What should flannel smell like?

I think I have one more me-garment in me before the baby.  After that, I don’t think it’ll be terribly time-effective to keep making things that I’ll wear for just a couple of days really.  So between planning for after-baby clothes, there will probably be more baby-themed posts for the next while here.

Like this.  I made up a few items for a friend at church who is due with a little boy in February.  A couple of blankets (the construction flannel had a flaw/hole in it that I covered with a simple monogram applique)–not terribly interesting, but oversized like the hospital ones, so they’re entirely practical.

One of the ladies at my school made us some bibs like these (I traced hers for these ones) when I was pregnant with Noah, and wow, if there was something we’ve gotten more use out of than anything it would be them.  They are flannel on one side, and terry cloth on the other (I repurposed a couple of microfiber kitchen towels that I’ve never really used).  They are super absorbent and wash up perfectly.  Clare had turned the body of the bib like a pillowcase and bound the neck only, but I chose to bind the entire bib with bias tape because I hate dealing with thick terrycloth.  I think I chose wisely.  I also got a chance to use my Snap Setter, a tool that has been sitting unused on an extra table for *months*.  Snap Setter, I apologize for letting you languish in the sewing room for so long.  I don’t know what I’ve been doing to set snaps before, but seriously, this is a GOOD tool–simple in design, inexpensive, and it works perfectly.

The last thing I made is another Unforgettable Elephant from S.E.W. by Diana Rupp.  I really love making stuffies because I can store obscene amounts of knit scraps all rotary-cut up into shreds as stuffing.  When they yield actually cute, cuddly creatures, all the better.

The title of the post is because I ran into something that I have not run into before.  I’m sensitive to the smells of dyes in fabrics in general (why I hate mall shopping), but this flannel from JoAnn stunk.  I didn’t prewash as I normally would since I wanted crisp corners on the blankets and didn’t want to fuss when I was cutting it.  Honestly, it was kind of like being in a nail salon.  The smell went away after I washed everything, but for real, is it me, or has anyone else noticed their brightly colored flannel smelling rather chemical, and should I be sufficiently creeped out?

Hey, you can still enter the giveaway for the Onion pattern.

Comment on this post, and I’ll choose a winner on Sunday night.

In defense of stuffies

I’m starting to understand my creative rhythm.  I can’t keep churning out project after project for myself without losing a little bit of my sanity.  Somewhere in there, I need to vary levels of difficulty and concentration to keep myself from burning out.  This should be really no surprise to me, or that’s certainly the way I was taught to teach–alternating activities of high concentration with just plain fun to keep students engaged and more receptive to learning.

In light of this, I present an argument for making simple stuffed animals or stuffed whatevers.

Nostalgia:  You know your room was populated with them when you were a kid, so why not populate your own kids’ rooms with them.  For me, making a stuffie is a triple-whammy of nostalgia.  Sure, I had my own collection, but also my Great-grandma made them, and when I was a kid, I made them all outfits as well as making my own little stuffies from whatever bits and scraps of fabric I could muster up.  My crowning achievement in stuffie making?:  crafting a faux amber heart necklace for my American Girl doll out of–wait for it, temporary dental adhesive (wouldn’t you know it was the right color and dried perfectly?).

Scrap busting:  If you’ve sewn for more than 3 minutes, you know that sewing creates tremendous amounts of scraps.  There’s sometimes when mentally you just have to chuck things because it’s ridiculous, but there’s other times that you can’t bear to part that precious bit of voile or silk or corduroy or what have you.  Stuffies allow you to use up those bits and highlight their beauty too.

Mental health:  Sewing stuffies is not difficult.  They use little fabric and it’s mostly straight line sewing with a few curves thrown in that won’t be ruined if they end up a little less curvy.  It’s glorified pillow making, really, just cuter.  After all of the topstitching that goes into a pair of jeans, it’s just the kind of simplicity your brain needs.

Death to (knit) wadders!  We all start every project with dreams of that perfect fitting shirt or dress, but despite our best intentions, sometimes everything goes awry.  If you’re like me, wadders tend to stare back at you in the closet, mocking you.  I say dispatch of them in a satisfying way!  Take a big rotary cutter and turn them into confetti stuffing for your stuffies (I say knit fabrics because wovens tend to make for a lumpy hand when used as stuffing.  Of course you could use polyfil too, but it can leak out of the seams–and that’s a kind of fiber I’d rather not have in my kids’ diet)!!!  Fabric confetti will give your stuffies a delightful heft that polyfil stuffies cannot reproduce.

