with the Christmas haul, I would have done really well if it hadn’t been for those two destashings!

I think my focus/goal for 2016 is to really buckle down on using what I have on hand. So with that in mind, I’m going to see just how long I can go without buying any new fabric or patterns. I bought a few more at the end of December that will hopefully fill some gaps on staples (namely, the Ginger jeans, which I’ve been wanting to try since before the pregnancy). I will make exceptions on things like zippers and buttons, if I don’t have those things on hand, especially since button-downs are a major goal of mine this year. And I’ll make an exception for Halloween, because I’m very excited about my plan for this year, and I have almost literally nothing on hand that will work. But I’m hoping that if I really buckle down and get creative with the patterns and fabric that I have, I can make a serious dent in this ridiculous pile this year.

You know, assuming that I can get the baby to learn to take naps or something.

 

 

 

April month-in-review

This really does look like a super-productive month, since I tend to count stash on the months I finish the project vs. when I cut it! So let’s just jump right to the fun stuff, shall we?

Projects Finished This Month: 
8 total. Unless I count the diapers individually. Then it’s closer to 80. But that’s cheating, isn’t it? First up, the unblogged things.
As seen on Instagram: I did take another cute-but-stained PJ set that I was given for free, plus a boring snap-front newborn tee, and did this. The applique was hand-stitched on, just like the frog one I did last month, and as a bonus, this reads completely gender-neutral to me. Which means it’s definitely something I can recycle for any future siblings. I also had a decent-sized piece of unstained fabric, so I used this tutorial/pattern to whip out a quick hat. I did have to cut one piece with a seam in the back,  but it still worked up really fast. (The snail was the other part of the original applique. It was there, so why not use it?)

Next up: Several weeks back, I was looking for maternity/baby clothes at the thrift store, and stumbled across a bin of K’Nex for a really great price. Since then, Doug and I have gotten in the habit of checking every few weekends for any more good toy finds. One week, I found a bag of wooden blocks, which just seems like one of those staple toys that every kid should have. But they needed containment. So I took a piece of stash cotton and made a bag for them. I think this was one of my mom’s dyeing-for-quilts experiments that she wasn’t totally happy with, and I just wanted to use a piece that I didn’t really care what I used it for. Honestly, I made this more complicated than I needed to–I realized about halfway through inserting the drawstring that oh, wait, I have to think about choking hazards now! So then I had to completely wing it with a zipper in my stash that wasn’t quite the right color, but oh well. I know this bag is kind of huge for the amount of blocks that we have, but I figured that it would make it easy to add any more that we might acquire. (I mean, I don’t even have the whole alphabet here!)

My most recent sewing project was a nursing cover. Not to say that women shouldn’t have the right to breastfeed when and where they need to or anything–I just know that I’ll personally be more comfortable if I’m able to stay covered up when I have to feed him outside of the house. Besides, I’ve had this particular quilt cotton for years, and I’m happy that I finally found a way to use some of it. I actually had this in the stash and wanted to use it for the leaf quilt I made several years ago, but it was just a little too busy of a print to really work. I still have about half of the piece left, so I’ll just need to figure out what to do with it. But this was a really fast/easy project to make– just a rectangle with a casing for a piece of boning, another two rectangles for the strap, a couple d-rings, hemming, and done. Ideally, I would have used d-rings that were a little thinner/lighter, but this is what I had in the stash, so I went with it. If it really bugs me in the long run, I can always perform a little seam ripper magic later and replace them.

I also finished off a stack of cloth wipes to use with the diapers. But I can’t really count that as stashbusting, since my mom cut up a bunch of flannel that she had and all I had to do was serge the edges. Honestly, this isn’t even exciting enough to take a picture of, but at least it’s done.

