A skirt

I also made a skirt using Mom's method and fabric. It turned out cute. It's too bad I didn't prewash the fabric because it shrunk to above my knee when I washed it today.

I didn't think my head was in the picture...

A skirt, a Dress, and some Pillows

Mom gave me this fabric over Christmas and told me I could make a ridiculously easy skirt out of it.  I thought that was impossible, because I make the easiest things difficult when it comes to sewing.  

Wrong!

This skirt was one of the the easiest sewing projects I have ever done. All I had to do was fold my knit fabric over, sew it into a tube, sew a line for the elastic up by the fold, then put the elastic in.

 It looks worse than it actually is.  I really like this skirt and have already worn it multiple times.  It looks better on me, because it just hangs right down.

This dress is for Brooke, obviously.  The ruffle fabric makes it look harder than it actually is.  I was nervous I would accidentally sew some random ruffles the wrong direction, but I didn't.  I was so happy I didn't that when I sewed the neck to put the elastic in, I sewed right over the ruffle and it looks funky.  I have yet to rip it out and re-sew it.

 It's long on purpose. I'm going to wait until it fits her (a month or two), then cut it to the length I want.  The nice thing about ruffle fabric is that it doesn't need hemmed; you cut behind a ruffle and the ruffle hangs over the cut fabric.

It's cute.  I am very excited for Brooke to wear it and I hope no one looks too closely at it.  Now I just need a cute headband to go with it.

Finally, Jacob has been getting upset at me because I use the pillows on our couch (Isn't that the point of pillows?  We have this conversation often at our house) and they look all squished now.  He wanted to buy new pillows, but I told him that was ridiculous and I would make him some if he found cheap fabric.  He did.  He picked out this fashionable chevron fabric and I whipped these up in 15 minutes.  He was amazed.  Apparently sewing a square and stuffing it is impressive. 

Kimono Robe/Nursing Robe

Several months ago, I attended a baby shower for a girl in our ward. Someone gave her a present instead of something for the baby. It was a set of pjs. The bottoms were capris and the top was a short sleeved button down style just prefect for nursing a baby during the night with little hassle (or so the idea seems). I was struck with the brilliance of the idea especially since I never really dealt with night time nursing. Ok, I didn't really deal with nursing at all.

However, since I will be trying the whole nursing thing again, I wanted to have some 'luxury' items to try and not make the whole ordeal as stressful. One of those was something to wear that would be more convenient to nursing. I had no nursing tops and found it cumbersome to try and hold Russell without having my still baggy shirts falling down in his face the whole time. Those pjs turned a light on in my mind.

Now, I was going to be lazy and just buy some, or hope that the same person would give me some at the baby shower they are having next week, but I realized several things. 1) Pjs are stinkin' expensive especially since my normal pjs consist of a random pair of shorts (or gifted pj pants in the winter) and a random t-shirt from my closet. 2) The person who gave the pjs was asking me if we had any of the real hooded towels (not the little kind of flimsy ones) so that is probably what I'll be getting. 3) How can I be sure they would even be comfortable and not too hot for the next summer months with bad air conditioning in our apartment?

So I've been looking around and found this tutorial for a Kimono style robe. It looked easy enough to sew and like it would fit the bill. After reading through it a couple more times and taking some quick measurements on myself, I decided I would make it a little smaller and a little shorter. My fabric worked better that way, plus it left me enough to make a quicky pair of matching pj shorts (still to be started and hopefully it will actually get done before a baby magically decides it is time to come).

I used some knit fabric I got earlier this year when the Mills End fabric store was closing and some satin blanket binding I bought for another project in which the greens looked horrible together and thus did not use. I only ended up using one yard of the fabric for the whole thing including the belt and belt loops. I'm pretty excited with the way it turned out. It is super comfortable, too! I made the whole thing today in 3 hours. The hardest part by far was getting that dumb blanket binding on. I don't know why I ever choose to use it because it usually gives me a big headache and always is the longest part of every project I use it on. I didn't want to just fold over and hem every edge either, so I gave in a used the binding.

I'll try and get the shorts finished up soon so you can see the final project all finished up and looking awesome together.

A Bag! And Baby Pjs.

I've been on a sewing kick lately.  I always tell myself that when I get my sewing machine out it's not going back until I get all my projects done.  Then it sits out for a very long time.  Anyway, one of my goals this year is to do some sort of crafty project every month.  This has proven successful thus far, with varying results.  In May I made this bag (I also made a skirt, but I need a picture before it can come on the blog).

It's for going to the library.  I realized that holding a baby and library books at the same time is hard, so I whipped this up.  In true Janet style, I made the handles going front to back instead of the generally accepted front to front and back to back. I'm too lazy to pick two rows of stitching out, so it will be staying.

The elastic is so I can roll it up and put it in my diaper bag/purse until I need it.  I hadn't put a button on yet, so I quickly sewed one on for a picture.

I obviously didn't center the button before I sewed it on, so it came right back off after the picture.

I like it.  It is perfect for my needs.  It is also good for carrying my Primary things to church.

My next sewing achievement were some pajama pants for Brooke.  I got a bunch of flannel receiving blankets when she was born and hardly used them.  I saved them, knowing they would come in handy someday.  She needs pajamas in the 12 M size, so I tried my hand at making some.

I'm happy with how they turned out, even though they all have the normal Janet flair .

These are my favorite

These are also cute, but I forgot to add enough fabric to make them stretch at the waist, so I hope Brooke is skinny.

 I found some long sleeve t shirts on the cheap at Target to pair with the bottoms and voila-- many pajamas for few dollars.

The trees are sideways.

And here is a picture of my helper.

DIY Wubbanub

Camille was, and Owen has become a pacifier baby. There are pros and cons to having a baby take a pacifier, but the biggest negative is that there are nights when the baby wakes up every time the pacifier comes out of his or her mouth. I remember one night with Camille where this happened every 15 minutes or less through the entire night. It's no wonder there are warnings about tying a pacifier around a baby's head to keep it in. That much sleep deprivation is horrendous, and the parent is willing to do about anything to get the baby to sleep and get herself some sleep.

There is a product out there called a Wubbanub. It is a little beanie baby with a pacifier at one end. The idea is that since it is weighted, the pacifier won't pop out of the baby's mouth as easily. After a night when Owen had a hard time getting into a deep sleep because of the pacifier, I wanted to do something before it came to one of those awful nights.

I have many beanie babies from my childhood, and we have pacifiers, so I made a Wubbanub. I picked out the mouth seam of a beanie, took out some of the stuffing, shoved in the tab on the pacifier, and sewed 8-10 stitches right through the pacifier tab, attaching it to the beanie.

It works! I chose a beanie that didn't have anything on the face that would get in the way of the baby breathing, and ended up with this one. In retrospect, I should have used one that had legs out to the side that could stabilize it, but the one I chose works.