Smile factor:  Can you put a price on this (acutally I can–it cost me 2 naptimes and a couple of hours watching a movie only because I made them fancy with embroidery, but my materials were otherwise free, unlike pricey homemade stuffies you find on places like Etsy)?

Go make someone a stuffie.

These particular stuffies elephantine are the Unforgettable Elephants from S.E.W. Sew Everything Workshop.  It is my entry for Patternreview’s Sewing for Children contest!  And my review is here.

Tradition

 

My Great-Grandma was an interesting lady.  Fiercely independent, opinionated, entrepreneurial, yet absurdly generous.  She baked a cake for someone in her company every day she worked, she made Easter eggs out of sugar with little scenes inside of them to sell, and she sewed many many many Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls.  Those things were everywhere, and I’m pretty sure each of her 17 great-grandchildren had multiples of those dolls.  Fast-forward to present day. 

Next week, when I go to see my family, I’m going to a baby shower for my dear cousin who is due in September.  She’s doing her nursery in Raggedy Ann and Andy motifs because (I imagine) it makes her remember Grandma St. Joe.  How could I pass up the opportunity to make her a doll that Grandma would be proud of? 

I used my TNT doll pattern, piecing the arms and legs to make them a little more patchworky, like Grandma’s dolls were.  I copied the face in fabric paint from a vintage Raggedy Ann doll picture I found on Flickr.  I used this tutorial for the hair, and the clothes I just cut a little bit of this and that and went to town, as I always do for my dolls.  Actually, it’s probably because Grandma St. Joe that I make dolls at all.  I remember being a kid and being allowed to raid her scrap piles in the attic.  I made many many a costume for my beloved squeaky pig, Spam from those bits, the most treasured being my Henry VIII garb I made from an upholstery scrap (wouldn’t you know Spam is at my parents…one of these days I’m going to rescue him and do a proper photo shoot).  I never cared much for the dolls themselves, but clothing them has always been a pastime for me, as I imagine it was for my Grandma.  Traditions at their best always feel that way to me.  It’s amazing to participate in a tradition and to remember those before you doing the same thing while you’re doing whatever that thing is.  

So, though my Grandma was quite a firecracker, I feel really blessed that she invited all of us into her world and taught us things.  I miss her.

(I was the baldest baby ever!)

Old and new

I don’t mean to hate on quilters or quilting, but I’m not a fan of the act of quilting myself.  Though I love the end result, I’m not a fan of cutting out the pieces, and I find the sewing just kind of boring.  But once in a while, I simply can’t keep away from the rich saturated colors that you find in quilting fabrics. 

So when I found these amazing squares of very vintage fabric

at the thrift store one day, I knew that they should be a blanket for Noah.  I bought some fabric at JoAnn yesterday to flesh out the palette, and I’m enjoying the contrast of the vintage fabrics with the modern ones.  

I serged everything together since Gnomey is getting her timing fixed.  This was pretty quick except I didn’t bother measuring for my borders, so I kind of pieced haphazardly which is my way anyhow.  The back is some IKEA fabric I won along with lots of other goodies a long time ago from decor8.  I’ll tie it when I get some batting.

One valance + a little elastic=

2 happy boys.  Or they will be once my nephew and Noah get to go to the pool in their matching trunks.

I’m hoping that growing up Noah and his cousin will be tight.  He has two younger sisters now, and any brothers that he will have will be no less than 4 years younger than him.  At just under 2 years apart, I think the odds of my nephew and Noah being close are probably pretty good.  But why not cement that with matching pants?

I’ve been looking at supplex nylon and other such swim worthy materials, and I decided it was going to be too expensive to make trunks, plus I couldn’t find a pattern…my nephew’s barely big enough for the smallest of small swim trunk patterns, and Noah’s too small period.  So I improvised.  Before I went to Denver Fabrics last week (when they had supplex on sale for 99 cents/yd–I’d stash it, but it’s just going to sit for a really really long time), I popped by the thrift store to see what I could come up with.