Stashbusting totals for the month:

Stash out, not counting the 3 reconstructed projects:

• For the diapers: 31.25 yards total of PUL, athletic mesh, and cotton fleece (!)
• Maternity/nursing maxi-dress: 3 yards of knit
• Storage bag for blocks: .5 yard of hand-dyed cotton
• Nursing cover: 1 yard of quilt cotton

Total:  35.75 yards out, plus a few scraps for the Star Wars shirt. Woohoo!
Stash in:

• 2 yards of an Aztec-print knit. I was out running errands with Doug one day, we stumbled across a sewing machine store, and he suggested we head in and see if we could find me some new fabric. Who am I to say no? The selection was pretty small, but since I’ve been burning through all of my print knits in making maternity clothes, I figured I could allow myself this little splurge.
• My parents moved into a new house this month, and my mom handed off a couple of pieces of fabric that she thought might be more useful for me in making future boy clothes than her for quilting. So I got a little over 1 yard of a reversible blue fleece (brighter blue on one side, more royal on the other), and 8 yards of a plain black twill (but only 19.5″ wide!) that she had left over from a couple of non-quilt projects.  The twill will probably have to get used up for pants and shorts, but at least kid clothes are small and skinny. At least at first.

Total: 11.25(ish) yards in, but that’s still a total of 24.5 yards less than I started the month with.  For the year so far, my spreadsheet is saying that I have just over 336 yards, but I’ve used about 63 1/2 up. Which is really good for the first third of the year, especially since 3 yards is the most I can usually burn on one project!
May Goals:
I did touch on this in last month’s review.  At this point, I’ve reviewed the list, and pared it down based on what I didn’t get done this month and think is most important. So here’s what I’m hoping to do:

• I’d still like to make that changing mat. I think that will be the next project.
• I found instructions for how to make a baby gym on Pinterest. This wasn’t something I was originally planning on for baby gear, because those things are ridiculously expensive and bulky. But since this one snaps apart and would be really easy to set up/store, I have a large piece of a certain quilt cotton that would be perfect for this, and I have a ready supply of adorable felt things that would be perfect to hang from it (extras from some shower favors that my mom made–all animals to go along with various books), I’d like to give this one a shot.
• I have curtains for the nursery, but I need to sew the blackout layer into the colored layer, because they’re way too sheer to keep light out for when he’s napping. The curtains need to be shortened anyway. So this should be a quick project, it’s just a case of doing it.
• And I still need to do a lot more cooking. Though I’ve actually made a pretty good dent on recipes I’d planned for dinners–I think I have 3 more recipes to make for that, and then what I’d planned for lunches. And breakfast, if there’s still room in the freezer.

Finally, a quick little update on how those sewing lessons are going! The girl is doing very well. We took a little bit of a break around Easter due to her family going on vacation, but since then, she’s finished up the Delphine skirt from Love at First Stitch. We spent most of that day’s lesson working on invisible zipper insertion, and she did a very nice job for her first try! (Not perfect, and I did have to do a little unpicking for her at the bottom to fix where something got caught, but the end result doesn’t have that annoying bubble that invisible zippers sometimes get at the bottom.) She finished the skirt on her own after her last lesson, and I’m not sure what she wants to work on next–I’m letting her pick the projects after the bag we made first, because of course it’s more fun if you sew things you want to make. Guess I’ll find out on Monday, so here’s hoping I’m sufficiently prepared!

They’re finally done!!

My biggest baby-sewing project, that is: the diapers. I really doubt this is the sort of thing most people reading this would be sewing, so feel free to skip this post if you think it’ll bore you. But given that this was a 2-person, 4-month job, the end is definitely worth celebrating!

Also, I’d like to give a shoutout to my mom–I know she reads this blog when she can, and I literally could not have done this and finished with this much time to spare without all of her help. My sanity would not be very intact either, for that matter. So thanks, Mom!!!

