Beautiful Bits

I know, I'm a worrier.  I'm a downer. I see the world through my doomer glasses, most all of the time.  That doesn't mean I don't have beauty in my life. It doesn't stop me from enjoying that beauty. And today, it won't stop me from sharing some with y'all.  Enjoy. (I'm sure the next post will be back to doom and gloom and atheism.)

Here are a few of my creations this spring/summer. The bits of beauty I try to fit into a hectic life.

I'm working on some sandwich board signs for my market stall. Here's the first one done. This is two quarter sheets of outdoor grade plywood. Sanded, primed, painted with 4 layers of chalkboard paint, and some exterior "patio paint."  I have screwed in hinges at the top, and a chain to keep it from sliding all the way open.  The chalkboard was a pain to paint, it was never going to get as smooth as I wanted it. But even so I think it turned out ok. Very pretty, and functional.

Here are some pretty garden shots. This is the view from my newest garden.  Peaceful, in an Iowa monocrop sort of way. :-)

 And the kitchen garden has a pretty new addition, thanks Mom!

Some of the garlic, looking fresh. This garlic has now been harvested, and is on my front porch curing.

Here are some cute kids, I helped make them, so it counts.

Of course I let him chalk on the new sign board. :-) He helped paint a couple parts.

Some of my recent Mixed Media work.  This one is an oil painting with fabric decoupage so far. May do a bit more painting on it. Some falling Matrix like symbols in gold? Some mehndi style swirls? Still trying to make up my mind.

 This medium sized square one is meant to pair with the larger one above. It too is an oil painting with fabric, but yo-yos this time. Still a WIP, but you can maybe see where I'm going with it.

The itty bitty one is going to pair with a painting I won in a silent auction this spring.  All four together should give us enough to shake up the art work in a couple of rooms.

I'll have to find a new place to get my art supplies, before I embark on the next round.  All of my canvases came from the local Hobby Lobby store a year or so ago. You can guess how often I'll be returning there.  Anybody got any good internet craft suppliers? 

How are you incorporating beauty into your life? Share in the comments if you like.
-Jennie

Recently Completed Sewing Projects

I made the cutest little crayon roll-ups this past week. One is going to my eldest. And one is going in the market basket for sale. 

Also done is a cover for the computer chair. The seat had just about worn through, and the boys were pulling out foam. No beuno. So I made a simple cover out of some spare minkee.

Looks beautiful!
There was also a batch of diapers that got finished, but they went directly onto baby butts and I didn't snap a pic.
Mom and I are go for a charity quilt! I have a small start on things, need to get a wiggle on though, so I can mail the top to her with plenty of time for the long arm quilting.

Do you have any finishes to brag about? Hollar in the comments!
-Jennie

Charity Quilting

There's been plenty on this blog lately about me and my struggles.
Let's spend some time talking about others.
Better yet, join me in spending some sewing time dedicated to others. 


100 quilts for kids
http://swimbikequilt.com/2013/07/100-quilts-for-kids-charity-quilt-drive-starts-today.html
July1- Sept 30th 2013 
Ready to get started?
1. Make a quilt.  Great time to use bee blocks, try a new pattern, or experiment with a design of your own.
2. Donate it to a child in need, locally if you can.  Consider donating your quilt(s) to a local foster care program, domestic violence center, homeless shelter, children’s hospital, or to a local military family support organization.

Slabs for Southern Alberta
http://naptimequilter.blogspot.ca/2013/06/slabs-for.html
Just make a 15.5x15.5 slab and snail mail it to her, and she'll combine them into quilts, and send the quilts to long-armers who are volunteering their time. The quilts are headed to Calgary and Southern Alberta to help in recovery from the flood there.

"How do you make a slab? If you have the book, [Saturday Morning Quilts] refer to the directions on pages 48-49. If you don't have the book let me summarize how to make a slab:

Take two pieces (scraps) of fabric and sew them together. Do that a few more times. Then start sewing more pieces to those first pairs. Sew groups together. Add additional pieces of fabric as necessary to get up to your finished size. Start with small bits or big ones, it doesn't matter. Raid your scrap bins and go with what you've got.

Feel free to grab that top image and share it on your blogs/web-sites. Tell the world about how you made your slab. Link back to this post if you do.

DEADLINE - July 30, 2013.

I plan on assembling the blocks, with the help of some local friends, in early August. "

I know I can get a slab done this month.  A whole quilt for charity, by Sept 30 may be more challenging. Anyone want to team up with me? Mom?
- Jennie

Sew and Tell - Space Skirt!