Lo and behold, I found this nifty poly window valance with big construction signs and trucks on it.  My nephew mega loves Bob the Builder, so I knew this would be a score.  I even found a nice poly knit there too that would be perfect for lining.  None of this stuff feels fantastic, but you’re getting wet in them–they dry quick and it’s pretty hard to pass up non-licensed boy fabric.  There’s not too much of it to be had, especially for cheap.

I traced a pair of Noah’s pants that fit him now for his pattern.  I used the XS in McCalls’ 4364 for my nephew.  I serged everything together, including the lining which is a first for me.  I did a rolled hem on the lining hem, and I tucked it underneath the casing.  I added grommets and threaded through a thick elastic cording for a drawstring instead of normal elastic.  I need to get more of this stuff and rethread Noah’s because his are a bit snug as this elastic doesn’t have a lot of give.  I might just get a shoestring instead…

This was a fun project–I cut everything in the morning and put both shorts together in one short nap minus hammering on the grommets.  I’m done for a while sewing for others.  I needed a mental break from my own projects, but I’m ready to get back to more complicated projects.

A shirty shirtdress

I’ve been a bit absent here the past week…Some pretty significant things went on in our house–my husband’s graduation for his PhD happened (fabulous ceremony–low key and everyone was able to say a little something when they came up to get their recognition–I’m so proud of my hubby!),

 and Noah had his first birthday

(my baby’s 1?!).  I made lots of food, including this lovely lemon buttermilk cake with lemon buttercream and raspberry jam and coconut from Dorie Greenspan’s excellent book, Baking: From My Home to Yours.  Noah ate the whole piece, by the way.  Noah got to play with his cousins and his new toys and the kids entertained us all.

In the midst of the hubbub of cooking and planning for cooking and entertaining my in-laws, I did manage to sneak some sewing in.  I was able to fit a pattern for myself, make a muslin of said pattern, do some serious practice work on button plackets, and sew niece #2 a shirtdress.  You’ll hear about the former projects later this week, so I’ll start with the shirtdress.

New York Kids’ Style shirtdress

What I learned:

1.  Women’s shirts have less yardage than you think:  This dress is a refashion.  I found a really cool paisley shirt at the thrift store and tore it apart at the seams for this one.  It had to shorten the dress because the shirt wasn’t quite long enough, and I had to lay the back piece over the existing yoke, making the back double-yoked.  Though I cut out well over half of my pieces from leftover pink stripe seersucker I still have from my jacket, this pattern took up way more than I thought a 2T would.  I also couldn’t match the pattern across the seams because of the lack of yardage.  As I tell Noah, you can’t always get what you want.

2.  Creative patching:  As I was tearing up the shirt, I could not avoid making a few holes as I removed the original patch pockets (which I would have used for the dress but they were way too big).  Luckily, I had enough scraps that I could find suitable patches that matched the pattern.  I put a small piece of fusible interfacing over the hole on the backside of the fabric first.  Then I cut a little matching square out of scraps to fit over the hole and then some.  I backed the squares with Heat and Bond Lite, ironed them on, and ran a small zigzag around the patch.  Because this print is so busy, you really have to look to know that they are there.  I should have taken a picture of this process, but I forgot.

3.  Shirt construction:  This was such a great dress to practice shirt construction on.  I wouldn’t think a pattern with only sad little diagrams and instructions that I can’t read would help me so much, but the lack of instructions took me to lots of helpful places in cyberspace.  For the yokes, I used this tutorial (I’ll never do another yoke another way again–easy, fast, and perfect).  For the collar, I think I read every tutorial here.  My biggest learning moment came in the placket.  As I said, I’ll write about that later, but I’ll point you to the place I started.  The whole dress is lightyears beyond my last shirt, and I’m pretty happy about that.  It’s so cool to see progress in your sewing. 

My full review at Patternreview is here.

Saccharine

I can’t handle this dress.  I’m not the puppy dog oohing kind of girl, but seriously, these kids’ clothes are quickly turning me into a little melted squishball.

I had quite a bit of the pink striped seersucker leftover from my jacket (and I still do), so I had a notion to make little summer dresses for my nieces with it.  Of course, now I’ll have to make my nephew something so he doesn’t get left out.  Maybe some matching swim trunks for him and Noah so they can be even more cute together when we all go swimming this summer…

Up first is my newest niece’s dress.  A simple little jumper dress from Little Stitches by Amy Butler.  I must say, this is a great book, but there is so much verbage in the patterns.  For such a simple little dress, there’s no less than 4 pages of text in teeny weeny font.  I said in my pattern review to look at the pattern pieces and you can figure it out in 5 minutes if you think about it.  Much faster than slogging through so much text.  That is all with the rant.  On to the good parts:

Comfy Jumper Dress with Bloomers (!)