So…this is what 72 cloth diapers plus inserts look like, at least as far as I could fit them into the picture. There’s 24 apiece of three different sizes: newborn, small and medium, because according to the pattern, these three sizes should fit him all the way from 8.5 to 35 pounds. Worst case scenario, if Hobbit is a fast grower, I may have to make a batch of larges sometime, but now that I know the process, hopefully one set would go fast. I also went for prints/colors that I considered to be fun-but-gender-neutral, since we started this process before I knew he’s a boy, and ideally, these will hold up well enough that I can use them again for any sibling he might get down the road. But even if they don’t, I think the money savings on using them with one child will make this effort worthwhile!

The pattern we used is called Darling Diapers Unlimited. The nice thing about this pattern is that you can use it to make pretty much any type of fitted cloth diaper that you want. The not-so-nice thing about this pattern is that it makes the directions ridiculously confusing to follow. I ended up making two different styles, and literally went through the directions to re-write out a step-by-step guide for Mom and I to follow, only using the printed directions as a reference point after that.

For all of the diapers, I used poly-urethane laminate for the outside, a softer athletic mesh for the inside layer, and cotton fleece for the “soaker” layers. I was able to get the mesh from Joann’s, but I got everything else from Diaper Sewing Supplies. The quality of their snaps and elastic sounded a lot better than the Babyville Boutique stuff I could get at Joann’s, and I liked that the company aims to supply quality American-made products in an eco-friendly manner (including their PUL manufacturing). Also, frankly, they have a much bigger variety of prints and they’re way more fun!

A little more detail on the two styles…

Left side: Unfolded. Right side: Folded and velcroed closed.

The newborns are basically what you’d consider an “all-in-one” diaper. I did have to wing it a bit on the padding, because I’d already cut everything as rectangles to fold into thirds before I realized that the stuff-the-pocket type wasn’t even listed as an option for this size, due to how tiny they are. So I added a layer of the athletic mesh on one third of the soaker for softness, and then sewed them into the back. Since they’re still mostly detached, I’m hoping this will help them dry faster. I also ended up stitching a little extra fleece underneath in the backside region–hopefully it’s not too TMI to say that the soaker ended up being narrow enough that I was nervous about things being contained back there without a little extra width. Ahem. I used velcro for the closure, to make it easier to handle the diaper changes while we’re first learning to do this, and did the scooped front option so that it wouldn’t rub against his belly button while that’s still healing over.

Clockwise from top left: Unstuffed, the liner, and stuffed.

For the small and medium sizes, I did more of a “pocket diaper” for ease of cleaning and especially speed of drying. So all of the soaker layers are the tri-fold rectangles, and can be pulled out for washing. I also decided to do snaps instead of velcro for these two sizes–I figured those would stay on a little better once he starts getting mobile, and also be less likely to pick up all of the dog hair that seems to accumulate around here. That, and since these heavy-duty plastic snaps don’t separate quite as easily as the usual metal sewing ones I’ve used in the past, hopefully that will keep him from succeeding in taking them off himself! Here’s hoping that I can keep the two sizes straight, since the solid blue/green and the TARDIS print were used for both of them, and I figured I was spending enough and therefore didn’t get size labels.

The stashbusting total: a whopping 31.25 yards! Granted, I did buy all of these fabrics specifically for this project. I did have to buy an extra yard of the athletic mesh, though that got used up. I bought a little extra plain PUL from Joann’s to help reinforce snaps once I ran out of scraps, and still have maybe a yard of that left, but I purposely bought extra so I can make a changing pad for the diaper bag. (Hopefully that will happen soon.) And since the rectangular soakers took less fabric than I thought, I have nearly 2 yards of the cotton fleece left over. It’s got a pretty rough texture on the outside, so I don’t think it’ll make a good sweatshirt or anything like that. But I have some ideas for non-clothes things I can use it for, if I don’t end up needing to make a set of large-sized diapers.

