Sanity Sewing

I've taken quite a break from this blog. I kept thinking about how I need to get back but at the same time had nothing to write about and nothing to show. I haven't sewn for quite a while. I kept thinking that 4 kids isn't a joke and I barely had time to take a shower let alone sew something. Though baby days are always like that, even if it's your first and only child. No time. At all.

Now when it's started to get a little better and I do have some time to spare here and there I have to clean, organize and get ready for the pack out. We are leaving Bulgaria in 6 weeks and the craziness that's called moving begins around now. So not much will change on this blog. Sadly. I will pop in here and there but mainly I will be absent until we get to DC and I get my sewing machine back, which will be in September.

I've made little things over these 6 months but I didn't really take any pictures and already forgot about most of them. Ha. You know those projects. I did take a picture of one that I finished couple of months ago. When Sonia started teething (and she started early) I made her some teething bunny rings.

They were very easy to make and fast. I literally made them in 10 minute breaks between feedings, cleaning, cooking and making everyone happy. As much as I like how cute they are, Sonia keeps untying them somehow with her mouth. The pattern and tutorial are from this blog. And the teething rings I ordered from here. Will definitely make again because they turn out very cute and make great baby shower gifts.

A couple of weeks ago I saw my friend's daughter's picture wearing this dress that I made her two years ago. She grew during these two years and the dress got shorter and you could tell it won't fit her for much longer. I was so happy to see her wear it that I had an urge to make her another one that fits her now. I had to make matching dress for her favorite American Girl doll as I did last time (though I forgot to show a picture on the blog).

I searched and searched for some cute and easy summer dresses and this big bow dress looked great. The pattern is called Aubrey Bow Dress. It is very easy to put together which I needed as I am still crunched for time. The shop had the same matching dress for the doll. So I made both. The dress is made in size 6. Fabric is from my never ending stash of quilting cottons.

After the first dress I was so happy to be sewing again that I quickly made another dress. This time I went with the pattern I know and love - Geranium by Rae. Again it did not disappoint and came together quickly and it felt like my fingers knew what they were doing. Matching doll's dress I made partly from this pattern, just changing the skirt and making a tiny signature Geranium's neck notch. Dress size is 6. Fabric from the stash. The only change I made was the skirt. It is supposed to be much fuller but I did not have enough of that fabric so I just gathered it from selvage to selvage. I also did snaps instead of buttons this time around.

This was such a welcome sewing time for me. I am not obsessed with sewing as I like doing other crafts too BUT I felt like I needed to escape and have my time and do something I enjoy. That was it. And so much needed.

::2014::

Is it really 2014 already? It feels like we just started year 2013 last month. Happy New Year! I hope it brings you (and me) all the best and lots of crafty time.

Every year I think that Christmas gifts for my girls should be handmade by me. But then I realize that I have too many kids to start making those gifts far in advance in the year to be able to finish it all by December. This last Christmas I had a great idea to give K a Waldorf doll. I've been in love with these dolls for quite some time but never tried making one yet. And I did not make one. Ha. I bought an unfinished one (without hair and clothes) from an Etsy store and started working on it.

It turned out a bigger project than I thought it would be.

I forgot that I don't have a sewing machine here in London. I had to make all the clothes by hand. I never even thought of how much work it is. And let me tell ya, it ain't easy nor fast.

I actually liked making little doll clothes. But at the same time thought of how much faster and nicer it would be if I had some elves to help me my sewing machine.

I also bought a cute fabric suitcase to hold the dolly and her clothes. She fits in it quite nicely.

When K opened it she did not show much excitement and my heart fell. I thought, "That is why I don't make handmade gifts for my children". But then after all the craziness of the Christmas morning and opening gifts she started playing with it. I was very happy to see her playing with the doll and walking around with her suitcase. I think she might be a little too young for a doll like that but I just couldn't wait any longer to make a Waldorf doll (even if it was just partly). Too bad my other girls don't play with dolls.

Oh, and I got a little blog award from the Green Eyed Oriole blog which is kind of nice. Thank you, Anastasia, for giving it to me!

I Am So Crafty

I make little humans.

I am especially good with making little girls. They come out so sweet and beautiful. I also think that I get better and better with each one. I keep telling my husband that we should see what our next one would look like as she will be just gorgeous but he is not buying it. He says he's done having kids. Ha.

