So, I thought I would use up some of my stash to make some super cute cloth diapers but I didn’t have any PUL fabric or waterproof fabric.  SO, I did a little searching through a really informative cloth diapering forum and found out about silicone waterproofing spray for fabrics.  Now, I thought this was going to be my saving grace because it was only a few dollars for the can and it would last through repeated washings.  After spraying the inside and outside panel of the outer shell (decorative fabric) I thought it would be nothing but success!

Well, I did like the diaper pattern which was a bit of this, and a bit of that, as well as a bit of my own idea (adding a zipper to slide the inserts into).  Although I didn’t add this feature, I think gussets are an ingenious asset to cloth diapers!  As you can see, the diapers are sweet to look at but they are certainly not as functional.  I tried inserting cloth diapers as well as a “waterproof” liner” but it was simply ineffective.

I’m thinking the only way to salvage these poopers is to cover them with a plastic diaper cover; of course, that covers up their cuteness.  Unfortunately, my wee one has already outgrown these so I am contemplating finding some PUL to make the next size up.  Has anyone out there had a good experience with waterproofing their own fabric?  If so, what product did you use?

Now, isn’t he just the cutest turtle you ever did see?  I mean, he’s so cute that he’s a ladybug’s man.   I had a lamp similar to this style when I was a child, but it was Jack and Jill by the well.  The colors and style just make me happy as can be.  This lamp is definitely old, but it is in perfect working condition!  The turtle is actually the knob to a music box that plays “Rock-a-bye Baby”.

The lamp shade was the only thing that was missing, but I found this one the next day for $2.  I am thinking of covering it in this striped fabric.  What do you think?  The fabric is nice and thin so the light shines through it in a pretty, night light sort of way.

Elionai loves it.  She always want to take the turtle off, especially when he is twirling around ever so slowly to the tune.  It is as if she wants to catch him and make sure he doesn’t come down “turtle and all”.

This month we celebrated hubby/daddy’s birthday and it took me FOREVER to finish his birthday present, but here it is in all its glory! It is a field kit to carry his artist materials. The front is the coolest part, in my opinion. I took our five-year-old’s rendition of dad and embroidered her original drawing onto the fabric. It was a lot of fun!

I simply made a photocopy of her original drawing and then placed the copy on top of the fabric where I wanted it displayed. I then placed the embroidery hoop over the paper and the fabric and proceeded to embroider the pattern. In the end, I simply tore the paper away from the stitches and “voila”! I intentionally angled the picture because I think it added great character. The orange button was a must because it is his favorite color.

The kit unbottons and folds open to a snap flap, that when opened reveals a three-panel-pocket for his art pencils, homemade art journal and art supplies tin. the journal was a lot of fun to make. I learned about gutting, binding, painting and decorating a journal. It was bound in coptic stitch and the round, white, photo you see is actually a photo transfer onto polymer clay. That worked SO well! I know I will be using that technique on future projects.

I will be adding links to some of these techniques soon so please remind me if you are interested and I haven’t yet.

That sweater looks so pretty…so serene there hanging on the chair. I was so excited to be nearly finished with it until I decided to take out one of the sleeves because I needed to lengthen it and I had missed a few stitches in the pattern that I didn’t understand until I got to the second sleeve. I was inspired by the fact that our five-year-old was actually really excited that I was crocheting her a “pretty sweater” and so I started ripping out stitches, only to discover that it was actually the front panel and not the sleeve as I had thought. So, I continued pulling the yarn thinking that I would just take out the sleeve but it actually started unraveling the back panel! I was so frustrated, that what remains of the kinky yarn lies in a pile of knots; a pile that could easily resemble my body due to the stress of it all.

It got me to thinking that if I were a knitter, I am sure it would take me a lot longer to thrash my yarn in a fit of frustration because the work would have taken me so much longer to complete to that point. Flying knitting needles also seems a more dangerous vision than crochet hooks. I really wouldn’t have been so emotional if I had *made a choice* to rip out all the stitches, but I was really happy to know that the sweater was going to be eagerly received that it made it that much more painful, and a tantrum on my part ensued. Well, I will be back to crocheting it again in a day or two and I am hoping that by the weekend I can be closer to the finish line than I was before today – before the incident today, that is.

