Crafts: Sewing Kid's Clothes

Before baby, I was in frantic nesting mode, and sewing for friend's babies and my future baby.  One day, my friend Liz came over and we had a crazy sewing day.  It was great sewing with her because she just dives in, which helped push me along to get more done because I can be quite poky and too precise about it.  I managed to make a skirt and a dress that day.

Here's one of the finished dresses.  I realized afterwards, that i managed to sew it so the fabric pattern is upside down, but it's still a cute dress!  I used this tutorial and some math skills to make it.  Of course, little O won't be wearing this for awhile. 

I also made the skirt above for our friend's daughter.  This may have been the tutorial I used, but I'm not sure now.  Looks cute, but the proportions were funky.  I learned that it's hard to make clothes for kids when you don't have them there to measure!

During another crafting day with my friend Becky, I made this cool travel blanket, using this tutorial.  It's not perfectly straight, but the beautiful echino fabric I used makes up for my lack of sewing skills.I have yet to use this with O, but she's getting attached to her toys, so it might be good to start using it soon.

Felt Pouf Mobile

I decided to make a mobile to hang over the changing table.  Initially, I thought I'd make a homemade version of the ugly doll mobile I saw at compassionate comfort's blog.  However, I hit a creative wall and didn't have any creatures I wanted to make out of felt.  Instead, I turned to a Japanese craft book for felt.

In the book, they used stacks of small felt pieces to make 3-dimensional "poufs" that reminded me of the tissue paper flowers I already have hanging above the crib.  I decided to make miniature felt poufs for the mobile to mirror the large paper ones hanging over the crib.

I couldn't read the book's directions since they were in Japanese, so I figured out my own way of sewing the felt together.  I'll cover this in tomorrow's tutorial for the mobile.

Tutorial: Re-covering dining room chairs

 Now that I can't think of what else to do to the nursery, I finally faced a project I meant to start several weeks ago - re-covering the dining room chairs.  Here's a rough tutorial if you're interested in trying this at home:

1.  Examine your chairs to see how to separate the seat from the chair.  On ours, there was a screw on either side connecting the seat to the rest of the chair.

2.  Separate the seat from the rest of the chair and measure it to determine how much fabric you'll need to buy.  (I did a rough estimate and bought 3 yards of upholstery fabric, which was more than enough to cover 6 chairs.)

3.  Choose a fabric to cover the chairs.  I decided I wanted something less itchy than the original herringbone wool and I also didn't want to spend a lot of money since I wasn't sure how good I'd be at re-covering the chairs.  I bought more of a japanese floral print that only cost $6.99/yard at IKEA that I had previously used to make a pillow cover.

4.  Use the old fabric as a pattern to make your new covers.  When I bought the fabric, I thought it would just be a matter of cutting out 6 pieces (1 per chair) and stapling them on.  Then I looked more closely at the chairs and realized the fabric had a seam and was made of 2 pieces of fabric - yikes!  Taking off the old fabric was tricky and it involved using a screwdriver and pliers to rip out at least 50 staples.  (Thanks to my husband for doing most of that work.)  I decided to take off just one cover to use as a template, rather than spend the time removing all of them.

5.  Use kraft paper to make a pattern using the old cover as your guide.  I gave myself roughly a 1/2 inch border to account for seams and the fact that I planned on putting the new covers over the old ones.  In addition to the pattern for the top, I needed to cut out a long strip of fabric for the sides of the cushion.  I decided it was easier to just measure the dimensions, rather than cutting out a pattern for that portion since it was basically a long rectangle. 

6.  Use your pattern to cut your fabric.  I was able to cut 3 chair tops across the width of the fabric and was also able to cut the long strips across the width as well.  I cut out one set and sewed it together to make sure my pattern was correct before cutting out the other 5 sets.  To speed this up, I folded the fabric over so I could cut 2 chair tops at a time.  I somehow lost count and ended up cutting an extra one.  I used pinking shears to cut the strips of fabric to prevent too much fraying, and used one strip as my template for the others.  (It's tedious measuring a 50 inch straight line!)

7.  If your cushion consists of multiple pieces of fabric, pin them together and then sew it together.  The trickiest part was sewing around the curved edges.

8.  Before you start stapling the fabric to the new cushion, make sure it is centered.  (I didn't do that with the first one, so my seam is a little lop-sided).  Alternate stapling the sides and do the corners last.  The staple gun I'd borrowed for the task wasn't powerful enough, but my husband suggested I just pound the staples flat using a hammer, which worked out.

9.  Re-attach the newly covered seats to the chair.  Before I could do this, I also needed to poke a hole in the new cover for the screws to fit through.  I just used a small pair of scissors and the screw to do this.

The newly covered chair looked almost as well-tailored a the old one, which was good enough for me!  Not bad for my first try.

Crafts of the week

I've been spending some time every week crafting with friends and by myself.  This week, I finally got around to turning some cute alphabet fabric I found at Pacific Fabrics into a simple blanket.  I was inspired by a Purl Bee project, but made some modifications.  Instead of using fleece, I used some flannel I had left over from another project.  I also sewed the rickrack on in the same way I'd been attaching ribbons to taggie blankets since I didn't have excess fabric to work with.  I'm happy with how it turned out even though the rick rack wasn't quite centered.

Week in the Life 2011: Thursday

I'm a few days late, but my friend Liz shared her photos for a project called "Week in the Life" and I decided to join in.  I thought it would be a great way to commemorate this last month of our life before it will change in a big way with the arrival of Baby Nam.  Here's the breakdown of my first day on the project.  More photos of today are in my flickr set.  What did you do today?  Let me know if you're doing the project too - I'd love to see your week in photos!