I keep itching to make things but my hands are full for now and I don't have much time for big projects so I take on the little ones. I still need to finish K's Christmas gift that I started a month ago. Lazy me, couldn't finish it before the baby's arrival.

I do have a project to show you that I finished almost a month ago. It's a little knitted soaker I made as a cover for the diapers I showed you earlier.

It's called Adaptation soaker from the Ottobre pattern. I've heard a lot of good things about it and decided to try it out. It was a very easy and fast project. Thanks to my pregnancy brain I had to undo almost the whole thing as I noticed I made a mistake. All in all it took me maybe two days to make these. More details on Ravelry (the link for the project).

Bunch of Stuff

I am waiting here. Waiting for something special to happen. My due date is here and no baby yet. I am getting antsy and instead of crafting I just sit here thinking of good ways to induce my labor. True story.

But I do still have something up my sleeve. Ha. I haven't shown you a couple of little things I made for the baby before I left. As I said before I was on fire before we left. So I will just show you everything I made and call it done for this year.

So the first thing I made was leggings. I picked an easy pattern from the Ottobre magazine. Good thing they have leggings in almost every issue.

The pattern is Ottobre #8 6/2012. The size is a little questionable. I started with a size 56cm, made one pair and decided they were too big. I needed some leggings for 0-3 months. So I decided to shorten them a little and took a little from the top too. So as you can see on the picture all the leggings are different sizes with gray ones being the smallest. The pattern was easy and very fast. I mostly used my serger for this project.

Next on my list was a top. Pattern - Ottobre #1 4/2013.

This top made me sweart. I blame it on my pregnancy brain. I had to re-do the whole gathering in front and on the sleeves over and over until I got it right. To be honest I considered to just chuck it and forget about it but then decided to try once more and it worked out. I am not sure if I will be making this shirt again. It does look very cute though. I made size 56cm as it was the smallest size they had.

And the week before we left I decided to be a little adventurous. I have a very cute and comfy Gap shirt (sweatshirt) for the baby and wanted to recreate it. I looked through some draft-your-own-pattern tutorials online and went to work. I liked making the pattern but the shirt turned out a little too big.

I used some very soft Japanese double knit (is there a thing like that?) which has been in my stash for a long long time waiting its turn. I am in love with the fabric. Sadly I do not remember where I got it from.
As for the shirt, I am not happy with how it turned out. It's big and the neck opening turned out too big/wide/deep. Have no idea how to fix that.

So I tweaked my pattern a little and thought it would turn out better. But the neckline is still awfully big and I just do not know what to do about it. And it's still kind of big even after I tried making it smaller.
I made the second shirt from an organic bamboo terry knit. It is very soft and nice to the touch. I was going to dye it some other color but at the last minute decided to just stencil it. So now I guess when I go back home I need to work on the pattern more as I really like this little sweatshirt idea but need to figure out how to make the neckline smaller. Any ideas?

That is all I made before I left. I was sewing it all pretty much a week and a half before the KCWC so I was kind of thinking that I was participating in it just a little earlier than everybody else. I am glad I made some things for the baby as it takes me awhile to get back to sewing after being gone for so long. I am having total sewing withdrawals already and cannot wait to get back to my sewing machine. But we will see how good my newborn will be with letting me sew or do anything.

Two Projects

I still have to show you a couple of sewn projects from before I left Bulgaria but today I wanted to show what I have been doing here in London. I mean I haven't done much at all as I've been laying on the couch and eating bonbons I am lazy these days. But I did manage to make two little things.

The first one was a hat for Matt. He did not bring any hats with him and so I picked up some Debbie Bliss tweed yarn for him and started the hat.

The pattern is free from knitting web site Ravelry. It's called Turn a Square and it supposed to have stripes all over the hat. I changed that. I just did three stripes all different thickness. I like how it turned out. This is actually a second version of the hat. The first one turned out too big so I had to undo everything and re-knit it again.

Second time around I knitted it without any increases after the ribbing and, also, used smaller needles. Now it fits him perfectly. And I love the tweedy look of the hat.

So then I signed up to do another test knit on Ravelry. I promised A I'd make her something and she's been waiting. So I tested her size so she can keep the finished project and wear it. It is a bolero/shrug thingie that's called Wisteria.

It was a very fast knit. I made size 5T. It turned out very cute BUT I wish it had some kind of ties or a button in front as it keeps falling off her shoulders. Other than that, I like it and she loves it. Always wants to wear it.