And since the whole point of this undertaking was to save us money long-term, here’s the breakdown: I ended up paying a total of around $350 for all of the supplies, which translates to less than $5 per diaper. It looks like the absolute best I can do buying the cloth ones new is around $6.67 apiece. I got this price off of a 6-pack on Amazon, and those are ones that have a bajillion snaps so you can try to make the same diaper fit the kid as he/she grows. Definitely cheaper, but I wasn’t sure how well they’d hold up from all of the washing. If I was getting the more sized ones like I made, it would be at least around $18 apiece. Which means I would have only gotten about 19 diapers for the same cost.

On the flip side, I did a little googling, and according to Mint.com, the average cost of 1 year of disposables is around $800. I know I’ll have to occasionally use the disposables for instances like church nursery/if Doug’s mom is babysitting for us, since I really can’t see her wanting to deal with these. (My mom is totally on board, though.) Even so, aside from the cost of detergent and my time in carting the laundry around/getting loads started and put away, using these as my primary means of diapering should pay for itself in less than 6 months. Which means more money for fabric, right?

the March round-up, and April/May plans!

I’m really liking these monthly round-ups. Since I’ve been mostly doing finished project posts lately, it’s a good way to keep tabs both on my stashbusting attempts and the longer-term projects/quickies that don’t necessarily need individual posts.

Projects finished this month: 6 total. There was the diaper bag, the skirt and matching baby pants, the top I blogged the other day, and 2 more baby projects.

Project #1, with backstory: The bulk of the clothes I’ve gotten for Hobbit so far have been courtesy of my mother-in-law, who keeps finding people who are getting rid of baby boy stuff and snagging it for us. For the most part, it’s been like-new or very gently worn, so I think we’ll be able to use most of it–though I did send a stack of newborn onesies to the thrift store, because they were specifically labeled 5-8 pounds. Given the weight updates I’ve been getting at my ultrasounds, and the weights that both Doug and I were at when we were born, he’d probably fit those for a week, tops. And I also passed a few things on to one of my best friends, because neither Doug nor I cared about keeping the sports-themed clothes (they never have hockey anything on them and he doesn’t care about any other sport), she and her husband actually like football and stuff, and she’s due to have a boy about a month and a half after me–instant friend for Hobbit! Yay! She had a girl for her first baby, so all she really needs for this one is clothes, and I don’t mind sharing. Anyway. There were also a few things that I thought were generally cute, and mostly in good condition, except for some obvious staining around the necklines. I had a little mental battle between my cheapness thriftiness and not wanting to dress my kid in clothes with mystery stains that he didn’t make. Then I remembered that I can sew, and therefore I can still get some use out of this stuff!

So I took these cute-but-stained pajamas, and this organic cotton onesie that was in excellent condition, but a little boring. And I cut the frog applique off and hand-stitched it onto the onesie–I wasn’t sure how well my machine would navigate those little tiny openings, since the side seams were already closed up! (The only before picture I have was on my phone. Yes, that’s Doug playing with toys in the background–if you follow me on Instagram, you know all about my excellent thrift score on a box of K’Nex over the weekend!)

Ta-da! Much cuter onesie, in about 20 minutes. And I still have other unstained parts of the original pajamas left–maybe I can hack the legs and sleeves into a little hat or something?

Project #2: Since hockey apparently doesn’t count as a sport in the minds of people who design fabric for baby clothes, I’m having to get creative. After all, if I can make geeky stuff for the baby, I should accommodate Doug’s interests too, right? So I used some fabric left over from the one hockey bib that I made a few months ago to make a project that I promised I’d do.

He mostly gets flak for being a Pittsburgh Penguins fan, since we live in Flyers country, but his other favorite team is the Colorado Avalanche, and it’s a lot harder to find pre-made anything for that team for some reason. Even on the internet. But I did find some quilt cotton. So now our kid has Avalanche pants. The pattern is Simplicity 1330, slightly adapted because I didn’t have the right size elastic and partially because I didn’t want to bother putting the elastic in the bottom of the legs. The waistband came out huge with the length they said to cut, too, and the casings weren’t cooperating well with my wider elastic, so I also cut a few inches off. Hopefully they’ll fit him ok–these are supposed to be 6-12 month. Otherwise, super-easy–I had these cut and completely sewn in an afternoon.