Got my Blue Nebula skirt done, I think it looks cute. As usual, I totally winged it. I knew what I was aiming for in the finished skirt, and I did some measurements then just started cutting and sewing till it looked close. :-D These shots aren't the best, inside lighting and a shirt that's too long, so you can't see the nice looking waistband I put on it. But, I'm sure I'll wear it this summer and get some better shots up for your viewing pleasure.

 Baby did not want to be put down.

 Here's a side shot, you can see the under skirt which is a light eggplant color. And my oh-so fashionable wool socks. (Because it's not quite time for skirt wearing here.)

Also recently off the sewing table -
A couple of bundles of cloth wipes for the Market stall, and one for our own use.

Bags and decorations for the 4 year old's birthday party! I made a string of pennants for Rowen's birthday party at the end of March. I was a rock star with these. More of my cutting and sewing till it looked right. Literally, in the 15 spare minutes before the party started, I cut out an old lining from a wetbag that bit the dust, and then cut triangles out of it, and matching triangles from some scrap fabrics, and voila! I used a strip of light green to sew it all together and tie it to the wall.

  Rowen thought it was great decoration, promptly declaring the party was started when he saw them. "Mommy made me a party!"  -Rowen

Gift bags for the kiddo. Nothing fancy here.

Well, that's about it for my sew and tell.  I have cute stuff in the queue for the sewing machine already. Some matching shorts for the two boys. Because how cute is it when little boys match? lol Then diaper sewing, hard core, we need at least a half dozen for the boys, and I'd like to have a couple for sale in the market stall. And I need to finish the second curtain for the large window in the living room.  Will I get it all done before the last frost date on the 27th?  :-D Nah, probably not. But, I'm happy with where my sewing is as winter gives us a final blow. I've wrapped up a lot of WIPs, and the organization in the craft den is much better than where it was at the beginning of winter. There is now a lot of wall space open that can be used for homeschooling projects, and there is a lot more stuff out of baby's reach for safety.  I feel like the organized space has made me more productive already. :-D

Thanks for reading! Link to your own finished projects if you got them! We like show and tell's.
-Jennie

Sew and Tell!

As promised, here are a couple more of the projects I've finished up lately.

The purse was completed right before New Years. I wanted something nice to take to the New Year's salsa dance I went to, as well as the wedding on the 19th.
I put interfacing on both the outer and inner layers, so it would hold shape as a clutch purse.  Currently clutch purses are the only ones I can stomach. I'd still switch to a wallet in a heart beat if women's pants were actually  designed to handle that.   Since they aren't, I try to keep things as minimal as possible.
I wasn't 100% happy with how I executed the sides of the purse, but overall, especially since I free handed the whole thing, I'm very happy with it.

The table runner, in a fun fall pheasant scheme, matches the ones I made for various relatives this Yule. I liked them so much I had to have one too!  It may not come out to decorate my house until the end of next summer, but I'm ok with having it done early. :-D

On the list next for the sewing room is a padded bag for Dave to carry the coffee press in for camping trips. Also, some more clothing for me I think. Probably need to sew a few diapers or covers too, just to keep up with things on that front.  I have curtains for the living room to design, and a large quilt (butterflies!!) to design, well it's already designed, but I'll need to tweak the design that the pattern has, to match the fabric I have and the finished size I need. :-D  Because how boring would it be to just follow some one's directions?! lol

-Jennie

WIP Weekend

WIP stands for Work In Progess.  It's a handy phrase for the half finished projects that seem to follow around every seamstress I know.  It's a little hard to explain to non-sewers how these things come into existence, but I'll try real quick.

A lot of times I make more than one of whatever project I'm working on.  If it's quilt blocks, a few extra are nice to have on hand, in case one or two blocks don't work for whatever reason. If it's a present, like a table runner or bag, a lot of time I have enough material to make more than one, and it's just as quick to cut out double if I fold the fabric and cut them both at once.  That double though, often doesn't have the same priority as the first one. The first one might be for a birthday or holiday present, and has a deadline for completion. The second one might be for me, or as a backup gift to have ready for the next holiday or something like that, so it often languishes in the pieces form, until I get done with the high priority stuff. Sometimes I have a project that stalls because I'm missing a component, whether that's batting, or a zipper or the right color thread. 