Of course there is a picture of A's super posing. She's into posing lately.

Baby Jumpsuit

After making the diapers for two months and getting sick of the assembly line sewing I decided to make some kind of clothes for the coming baby. The thing is it's going to be my fourth girl and so I pretty much have everything. Not in a new condition as it all has been passed down so many times, but still. And at the same time I feel guilty about that same thing and always feel like making/buying new stuff. Am I the only one feeling that way?

So here's the jumpsuit I saw one day on Pinterest and really wanted to make it for some reason. I am glad I made it as it turned out so very cute. I think it's my favorite of all the things I made for this little one.

The pattern is a free pattern from this site. It's in Dutch I believe, but Google translations helped me with the instructions. I did not have any problems making this jumpsuit and it came together quite quickly. I used the serger for the most of it and thought how grateful I am to have a serger for projects like this. The only problem I had with it was installing the snaps in the crotch area. There are so many layers in there because of the binding that my snaps were not going through. It did not help that I used the prong type snaps instead of my usual plastic ones.
The fabric is some Japanese interlock knit that I bought from Etsy some time ago. I did not have much but I am glad I had enough for this project. I think this fabric is so very cute. And the quality is very good.
I made size 56cm. I believe it's supposed to go up to 3 months. But my pregnancy brain played a joke on me and I cut the pattern out without seam allowances. So it turned out smaller than supposed to. Hopefully it fits the babe for at least a month. I will make sure to post a picture in it when she comes out.

Two Months of Diaper Sewing

We've been using cloth diapers since A was 6 months old which makes it almost four and a half years. I am not a pro but I am pretty confident about using them. I've been lucky that Matt does it with me without complaining. I don't know if it has saved us any money but I am happy to think that I am saving the Earth at least trying to not throw away disposable diapers into the already full landfills.

With all the babes we would always start after they turned at least month and a half as we have to travel or be in an unfamiliar place until the babe is six weeks old. It's been easier to just use disposables for those first months. This time around though I decided to try to start from the very beginning. So when I went through my stash I noticed that I didn't have many small sized diapers. So with my pre-nesting feeling that hit me at the end of August I decided to make some fitted diapers. (Fitted diapers = diapers that are not waterproof and need a cover to not leak). I've heard good things about fitted diapers and wanted to try them. Plus they are easiest to make.

First I made fitteds from the Rainy Days pattern. I really liked the pattern as it was easy to sew the dipes and they went quite fast because I serged them. Size newborn/small. I used all the fabrics I've had in my stash, which are cotton knits as the outside layer and cotton velour as an inner layer. There's some kind of absorbent fabric in between but I don't remember which I put in which diapers.

Next I made five diapers from the Darling Diapers Unlimited pattern. I've had it for quite a while but never had time to tackle the diapers. The pattern was very detailed and not hard to make but I was a little overwhelmed by all the instructions and different options. So I kind of used the same process as with the Rainy Days diapers. Also all of them serged. I made three out of the minky fabric as I wanted some cute plushy ones, but hated sewing with it as it is very wiggly. Rest are from the cotton knits. Inner layer is made out of cotton velour as the other diapers. I think three or four diapers don't have a layer in between as I ran out of fabric but soakers are made out of super absorbent fabric (Zorb) which should help with absorbency (or at least I hope so).

It took me a couple of months to finish these. I did not have time to work on them every day so I sewed them a little at a time. I am glad I finished them all and they are ready to be used with the new baby. I just hope I like them as much as I liked my pocket FuzziBunz ones.

I also made some quick fleece soakers. As I said before fitteds are not waterproof so they need some kind of a cover. I made some fleece soakers and I am still planning to make some wool soakers. Plus I have some PUL covers.

These are made from this free pattern. They were very easy and fast to make. I also used my serger for most of it. Size small. Fabric - fleece I had laying around.

And to finish it off I also made a medium sized wet bag to hold all these diapers in.

I used this tutorial. I have made a large bag two years ago or so but I needed something more manageable in size. So medium it was and plus it is with a pocket. So I can stuff unused diapers in the pocket and used ones in the bag when we go out and about. Very happy how it turned out.
So here you have my long and boring post about diapers. I am sorry if I bored you and also for the awful lighting in the pictures. I made everything and then rushed through taking pictures so I could post about it later. Did not know the pictures turned out so horrible.