On a happier note, I am also sewing up this adorable dress for the babe. It is a really simple pattern but I have been putting it off because I had to make up my binding. Tonight I got that done and I am going to finish up pinning it tomorrow. I haven’t touched my sewing machine in about a week and it feels strange. I am looking forward to getting this doll of a dress done. Isn’t the vintage pattern just precious?! Can you see the price up there in the corner – yep, that’s right .35. Now that was back in the day!

This question was met with laughter…much laughter. While she had never heard the term, she had a pretty good idea I was referencing a nursing cover. The Hooter Hider aka Bebe au Lait was one of the best gifts I received with our latest addition and because the pattern was so simple, I decided to give it a whirl as a gift.

Having used mine for many months now, I knew there were a couple features that I would change. The first of those was to add weights to the corners of the fabric so that at the first sign of a breeze, I wasn’t flashing everyone in sight.

I also added a liner to the nursing cover because the fabric was rather sheer and the liner contributed to privacy, weight and cleaner lines. It reminded me of a giant pillow case after it was sewn up. I wanted a pocket that would be more easily accessible and a bit larger than the triangular corner pocket on the original so I fastened this one to the top. I will await feedback from the momma recipient as to how convenient it is in that location.

I loved the feature on the original that allowed visibility of baby through the top due to an added strip of stiffness in the hem. I reduced the size of the rings because it tended to scrunch of the fabric when I loosened and tightened the original. I am hoping there will be less room to do so with the smaller rings.

I really like the way it turned out and I will certainly be making more in the future for friends and family who intend to nurse their little bambinos.

I’ve started my adventures in sewing now that I have discovered what was ailing my sewing machine. I received my sewing machine as a gift nearly a decade ago now and while I have used it v-e-r-y intermittently during those years, I have not actually attempted to learn the art of sewing.

So, as with most things I desire to know, I checked out some books and started reading. I visited my local thrift stores and began to collect, no more like hoard, wonderful patterns and fabrics. I pulled out my sewing machine, cut fabrics, broke thread, fed fabric to the feed dogs rather than through them, stitched, unstitched, stitched, unstitched, learned the value of backstitching by holding down the backstitch button so the machine feeds the fabric and I don’t have to shove the fabric backward through the machine damaging my needle, thread and fabric all at once! This delusion that I could simply press a button came from watching women with thousand dollar machines on television press their button so carefree-like. Note to self: I do not own a fancy shmancy machine like those women who make money sewing on television and no matter how much I treat my sewing machine like a fancy shmancy machine it will not morph into such.

I did make my own bias tape for this, my first, clothing project. As you can see though, I failed to tuck and fold the bias tape where it ended. Ah, the beauty of knowing that my daughter will never know, or care, that the haphazard seams of her shirt screams, “I was made by a novice!”

So, I was embroidering a gift for a dear friend of mine who is due to have her fourth babe any moment and…oops…I dropped the needle.

Yep, right there in the shadowy black abyss on the right. Of course, I had baby girl on my lap…asleep. Well, for anyone who knows me, it is a rare moment that I spend simply enjoying moments of nothingness. So, of course, I had to put baby girl down and proceed to lift the cushion and dig for that which would allow me to stop doing nothing and pick up my unfinished embroidery project. As I was intently digging, I thought about how my hand just seemed to go deeper and deeper into the crevice collector. I thought about how reckless it might seem to plunge one’s hand into such places searching for sharp, pointy objects. And then…

I found it.

I have been meaning to learn to sew for something like ten years. In fact, I was inspired by my first child. I wanted to make her an outfit out of this cute red corduroy printed with dalmation puppies. I ventured to make a pair of baby overalls. I think I tried to make them in a 12 month size, but I was so intimidated by how small the seam allowance seemed to be that I overcompensated enough to morph it into a 6 month size. Needless to say, my daughter never wore it and I decided to wait until I found someone who could help me along before trying anything else.