Stashbusting totals for the month: About 6 1/2 yards used up. I still need to figure out what to do with the rest of that Avalanche fabric, since I have maybe 1/4 yard left. I also bought 1 yard of quilt cotton from Jo-Ann’s, because it was another hockey-themed print, and I don’t see those often. Still, used more than I bought. So yay! Total for the year so far: 27.75 yards down, just under 360 still here.

The in-progress stuff: The good news is that the newborn and small-sized diapers are completely done! I just need to finish up with the mediums, and my mom got a good chunk of that done. So I just need to finish with leg elastic and snaps. It’s definitely easier (and less boring) doing that sort of assembly-line sewing with someone else. As for my Lord of the Rings-themed quiet book, I haven’t made as much progress on that, since a nice chunk of the time I’d normally be spending on that was spent on diaper snap installation. But I have finished up to page 5 of (I think) 11, aside from machine-sewing the backing page on two of them, and am working on the 6th. So I’m about halfway there.

How I did with March’s goals: Well, the diaper bag is done, and I managed to make 2 pieces of clothing for myself instead of one, so I did well! I haven’t actually started that massive cooking project yet, save making a massive grocery list and at least figuring out which recipes to start with. But that is definitely on the agenda for this month, since I decided that it would be better to wait until closer to the time that we would actually be eating this food. Less freezer burn that way.

April’s plans (and beyond): 
 

I mentioned this sewalong in my last post, and since everything I’m sewing right now fits one of the three categories, the timing is perfect! I’m not entirely certain what order I’ll end up making things in, so I’m just going to list all of the sewing that I’m hoping to get done before June by category, and see what actually happens.

1) Baby Clothing
Not 100% sure of my plans here yet, though I do have some things set aside and some ideas.

• I have a few knit scraps pulled out that should be just enough to make a baby t-shirt. I’m also planning on freezer paper stenciling it since both fabrics are plain–with a geeky reference, of course! 
• I do have two more partially useable free baby clothes that could also get the refashion treatment. 
• I also have a couple of patterns lying around that would be fun to try out. Including one for adorable soft-sole baby shoes, and a button-down shirt one that I recently acquired. I even have an old work shirt of Doug’s hiding in my refashion bin that I can use for fabric, and I think it would be cute (and free!) to cut down Daddy’s old shirts for little boy clothes!
• And I guess finishing up those diapers can count as clothes, right? I mean, he has to wear them…

 
 2) Baby Accessories and Other Items, such as quilts, toys, burp cloths, bibs, etc.
I should be solid on bibs and burp cloths, mostly thanks to my mom!

• But I do want to make a portable changing mat to go in the diaper bag, since I have fabric left over from that. 
• I have a scrap quilt in-progress, which I’m planning on just using as a throw-on-the-floor play mat, but that’s probably lowest on my priority list right now. (A, he won’t be able to sit up for awhile, and B, that might be an ideal project to work in 5 minutes of sewing here and there shortly after he’s born, since it’s all stitching strips onto blocks.) 
• The quiet book definitely counts as a toy, and I did get some suggestions about maybe turning the rest of that Avalanche fabric into a stuffed toy, via the Stashbusting Sewalong group on Facebook.
• I also have leftover towel fabric from when I made a baby gift (for the same friend mentioned earlier) a couple of years ago, so I’d like to see if I can squeeze a hooded towel out of it. 