What I learned:

1.  #2 in a series–not all polyester is evil:  I scored this amazing chunk of vintage sheer poly crepe at the thrift store for $1.49.  There’s enough to not only to have added a skirt to this dress, but for me to make a top (perhaps one of my summer picks).  It’s a beautiful print.  I’d love to know how old it is.

2.  I don’t think I’m going to get over how fun it is to line things:  For the lining, I ousted the directions and made a free-hanging full lining.  I made the outer dress fully and the lining dress fully and then put them wrong sides together and stitched around the neck/shoulders/armholes.  I graded and clipped the seam, pressed it, and topstitched around to keep things pretty and keep the lining where it should be.  I like the lining like this–it’s so airy and bulkless.

3.  There used to be life before the serger, remember?:  My serger is down…again.  I think I’m going to cut my losses and upgrade.  This one has been such a lemon for me.  But before I do that, there’s sewing to be done, and today was no exception.  Instead of serging to finish my seams, I used French seams, which was a good solution on such light fabrics (the lining is remnants of eyelet).

I hope this fits G–the armholes sure look tiny, but then I forget that all 0-3 month clothes do.  Bonus–bloomers!

$5.25

That’s what it cost me to make this jacket.  I love this!  Okay, so I didn’t factor in the cost of my pattern, but I will negate this for 2 reasons. 

1.  It’s from a Japanese craft book (isbn 9784579109968) with 26 patterns, all of which I will sew probably multiple times by the time I’m done with having kids

2. I wanted to say I made a jacket for $5.25.

Noah’s birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I’ve been wanting to make him this jacket since forever.  A few weeks ago, I found this really awesome twill pillow sham from Pottery Barn and I knew it would be perfect for a jacket.  I paid 75 cents for it.  Now, I’m not one who can walk into a thrift store and find fabulous stuff regularly, but when I do, I’m thrilled to my toes.  The fabric is a really nice quality fabric that was barely breathed on, much less used, and it has some really sweet decorative rivets and flat-fell seams.  The lining is Henry Glass Dogwood Basket Weave fabric I had in my stash that I bought for $6/yd, and I used 3/4 of that.  I got the buttons for free and the thread was from another project.

Jacket for Noah

What I learned:

1.  Yay for creative layouts:  When I laid out my pattern, I was able to take advantage of the flat-fell seams and decorative rivets by playing with the grainline.  The back is cut on-grain, and the front is on the cross-grain.  One of the fell-seams falls across the front in between two of the buttons.  The other fell seams run down the back equidistant from CB.  My genius with the layout fell short on the hood.  I didn’t understand at first how the hood was constructed, so I laid it out how I thought it was supposed to go, which would have put seams on either side of the center of the hood seam.  When I sewed everything (including the lining–argh) together on the hood, it became obvious to me that this was not a hood, but a big old pancake.  Pancakes don’t fit cupcakes (as in baby’s head).  Seam ripper and I had a nice conversation, and I resewed the seams together properly, only to realize that the seams that would’ve been opposite the hood seam were now in one straight line that I could not possibly match.  It’s a design feature, right? :) 

 Despite all this, I was able to take advantage of the rivets, which are at the bottom corners of the hood.

2.  Jacket facings, like all facings are not terribly hard to make:  The pattern is for an unlined jacket, but I knew from the beginning of this project that I wanted to line it fully.  To do this, I needed to draft back and front facings.  Because this is a raglan sleeved jacket, I knew the sleeve had to come into play with the facings because they form the neckline partially.  I pinned the back facing to the sleeve at the neck and traced the top edge and the sides.  I drew a curve 1.5″ away from the neckline curve along the bottom edge.  This whole thing became my back neck facing.  For the front facing, I did the same thing, tracing the front straight edge all the way down. 

When I went to make the lining pieces, I followed these instructions from Threads. 

I lined it as I lined my striped jacket with the directions in Sandra Betzina’s Linings A to z video.