Well, my sewing machine moved from one closet to another and I never happened upon this “someone” who would instruct and inspire me. SO, the next time I used my sewing machine was last year. Of all things, I decided to reupholster our couches. I have no idea what I was thinking, having never sewn a zipper or a three dimensional covering but I apparently lost enough brain cells over the last decade to cause me to believe it was possible. I actually did nearly complete our loveseat. The cushion was the hardest part, by far! I did learn how to create a pattern from existing pieces and how to keep from crying every time I had to re-thread the machine. However, I struggled through breaking the thread every minute or so – you mean you aren’t supposed to use garment thread on upholstery?? I also struggled with the corners – you mean you should cut slits in the corner so it will overlap naturally as you sew?? I guess there’s also different needles for different projects. Wow, I knew a whole lot of nothing when it came to sewing. I am surprised the couch didn’t disintegrate when we sat on it for the next year!

So now I come to my third sewing machine project ever – inspired by our newest addition. It is a dainty little sun dress I cut out of cloth napkins. I really like the pattern on the napkins as it is very delicate. The photo below actually gives the appearance that I know what I am doing but I haven’t gone so far as to even thread the sewing machine yet. I need some Divine wisdom because at this point I am going to continue to cut out pieces that will mock me while they lie in wait. My new motivation is that I am very eager to design my own patterns. I even have a couple very elementary sketches of some ideas.

If anyone knows of some great online sewing resources – or books, for that matter, please share!

Weeks ago I started an adorable pattern out of Simple Crochet for Cherished Babies by Jane Davis. Now, keep in mind that this is my second crochet project ever. My first was a blanket that I started about two weeks before our daughter was born. I did complete the blanket itself and will show you all when I get the finishing touches added to it (flowers and a vine).

Making a piece of clothing makes gauge a lot more important than making a blanket. As you can see, the green version of the onesie is significantly larger than the blue one below. I ended up tearing the green one out because it looked like a was making a onesie that would fit my ten-year-old daughter instead of our two month old! So, I did a little research about what “fingering weight yarn” looks like as well as the impact yarn and hooks have on gauge.

I know there are several of you out there that are screaming – this is all common sense – but I can assure you there was nothing common about it all to me. The following photo is evidence of my frustration as I was on about the eighth do-over of the pattern. Being so new at this, I don’t know when things are turning out right or not. It turns out that everything was peachy and I didn’t need to rip it out – well, rip it up. In the moments that followed my husband wondered who this mad woman was that he married !

The Crochet Answer Book is a GREAT investment for even the most frugal shopper – Posie just raved about the value of this book as well. Thus far, I have purchased all my yarn from Goodwill and I have really enjoyed having so many different textures and colors at my disposal. I can usually pick up about three or four balls of yarn for around 2 bucks – unless it is Saturday when everything is 50% off. The yarn I ended up using for this project is presumably hand-dyed and spun because the thickness varies throughout. Even after my fit of destruction, I ended up spending about three bucks on this project.

I have since added the straps and crocheted the skirt but now I am trying to figure out how to attach it to the body with single crochets. Such a simple stitch yet such a difficult new concept…any words of wisdom?

I just discovered that Goodwill is a wonderful place for fabric finds! I got these four treasures there in the last couple weeks and picked up a few more today. You can really happen upon some screaming deals being that they are all “second-hand” items. I plan to make a skirt out of the blue and peachy-green-gold pattern. I want to make some cute blouses like those below out of the two on the right.

I picked up 13 linen napkins today that I may use for other projects. Since one of the sets of napkins was actually 5 napkins rather than an even number I will probably use that one to make the strips for my curtain panels that I will hand on the patio door. The bottom fabric in the photo below will make up those panels. All of these were another Goodwill find! These are all already sewn and tailored curtains except that I am altering the design of the bottom, as I mentioned. The blue flowers will go in our five-year-old’s (and soon to be baby’s room). If it is a boy then at least the flowers are blue – but his sister IS the oldest so she will get to have her choice of curtains before he does. The fabric in the middle will go up in our family room. I am still looking for fabric for our kitchen and school room.

My mom and aunt came into town on Wednesday the 17th in anticipation of the new arrival and my aunt knows how to sew, knit, and crochet so I am looking forward to learning! I bought this fabric in anticipation of their visit. However, my first sewing project will probably be diaper covers for the baby. Of course, those require elastic and that is very intimidating to me! Nonetheless, I am so motivated to learn while I have the chance that I am up for anything! Now, if only this little bugaboo in my belly would do a somersault. A birthing center birth and a breech baby don’t go hand in hand so we are praying for some acrobatics in the next day or so – or hour or so!