3) For Parents

• I have one more nursing/maternity maxi I want to make, as mentioned in my last post. I think that, for ease/speed of assembly, I’m going to just mash up the Tiramisu bodice, which I’ve already made twice and I know has some room for expansion, and the already-altered Simplicity skirt pattern from the black dress.  Which means that I’ll probably do the invisible zipper nursing alteration trick again, so maybe a tutorial post will happen?
• As mentioned in my last post, I may give that Megan Nielsen pattern another go, with a few tweaks, since I’ll need something sleeveless for the hot days too. 
• Given the colors of either project, I can also use the scraps to alter a not-quite-nursing bra that I picked up recently. The straps are the type that can snap closed in the front, so it just needs a little tweaking. 
• I also need to make myself a nursing cover. I’m pretty sure I know which stashed quilting cotton will be sacrificed for this cause, I just need to do it. 

Hopefully this isn’t too overly ambitious. But I’m determined to cram in as much time with my sewing machine as I can now, because I suspect it’ll be hard to do for awhile!

it’s the time of the season

Happy spring, right? Here in the good old Mid-Atlantic, ours started with winter trying to get in one last sucker punch! I think it’s time for a breakup with cold weather, because I am OVER winter clothes. I know I say that every single year, but with my currently limited wardrobe choices, it’s even worse. I’ve been wearing the same 2 pairs of pants (with the jeans mixed in as I can) and the same 3 cardigans almost every single day. And my one purchased winter maternity top is looking rather dingy and sad. I guess that’s what I get for buying a cream sweatery-looking top.

That being said, with the limited window I have remaining in which making clothes for myself to wear throughout the rest of this pregnancy still has a point, I’m trying to focus on things that will carry me through the spring and into the summer. And, hopefully, still be wearable afterwards.

Enter my new maxi-skirt! The fabric is a luscious-feeling bamboo-rayon jersey blend, part of the mini-stash of knits that my parents gave me for Christmas. It took me a lot of thinking initially about whether this fabric wanted to be a skirt or a top, but once I realized that I only have 2 pairs of non-jeans maternity pants left that still fit (I’ve outgrown the third, which were a little small on me when I first chopped them into maternity pants), and they’re both reconstructed corduroy pants, a warmer-weather friendly piece of bottomwear won out.

This month’s Stashbusting Sewalong theme is sewing with patterns that you already have. So I based this skirt rather loosely on Simplicity 7229, which I’ve used a few times before for skirts and capri pants. (I’m having to link this to my Pinterest since it’s out of print, so hopefully it’ll work!) The original skirt is pretty basic– the two pieces for the front and back are the same, and it has a wide yoke with a drawstring top. I’d always made it in wovens before, but here’s the changes (aside from knit fabric) that I made to make it more maternity-friendly:

• Added several inches to the length of the front/back pieces. Which I actually did the last time I made this pattern, because the original pattern was this awkward mid-calf length, and I ended up hating that and chopping off the previously made skirts to a shorter length.
• I did also have to narrow that at the bottom a bit, because my fabric wasn’t quite wide enough to accommodate the extra width. But since it’s stretchy, that’s ok. Especially since I’m starting to get into the waddle phase and my steps aren’t quite as big as they used to be.
• While I used the yoke/drawstring waistband pieces to get a general idea of how wide to cut it, I replaced that with a slightly skinnier but much longer rectangular piece. The idea is that I can use it to cover up the baby bump for now–the over-bump stuff sits on me way better than under-bump stuff, which just feels awkward and like it’s constantly on the verge of falling down. It’s a little loose at the very top of the band, around the rib area. But I’m not too worried about it.

It folds down into a yoga-style waistband, so I’m hoping that it’ll be snug enough that I can wear this skirt once I’m a little smaller around the waist again, too! It’s obviously hard to tell how that will work right now, but a girl can dream, right? 

Overall, I’m really pleased with how this adaptation worked out, and how fast it was to sew together! I did all of it, including cutting out, in 2 sewing sessions. Which is pretty speedy for me. Depending on how this works out to wear afterwards, this just may be how this skirt pattern ends up getting used from now on. It’s so tempting to find more of this type of knit and whip out a few more! But I have several pieces of knit that I still want to make other clothes out of to wear in the meantime, so I shall try to restrain myself.