3.  Kids’ clothes are very quick to make:  This should not be a revelation to me, but I just haven’t made many kids’ clothes before.  Sometimes I feel guilty about this, but we’ve seriously had clothes for Noah entirely provided for us over and above what we’ve needed his entire life.  This pattern just had a few diagrams to help you along.  There is minimal instruction in Japanese, but, since I don’t read Japanese, the diagrams were what I had to work with.  It was more than enough.  It’s quite refreshing to only have diagrams to work with.  You realize how excessive directions can be.

4.  Making things for my baby makes him very happy: Noah picked up the lining scraps and carried them around all day.  He knew that this project was for him.  It was really sweet to see him so excited about it.  He kept trying to steal it away from me while I was working on it, and once it was finished, he popped it on and ran around the house, totally overjoyed.  I need to do more of this.  I mean, check out the reaction:

My full review is at Patternreview.

Mommy sewing and a very simple tutorial

Sorry for the rather cheesy post title, but I didn’t want “Breastfeeding Lifesavers” to be the first thing that popped up in people’s Google reader. 

Seriously though, in a wave of genius, I made myself a wrap to wear while nursing in public towards the end of my pregnancy, and I don’t know what I’d do without it.  It’s kept things G-rated, been a blanket for Noah, a play mat when he was really little, a wipe for all of that spit up at the beginning, and occasionally when I’ve been desperate, a changing pad.  I more or less followed this tutorial, but instead of doing yards of hemming and pressing, I made mine reversible.  One side is a lightweight printed jersey and the other is a really finely woven cotton.  I have a couple of friends who are pregnant (one due imminently), and I wanted to give them something super useful.

For this one I serged rectangles of leftover jersey for one side and used quilting fabric for the other.

This one I made out of a cotton dobby and quilting fabric on the reverse side because it’s for a dear friend in Houston, and I wanted something that would not get too hot for her or the baby in the summer.

As for the tutorial, the other thing that super saved my life at the beginning of nursing with Noah were these pads to put in your bra to help absorb the extra milk that leaks until your body adjusts to your baby and to the whole business of nursing.  The flannel is soft against sore tender skin, and the layer of iron-on vinyl helps hinder leaking through your clothes.

Nursing Pads Tutorial

Supplies for 3 pair (that way a pair can always be in the wash):

Cotton flannel scraps–4″X48″ or the equivalent of that

Cotton batting (today I used polar fleece because I forgot I had cotton batting scraps)–4″X24″ or the equivalent

4″X24″ of iron-on vinyl

a 4″ diameter circle template (I used one of Noah’s toys because I didn’t have my circle rotary cutter handy)

a marking pen

Trace around your template onto the various materials and cut out 12 circles of flannel, and 6 each of the iron-on-vinyl and batting.

On 6 of the flannel circles, remove the backing from the vinyl and iron it on with the iron on the flannel side.

Place a circle of batting on top of the vinyl and put a plain circle of flannel on top of that.  Use a zigzag stitch to hold everything together or serge around the edges.  Tada!

Quilts for Mexico

So I haven’t mentioned it before, but I’m pretty excited about this group I’ve started of stitchers and knitters and crocheters at church to make items for outreaches/missionaries/other people nearby that my church supports.  At some point after I joined Craft Hope, it occurred to me that I didn’t need to wait to make things for them because my church sends several teams around the world to care for the least of these.  I may not be able to go right now with Noah, but I can make blankets or dolls or whatever that might help communicate love and care. 

Our first project is making blankets for kids at a children’s home in Juarez.  The director of the children’s home is a well-educated middle class woman who left her comfortable life in Mexico City to help these kids.  Somewhere along the way, her husband died and 4 of  her 5 grown children (the 5th is a missionary in Haiti) have helped her run the home since.  They chose to not receive any funding from the Mexican government because if they did, the kids would be subject to being moved around at will.  So she, with the help of her own children is raising these beautiful 22 kids as if they were her own.  Our goal is to make a blanket for each child and my Mom and a Mom and daughter are making a yoyo quilt for this amazing woman.  My wee part is a few simple tied quilts.  Here’s a detail of the binding of this pink one I’ve made:

If you would like to help us out, I know we could use it!  For quilts, we’re shooting for at least 50″X60″ and crocheted or knitted blankets as close to that as you can get or bigger”.  Leave a comment if you’re interested and I can give you more details.