In order to keep clutter down, I have a place dedicated to WIP's. That way they stay together, out of my way, and the amount of WIPs can be monitored. The size of my pile in the wake of Yule/birthday/wedding rushes, is a little too big. So, this weekend was dedicated to whittling that down a bit.

 I finished up the last of the cute mug rugs that I made for Yule.  A ton of those went out in boxes as presents, but they were too cute not to make any for me. So I have a set of 4 now. Or 5.. I don't know. :-D

I also finished up one last cloth present bag.  It got cut out after the holidays, from sale fabric, but then wedding prep took over and I didn't get around to sewing the sides together.  It does still need some ribbon to go in the top as closure, but there are a few like that, and I'll buy some more ribbon next year and get all of them at once.

Finally, I completed Knitting Project #2!! A wool earwarmer. I learned how to do a bit of ribbing, and a new cast off method that works with said ribbing.  I also took the time to do a bit of embellishing, since I intentionally made the project out of a basic black wool.  Some pretty white made a nice contrast, I may yet put some more color in it. We'll see. Fits great. Feels great.  I LOVE getting this one finished and off the needles.  I was a bad girl and went ahead and started a new knitting project, flaunting my self imposed rule to only finish projects. Project #3 uses some more new stitches, YO and K2tog for you knitters out there, and a gorgeous bunch of yarn I picked up at the Des Moines Quilt Show, (2011 I think!!) and big circular needles, which is another first for me. I even made my very first yarn ball last night. Since the yarn is a hand dyed batch of fashion yarn, it was not in a ball.  This project has been waiting for so long because I didn't have the skills to take it on until now. And I didn't want to mess up my pretty (expensive) yarn with failure. I'm 3 rows into the project now, so far I think it looks like it's supposed to, but I may need to get to the 10th row or thereabouts to get a good feel for the pattern.

I almost had another finish for the weekend. I worked on a table runner from the WIP pile, and got halfway through sewing on the binding. So that one will be finished this week I'm sure.  It will look familiar to the Erwin's in the audience, since it's a matching table runner to the two I sent out as Yule presents.  This one of course is for me!  :-) No pics of this one yet, as it was still attached to the sewing machine this morning and not available for photo op.  It's super cute though, so I'll make sure to grab a shot when I finish it up.

While I'm bragging about finished projects, I didn't get a chance to Sew and Tell the Coffee Carafe Cozy that I made for Dave's birthday. We use a french press at home for our coffee brewing needs, and the only complaint is that it gets cold so fast in that glass carafe.  So I made him a cozy that velcros onto the carafe, over the metal struts and under the handle. And yes that is space invaders on the trim, the entire back side is space invaders. It's kinda reversible, and sometimes Dave puts the space invaders on the outside for fun. :-D

 

That's about it from me today. Anybody else get some projects finished up this weekend? You can Sew and Tell here.  The invitation is open for those of you who choose not to create with fabric/fiber. :-) We're equal opportunity crafters here.

-Jennie

Out with the old, in with the new

I got a lot of sewing done this past weekend. Show and tell time!
I finished up a cute new pillow case for me. It's all cheerful birds and bright colors. I think the winter blahs have set in.  I saw the fabric in my local quilt store, and I HAD TO HAVE SOME.  I was tired of my old maroon Walmart pillow case, and I knew bright cheerful birds would be a vast improvement.
No word on whether Dave wants a matching one for his pillow. :-D :-D

I also got some new diaper covers done for Rowen.  Some of his current size have met their grungy end. They are stained and faded and some are even ripped.  These new ones should help, until he potty trains, and then they'll be around for boy #2.  The frog one is made like all the rest, with one layer of solid colored PUL material and an outer layer of cute cotton fabric, joined with the fold-over elastic.   The owl cover is a new method, using just one layer of PUL material, with the cute pattern printed on the non-laminated side.  It was a lot faster for me to make that one, and I'm curious to see how it holds up in comparison.They both use velcro for fastening. Bonus, the frog one was a WIP that had been sitting around my sewing room since I sewed up the first batch over a year ago.  Yay for getting one more WIP out of the way!

I also got some curtains sewn together for the boys' room.  They are jungle themed, which should go well with the ducks and monkeys and zoo animals that are already abundant. I still need to get the jungle animals appliqued on, then I'll snap some pictures and show them off.   I made progress on the blue and yellow quilt for Rowen's bed, and progress on the mini-quilt that I'm making for the mini-quilt challenge at Ellison Lane.

And now, for fun, here's some belly shots of me and baby this weekend, 3rd trimester gigantic.