I used up pretty close to a full 2 yards on this. As an added bonus, I had just enough fabric left to make a little something for the Hobbit! We’re actually doing pretty well with collecting baby clothes so far, largely thanks to my mother-in-law, who’s brought over multiple bags of things that neighbors and acquaintances were getting rid of.  At least, we’re doing pretty well with onesies and pajamas. What seems to be largely lacking is pants. Given his nickname, all I can think of is that old Lord of the Rings movie meme where certain words get substituted with “pants”. The most famous being…

Which never fails to crack me up, but Hobbit is going to need some pants eventually. So I made some.

The pattern was a freebie that I found on Craftsy, the Go To Baby Leggings. I wasn’t entirely sure about tie-dyed pants for a boy, but a few kind sewcialists on Instagram talked me into it, and I hope these actually end up fitting him because I think they turned out pretty cute! I made these in the 3-6 month size–partially because lightweight jersey pants going into the fall make sense, and partly because I literally did not have enough fabric left to make them any bigger. Doug was pretty impressed, I think–I cut and sewed these in their entirety on Thursday, along with finishing the skirt, and his instant reaction was that they were adorable and I should post them on Facebook. Always a good sign. I wish I knew how they were actually going to fit him, because I had these cut out and sewn together entirely in basically no time! But at least I have the pattern tested, so if it works out, I can always fall back on this as a quick project while he naps or something.

February month-in-review

Aside from the dress in my last post, I thought I’d just do a recap of what else I’ve been making this month, since it’s a lot of works-in-progress and stuff that I wouldn’t give individual posts to. Also, thanks for all of the lovely birthday wishes and compliments on that dress!

1. First off, the totals. I tend to only count stash as busted once the project is actually sewn up, so for this month, I used up a total of 9 1/2 yards of fabric. I did buy one pattern (The Sewaholic Granville blouse, since Tasia was having her big birthday sale and I actually didn’t have a standard button-down shirt pattern in my stash) and a zipper, but overall, I did manage to stick with using things I had.

• The maternity dress was 3 yards. 
• I used half a yard of ugly quilt cotton plus some ugly quilted fabric that my mother-in-law dropped off to me the day before to make an ugly pillow to keep between my knees and help me sleep with reduced hip pain, because that’s been an issue for the last couple of months and my OB suggested a thinner pillow than the one I’d been using. I didn’t measure out that quilted fabric, I literally just folded it up into the size I wanted and sewed the ugly cotton into a pillowcase around it. So I’m not going to show that here, though I did post it in the Stashbusting Sewalong group on Facebook, since one category in this month’s fabric contest was Ugly. (I literally don’t even know how that fabric got into my stash. I didn’t buy it.)
• As for the rest, I made this:

Doug and I almost have the nursery (aka the Hobbit Hole) set up, minus whatever we’re given in the baby shower that my mom’s been planning and a few minor projects. He had the idea to do a hammock for stuffed animals, since we need to keep those away from the dogs. Malkin in particular has a habit of tearing holes and ripping all of the stuffing out as soon as he gets his paws on them! I had a lot of tulle left over from making my wedding dress, because I seriously overestimated how much I would need. Good thing it’s cheap. I didn’t use it all up, since it was in two pieces, but I did manage to use up a 6-yard piece by cutting 4 layers and zig-zagging the edges to hold it all together, then binding the shorter edges/making tabs out of a scrap of thicker white cotton from my scrap bin. Not bad for an afternoon’s work, I think, and I’m happy that I found a way to use up some tulle on a project for a boy!

For the record, a majority of the stuffed animals in there are actually ones I’d kept from my own childhood/teenage years that had some sentimental value. Though the Donald Duck and the little German shepherd puppy were gifts from the soon-to-be grandparents, and there’s a bunch of Dr. Seuss-style fish that my mom made as well.

