A pair of pants that no one wants to wear, Round 2.

I don't know what it is with my girls.  Nin needed some pants so while waiting for baby #3 I got to work on a pair I had wanted to make for some time.  I picked out some cute unclipped corduroy and a matching print for the pockets and cut outs on the legs.  I ran them by her, she approved of my choices and the pattern.  I measured her cut out the corresponding size.  And that's where the trouble started. 

After I finished them, she put them on, and guess what?  They don't fit!  Again!  Maybe Ottobre pants in bigger sizes just aren't sized for my Nin.  The waist is so tight, they won't even close.  They are not too tight in the thigh and the length is good. 

So I go to KK.  Will you wear these if I hem them to your size?  Nope!

But come on!  Look at the perfect zipper!  It even matches!  How often do I have a matching zipper on hand?  She tells me they aren't skinny jeans.  And they look like Elvis pants.  Geesh!  How does she even know who Elvis is. 

Alright, maybe they do look a little like Elvis pants....

Ottobre Design 1/2012 #25 in size 146.

I give up.  No more mama made pants for my big girls. 

American Girl clothes

Both my older girls have American Girl dolls and they both still play with them frequently.  We have random doll clothes laying around the house but I have only made a few things.  Doll clothes seem fiddly and small and when I had lots of other projects on my list they just never seemed to make it to the top of the list. 

Well, fast forward (or maybe rewind at this point) I was hugely pregnant and bored.  Not knowing when I would go into labor I had my bag packed, the carseat installed, the house clean and the fridge stocked.  And I waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  She was a week late!  So during that waiting I decided to make the most of my time and make doll clothes?  It was weird.  I can't explain why I thought making these would be a good use of my time.  But I digress...

The girls are thrilled and love the new clothes so I can't really complain.

First I started with a hoodie.  The pattern is from Liberty Jane, but I can't remember if it is a free one or one I had to buy.  I probably bought it but that was 2 years ago....

Modeled!

 

 

She's so stylish!

 

 

Separating zippers that small are hard to find!

 

Then I moved onto jeans!  I really wanted them to look like jeans so I got out the jean thread and top stitched these!  I also added pockets and a fake fly.  They ended up being a tad too tight so if I make them again I need to add a little bit extra room at the waist.

 

 

 

 







 

 

 



 



Even after this I still had almost 2 weeks to wait before baby came!   So I made baby clothes.  I was probably nesting, but at the time I was just trying to keep busy.

Diaper bags

I have a confession.  I am a seamstress who started out sewing diaper bags and I was thisclose to buying one for myself.  I know I know, lame!  I had the pattern, I had yards and yards of beautiful fabric but I lacked the motivation.  But I finally was forced to make it when my girls both got the stomach flu at the same time and we had to stay home for 3 days!  I go stir crazy so I needed a project.  I brought my sewing machine upstairs and got to work, in between cleaning up puke.... 

I started with 4.5 yards of beautiful Kate Spain fabric in the Fandango line.  One of my all time faves and the Fishsticks Mama and Baby bag. 

I love the bag it's very cute but the pattern was somewhat frustrating. The instructions were clear, but I don't think it should have been a PDF. There were so many pieces to tape together and I had all these little rectangles and odd shapes to take together and half weren't labeled. It was maddening! It took over an hour just to get the stupid pieces taped up!

The bottom left is what I am talking about! How am I supposed to know where that goes? And then the top right at least had words so that you could figure it out by the process of elimination.

This pattern had 27 pieces of fabric, 4.5 yards all together and has 12 pockets!!  It took me about 7 hours over 2 days to finish (between puke clean ups!).

The front is basically 2 big pockets on top of one another that are divided in half (into 4 separate pockets) with stitching down the front. 

The back has one big zippered pocket.

The inside, on mama's half!  The bag is divided down the middle.  One pocket divided into 3.

You can kind of see the divider here.

The baby's side has 3 large pockets with elastic at the top so they can expand to hold a bunch of baby stuff.  Right now, I put diapers in them!

the last pocket is on the side and is supposed to be a phone pocket.  I put my iphone in there and it seems a little tall.  I mean, I know it will stay in since 3/4 of it is in the pocket, but I am sure I would lose it somehow.  :)

The strap is basically one giant, long piece of fabric that feeds through a d-ring and you tie it where you want.  It could be really long, but I like my bags up a little higher so truthfully the strap didn't need to be quite so long.

Whew!  After all is said and done, I am glad I made the bag.  However, I won't be making them for anyone else though! 

Cloth diapers

I plan on using cloth diapers on this babe when she arrives.  Although, I don't really want to start until she is about 6 or 8 weeks old.  I didn't want to start with newborn size diapers as they generally only go up to 10 pounds or so.  All my babies have been big and 10 pounds would get about 2 weeks worth of wear in my house.  So I started out buying and making size small which goes up to about 20 pounds.  My last baby was 20 pounds at 7 months so I still may not get much wear out of these!

I bought a bunch of the Babyville items at JoAnn's and set to work making diapers.  I made a few testers first for my sister and a friend.  Both have reported that the diaper worked fine and has held up.  So I made 12 for myself so far.  I still have 8 more to make but it gets so boring!  I am not a very dedicated assembly line seamstress. 

These are all the same pattern, some just have velcro, some are snaps, some have curved tabs, some are square, but the basics are all the same.  A waterproof PUL outer, microfleece inner with a pocket to stuff a prefold or soaker into.

Here is the inside!

These 2 have a knit outer layer, then the waterproof PUL and then the microfleece inside layer.

Here is another I made for my nephew with the last boyish piece of PUL I had.

These have coordinating tabs!

 

So far that's all I have!  Hopefully within the next 6 or 8 weeks I can find time to sew a few more.  I definitely don't want to do laundry everyday! 








 

Baby Nursery

Still no baby!  I have now spent 2 weeks of my life waiting on past due babies, but everyday gives me more time to get more stuff done that I didn't know I needed to do!

I finished up the nursery some time ago.  Probably back in October.  I let my older girls pick out the bedding and of course they chose the pinkest, girliest stuff they could find.  Honestly though, I like pink and girly and they were thrilled that they are included in the plans.  We also let them pick the middle name, which of course they like to brag about!

Here is the bedding they chose...

Here is the only baby enjoying this nursery right now!

The crib and rocking chair.  The last time we used the crib we used it as a day bed and now we are unable to find the parts to put the last side back on.  Story of my life.  But hubby has an idea to just permanently affix the side. 

Cute little birdie picture from Hobby Lobby that needs to go on the wall!  Still!

I had these plain curtains from WalMart that we brought with us from our old house and they were just sitting in a box.  The curtains that matched the bedding were really expensive so I figured I could just embroider these to match!  I am glad I did!  The girls think I need to put a butterfly on the other side....

That's about it so far.  I have moved the long dresser onto another wall so that I could use the top of it like a changing table and then moved its matching tall dresser into the corner that the other was in.  The dressers have a matching bed in the basement that baby can use when she gets older.  They originally belonged to my Grandmother who bought them in the 1960's.  They must be very well built to make it all this time!  I bet Granny never thought her 7th great grandchild would be using them 50 years later!