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

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.

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.