Homemade Toys

I love making toys for Rowen and Boy #2.  (No, we don't have a name chosen yet, and probably won't until he's actually breathing air, it's just the way we are.)  I love that I can use scraps and little bits of "trash" and come up with fun educational toys for them.
I'm not shy about my opinion that we're on the downside of Hubberts curve. As we progress down I think more and more of us are going to need to rediscover the lost art of making and crafting.
These toys were made from some trash cardboard, construction paper, left over yarn, and scraps of flannel left over from making crib sheets and butt wipes. The only things I really bought were the little plastic needles and the stuffing for the blocks, since I used up the last of what I had halfway through the big block.

I got the idea for the sewing cards from a blog I stumbled across.  I totally copied her design idea, but I just free-handed the 3 designs I liked onto the cardboard and cut them out. I traced the construction paper from those cardboard cutouts so they'd match, and the middles are the circumference of an oatmeal container.  Then I glued them together and drew some faces and details on.  I chose a thin cardboard, so my handheld hole punch was capable of punching through.  Then I threaded yarn through all the holes so I could guesstimate the length needed, and tied a bead on. The bead does double duty, it keeps the kids from having to knot anything, and it keeps the needle trapped on the yarn.  The yarn can be used for any of the 3 cards, without any rethreading of needles or picking apart knots. (Well, less picking apart of knots, I'm sure they'll manage to knot things somehow.)  The first evening of play went over well, Rowen's been begging to help with the sewing for a few weeks now.  He sees me quilting or sewing buttons or whatever, and he's sure he can help with that. Hopefully these will give him a way to channel that that doesn't slow me down as much.  He caught on to the holes and the needle and how those work, he didn't have a nice clean stitch when he ran out of yarn, but he got the gist and did 3 cards worth before I put things away for bed.   Not bad for a 2 year old.

The squishy stacking blocks came from an idea I had when Rowen was still gestating.  The large block got cut out but never sewn together, and was sitting in my WIP pile.  So, I finished it, stuffed it and made a second smaller block after I cut out a bunch of wipes this weekend.  One WIP finished, scraps used up, total win.

Of course,  doing-what-Daddy's-doing is still top of Rowen's list of fun.

And much fun is had.

Take that Angry Birds! I strike a blow for low-key entertainment.

Organizing and Getting Stuff Done

I had a huge push to get sewing projects done and out of my sewing room the past few weeks.  Some went as presents for Yule, others are hanging in my living room, yea, I'm looking at you big blue.  Others went straight on Rowen's butt.  hahahah

Show and tell time. :-D  First up were Becky's curtains. She loves purple, and fairies, so I used some Fairy Frost and Flower Fairy fabric.   Her window is large, so it was hard to get a good picture of this once it was done.   She really liked it though.

 

Next up was Willie's flag for his fort that Becky built in the backyard for him.  He requested a red and black flag with a spider on it.  So of course that's what he got.  I free-handed the whole thing in an afternoon.

 

While cleaning the sewing room I dug up some old projects that never got completed when Rowen was a newborn.  A couple of bibs made with some yellow terry cloth and blue fishes, and a green froggie bib that my mother started and only needed velcro attached to finish. Those are finished and will be put to good use I think.  Next to the bibs is a random Mama Pad that was cut out and ready to go. I think that green dot pattern was what I used for Sarah's set last X-mas.  I think I'll probably keep this random one, since I'd bet good money she's not used the pads.  It sewed up quickly, and reminded me that I need to find time to remake some postpartum pads.

 

Under the Mama Pad is the last of the prefolds that I finished up.  These were cut out during the sewing weekend with my mother back in Nov? Dec?  I made a set of 6 and I really liked how they turned out. Sadly, in spite of prewashing, the birds-eye fabric shrunk a lot more in the first few washes, so they are already a little small for Rowen.   Grrrr. So, memo to self, add a couple of inches to allow for that shrinkage when dealing with this nice birds-eye.   Another project started at that sewing weekend was a set of swaddle blankets.  Purple, Blue and Green, (chosen before I knew the gender on baby #2 lol) flannel with some cute jungle animals cut from a fat quarter and appliqued on to a corner for interest.  We really liked swaddling Rowen, and never seemed to have enough light weight blankets of the right size to do it.
 