2. I’d mentioned earlier in the month that I had some pretty massive, time-consuming baby projects to make, so I thought I’d give the update on that.

First of all, I’ve been going to my parents’ a couple of times a week to work on the cloth diapers that my mom and I are sewing. They live closer to my teaching than I currently do, so it makes sense on the days I have fewer lessons to drive up there for more than one thing. Most of her projects are packed away now, so she’s using her sewing time to help me, which is so great of her. We still have a long way to go, since we’re ultimately making 72 (2 dozen each of 3 different sizes), but everything is at least cut out and ready to sew, and we’re making a pretty big dent on the smallest size of diaper. So this is one of those.

And this is what I’ve been working on instead of knitting for most evenings lately, using this pattern. It’s taking awhile, since I’ve been having fabric glue issues and therefore have been basically hand-stitching the majority of this, with a little machine sewing thrown in to secure the edges of pages when backing them to hide all of the mess. Oh well…toys for boys need to be sturdy anyway, right?

And here’s a little closeup of the Fellowship of the Finger Puppets so far–the imagery is based a little more on the movies, so I’m going with that. So this is Boromir, Pippin and Legolas. I probably would have finished all 9 puppets last night, except the fabric glue that I bought yesterday specifically to assemble these just isn’t sticking to the felt very well! (My previous fabric glue had gotten too dried out to use, and these pieces are way too tiny for hot glue. So once again, I’m hand-stitching!) I’ve got 6 puppets in various stages of completion, and then 8 more pages on this book, I think. Some are much less intricate, so that will help. I also have a second book all cut out and ready to go that’s Doctor Who-based. If nothing else, maybe I can have these done in time to give Hobbit for his first Christmas?

So my goals for March, aside from continuing to make as big a dent on these books and diapers as possible:

1. Sew my diaper bag, which I cut out earlier this week and that is therefore ready to go for my at-home sewing time. I’m planning to start that today.
2. If I have time, sew myself at least one more article of clothing to get me through the next couple of months. Probably a top, since hopefully the weather will start to warm up and I can at least graduate to 3/4 sleeves. Especially if I make it nursing-friendly so I can wear it in the fall, too. 
3. On the non-sewing front, I’ll probably also have to start thinking about some cooking days, since one of my plans is to try to get our freezers filled with as many prepped meals as possible so I don’t have to worry about food too much in the first month. (And by prepped, I mean either just defrost, or throw in the crockpot/oven and be done with it.) I have a list of recipes to make, including breakfast and lunch options that I can eat with one hand, plus a second list of ALL the ingredients, but I probably won’t really start with this until closer to the end of the month/beginning of April. We still need to eat in the meantime, so I’m focusing on using up the older stuff that’s in there first.

On a more personal note, since this still sounds like a lot, we’ve decided that I won’t be resuming my retail job this spring as usual. Our plan was for me to stay at home with the baby anyway, though I’m still going to be doing my music and now sewing lessons, which I do have babysitting lined up for. (Thanks, Mom!) But since spring is the busiest season at that job and I’ll be in my third trimester the whole time, and there’s several factors at that job that would make it very physically difficult (having to bend down to lift plants for scanning, stools with no backs, 6-day workweeks, the owner smokes in his office often and cigarette smoke makes me sick even when I’m not pregnant, the nausea still hasn’t fully gone away, etc.), we decided that it would be much better for me to use those last couple of months to just focus on final preparations instead of struggling through two part-time jobs plus all of that. Which is also why I’m planning to do cloth diapers and cook ahead, since in the long run that will save us money on diapers and avoiding takeout while we’re first learning how this parenting thing works. I can’t say I’m too broken-hearted over the thought of having more time in my day to cram in as many hours of sewing and music as I can before having to spend most of my time ensuring the survival of another human!