Next up, and again, started at the sewing weekend, was a set of 4 fitted diapers for Rowen.  I have 2 done, and 2 left to complete, hopefully this week.  I used bamboo velour for the inner layer, with a soaker layer of hemp terry cloth (4 thick) and Ooga Booga cotton velour for the outer layer.  Velcro closures.  It took about half a diaper to remember the tricks of the elastic and such with these, so the left leg on the left diaper isn't as stretchy as it could be.  I'm a terrible seamstress and didn't rip it out and fix it. :-P

 

After getting all that goodness done, I spent some time returning the sewing room to a state of order. My spools of ribbon went up on the wall. There they are contained, easy to use, and out of reach of both babies and kitty. I threaded them onto a couple lengths of random yarn and ribbon and tied the ends to two tacks. I put some fabric on the mini-bolts that I bought at the quilting show in Des Moines.  I don't have nearly enough of those to put all my cotton interlock on them, but it is nice to have a few projects worth of the especially pretty stuff organized and out where I can enjoy them. The rest of my fabrics live in Rubbermaid totes and I went through those as well.  They are now organized by type of fabric, and LABELED so that if someone other than myself wanted to find something, they could conceivably do that.  All of my patterns got a going through, and they are organized in an old hanging shoe organizer. 

The last piece of organizing took the longest. I had put the mail sorting baskets in the sewing room, just due to lack of any other place. It was clearly  not well thought out. Mail was just piling up on the kitchen table. So, I dug it all out of the sewing room, and off the table, organized the 2011 mail and filed it away. Then I moved an unused TV hutch out of the sewing room and into the dining room where it now holds all the sorted mail from years past, and the mail sorting baskets for this coming year.  It looks much nicer, and gives me more room to work in the sewing room.

There's still a bit more work to do before I call it good.  My mother sent me some yarn that needs going through, and I need to rearrange now that the TV hutch is gone.   I'm pretty happy with the progress though.

Out With the Old

I have been sewing a lot lately, Rowen needed some new diapers, and wetbags to replace some that were wearing out. (None of the handmade diapers are wearing out, we inherited a set of used prefolds from my best friend. They were well used when we got them, and we've put quite a few more miles on them since.)
This is round three for the diaper supplies, and I've changed some things from the original set. Most of the modifications have been with the design of the wetbags. I've made them bigger, my very first bag was something like 12x14" and these last two bags have been 13x19". I've also changed the zippers that I use. Instead of the really common (and pretty colored) polyester zippers, I am using the molded zippers. The teeth are bigger and tougher, which is good for the heavy duty use these bags get. We had problems with the polyester zippers wearing out before the rest of the wet bag. The molded zippers don't come in as many colors, but it's worth it for the increased durability. I've gone from two velcro hanging loops to just one. We never used both velcro loops, we always hung the bags with just one, so why waste the velcro. I've also stopped putting in the scrap of terry cloth that some people use to put essential oil on. Again, we never found a need to do that, so I just don't waste my time putting it in.
In terms of construction, I've changed how I put the layers together. I have two layers in my wetbags, one of the PUL material, and one of a cute outer print, usually cotton. (Some wetbags use a cute polyester material that has the PUL laminate on the backsisde already, I'm not that fancy.) I used to sew the two layers together at all the seams, thinking that would make them sturdier. Sturdier indeed, but it was also a direct pathway for seepage through to the cotton outside, which is not desirable. So, now I sew the two separately, joining them only at the top where they both meet the zipper. This limits the seepage through, it also allows the inner lining to totally flip out if needed for cleaning/drying.Don't be fooled by the weird perspective here, the wetbags are rectangular, this one just looks smaller at the bottom in this picture.
Future modifications, should there be a round 4: Dave has requested that the zipper open around one of the top corners. Sometimes, having a wider opening to get the dirties out would improve the laundry experience. With the old zippers I could match the size pretty closely, so this wasn't an option, with the new zippers, I am more limited in my sizes and so the zippers I chose are bigger than the top of the bag warrants. With all that extra zipper hanging out in the top corner, Dave thought it might be possible. (It is, I'll just need to figure out how to best arrange the seams.)

Other changes, include a lessening of the inner layer on the prefolds. Instead of 3 or 4 layers of terry cloth for the soaker layer, now I just use 2. I also felt more comfortable switching up the outer fabric, and I did a knit for a couple of the diapers, (teal and green) and a velour with a printed design on it for the others (blue Ooga Booga.) It's a little cuter than the plain, off white, velour. (Everyone knows cuter is better.) I still use the plain velour on the layer that's closest to Rowen's bottom, just to make sun bleaching easy.
Another recently complete project - a nice carry bag for traveling with a bit of sewing. I was going on a long work trip and I wanted a way to take my kniting and a small bit of handsewing. This fabric was one of those impulse buys, and I didn't have a plan for it, so I took the whole cut, (probably a half a yard) and folded it until I had a nice shape. A few quick seams, then a quick bit of yarn for a drawstring, and Voila! I love quick projects.

handmade baby continues to grow

I've got 3 new prefold diapers made! Soft bamboo velour with soaker pads made of hemp terry cloth. They fit him great and will replace some really thin ones that I've been dying to get out of the rotation. They have plenty of room still around the legs and I had to fold them down a couple of inches, so he has growing room in these.


You can see one of my handmade covers under his bum waiting to be fastened. :-D

Cloth progress

Progress has been made. Actual items are ready to use. Yay! Clockwise from upper left, 2 postpartum pads, 1 menstrual pad, changing pad for baby, small wetbag for baby, large wetbag for baby (folded in half), 1st fitted diaper and 21 flannel wipes. To give you a sense of scale, the wipes are 5"x5". Not pictured are the 3 crib sheets and 3 blankets that are also done. I have tons more cut out or in various stages of completeness, but unlike the cutting, stitching stuff together takes larger blocks of time and is more location picky. For instance, yesterday I was babysitting my nephew while Becky worked on her bermed house. It was no problem to take a couple yards of diaper fabric and my cutting board. I got four more diapers cut out while the little one was napping. Taking my sewing machine would have been waaay too much packing/unpacking and general lugging about. :-P So, there's a bottleneck of things that are cut out but not yet sewn. But, nothing a couple of weekends of focus can't solve.

The really nice thing about making it all myself is I can make (usually) exactly what I want/need, and I know exactly what's going in them. The material that will be next to my skin or baby's skin is an organic bamboo velour. Now, my mother is cussing me out over this stuff, cause it's a pain to sew. :-D No arguments there, but it is also the softest stuff I have ever felt, crazily absorbent, with the benefits of being sustainably harvested. The inner absorbent layer(s) are an organic hemp terry cloth. Another sustainable crop, hemp uses far less water and far less pesticides than cotton, boasts a higher yield per acre, is more absorbent, is more durable, gets softer with use and it has natural antibacterial properties that make it resistant to molds. Of course, I had to order these fabrics online, since neither is made in America. (Don't even get me started on the idiocy that prevails in the agricultural policy making in the country.) But, the troubles of finding and ordering and shipping in bulk pale next to benefits of using these fabrics.

Besides the serious stuff, I get to do fun stuff like coordinate my diaper bag, changing pad and wetbag. :-D And pick fun fabrics like the poison dart frog print for the large wetbag. I also get to tweak things so the end result fits exactly what I need. I added the velcro ties onto the large wetbag so it can hang off the end of the changing table, it's also the perfect size for that space, because I made it so. :-D Since I despise most air fresheners I added a little 2" square tab of terry cloth to one of the inner side seams to put essential oils on. It won't work miracles, but I'm hoping it'll do a little to cut down on odors. The bag itself should keep most odors in, since it's waterproof.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I'm using free patterns for everything I'm making. The wetbags are actually an amalgamation of two different free patterns, plus my own tweaks thrown in for good measure. Waay too much fun. :-) Would I have gotten this much enjoyment from just buying all these things from Walmart? I doubt it. And this route may have been more in terms of upfront costs, but over the life of the items, I'm betting it'll be cheaper. Since they are made out of better materials and custom made, they'll last longer. That means that when we get done using them, I can take them apart and make something else with the components. Or they can be pressed into service doing something else. (If it works to hold dirty diapers I bet it'll work to hold soccer cleats.)

Anyway. I'm pretty happy with the progress. A shout out to my mom for sewing the first two diapers with me. :-) I'll leave you with more pretty pictures of my creations.

Here's the inside of the fitted diaper.

Here's a close up of the diaper all folded and fastened.

Here's the pretty bag I made with Mom that I'm going to use as the diaper bag. Dave assures me that it's "waaaay too small." But, I think if some restraint is exercised in terms of how much extraneous stuff gets lugged around for one little baby, the bag should be plenty large. The small wetbag and changing pad have dimensions chosen to easily fit in this bag. It'll easily hold two diapers, a diaper cover, a change of clothing, a few wipes, a toy or two and a sippy cup. What more could you possibly need to run errands or go out to a meal with a diminutive human? :-D