 

my first stop in the morning

I'm still in love with my new sink and vanity.  I put together the vanity and my husband did the rest of the work, including plumbing and tiling.  It's nice to have storage - which wasn't available with our old cast iron pedestal sink.

Nesting and Crafting

I've been obsessed with getting ready for baby Nam.  For me, this has translated into trolling Craig's list, consignment stores, and my Yahoo groups for baby deals, knitting, sewing, and working on the nursery.  I've also been surfing the web for inspiration/ideas, which are compiled on my tumblelog.  I wanted to compile some of the baby crafting I've done so far. 

One of the first things I made were these taggies:

I hadn't even heard of them until my co-worker got one as a gift, but as soon as I saw it, I decided I could make it, and that it would be a good use of fabric and ribbons I already had.  I used this tutorial from Craft Blog to make them.  Other than the blue whale flannel, I had all the supplies I needed in my stash.

The next two projects I worked on came from purl bee - which has a lot of great craft ideas.   One was a a tutorial my sister found for knit baby booties, the other was one for a quilted playmat.  The playmat gave me a chance to use more fabric in my stash - one was an echino/kokka linen/cotten fabric with a bird  and leaf print and the other is an upholstery weight fabric from Ikea that I couldn't resist.  All I had to buy was the quilting for the middle.  Then I had to invest some time into hand quilting it.

Next up was more knitting, this time a baby bonnet using my favorite yarn - malabrigo.  I found the pattern in a book I borrowed from the library.  I hope baby Nam's head is small enough to fit in it.

 I've been missing the craft get togethers I used to have with friends in Chicago, and my friends Aileen and Erika obliged by having everyone get crafty at our baby shower.  They made me an origami mobile and painted onesies for the baby.

 Here's the finished mobile hanging over our Craig's list maple crib along with paper peony poufs made by my friend Becky.  I used two different sets of mural stick-ons to complete this corner of the nursery.

After a busy end of the school year, summer began and I got back to sewing.  I found an adorable elephant print flannel at Pacific Fabric and Crafts and made some double sided flannel pads - one for the changing pad and the other for the co-sleeper.

I made the mistake of not washing the flannel ahead of time, thinking they would shrink the same amount.  I was wrong - the plain, camel-colored side shrank more.  Oh well, it still works.

Our generous friends lent us a co-sleeper and a bassinet, but they both needed sheets  Rather than buy some, I decided to try making fitted sheets.  It was a bit intimidating, but ended up turning out okay.  I used this tutorial and did some math to modify the size.  I got some cute and inexpensive fabric from Ikea (3 yars for $7.99).  The most difficult part of this project was adding the elastic.  (I wish I'd known about the safety pin trick, but instead I practically ruined brand new circular knitting needle trying to thread the elastic.)  In the end, I didn't even need the elastic in the bassinet sheet and ended up taking it out.  Both sheets were for very shallow mattresses and the elastic made them a bit too tight.  Here's the one for the co-sleeper.

I'm always searching for ways to use the fabric stash I already have, and decided to make some drawstring bags that could be used for diaper changing kits.  I made three for myself and one as a gift.  The only thing I had to get was some twill tape for the drawstring.  I got the idea from another Christine who has a baby and a blog called Brunch.  She provided the link to the tutorial I used.

I stuffed this bag with clothes to bring to the hospital for baby.  I stuffed another one with things I would need at the hospital. 

Fabric Stores in Seattle

I've been engrossed in making things for baby Nam, who is due at the end of August.  Since I've recently developed pregnancy-related carpal tunnel, I've switched from knitting to sewing.  I was able to use some of my small stash to make some taggies and a play mat, but then needed to find more fabric to continue crafting.  Here's a list of places I've visited in the Seattle area.

1.  Ikea: This is an excellent source for affordable fabric!  The selection is limited, but they   have  great bright and modern prints.  Generally, the prices only run about $7.99 a yard - and that's for upholstery weight!  I used the billy goats on a bridge print below to make a pillow cover.  In the kid's section, they also have kid-specific prints in regular cotton for about $7.99 for 3 yards!  I used a cute black, white, and red print from there to make sheets for the co-sleeper and bassinet and still had plenty leftover to make a taggie, some drawstring bags and a burp cloth.

 

2.   Stitches: This is a small fabric, sewing, and knitting store in Capitol Hill that also offers classes.  Although it is smaller than most of the other stores, it's selection is so well-edited that I often find what I want here.  They have an especially great selection of the beautiful echino cotton/linen fabrics from the Japanese company Kokka.  Echino fabrics are pricey at around $18/yard, but I haven't found anything cheaper that is the same in terms of weight (in between cotton and upholstery), design, and color.  Stitches has also been a valuable resource for sewing notions, ribbon, felt, etc...  I used the echino fabric below to make a playmat for the baby.

  3.  Pacific Fabrics and Crafts: The Northgate store is fairly close to me and I've also been down to their SODO outlet, which has a bigger selection of remnants.  This store has a HUGE offering of fabrics, but you have to sort through a wide assortment of cheesy quilting prints.  I do find they have a fairly good selection of kid's prints and flannel (solid and printed).  They also have a fairly large selection of notions and ribbon.  I recently found a coupon for them in the Stranger or Seattle Weekly, which came in handy. I bought the cute grey flannel print there to make a changing pad cover.

 

4.  Nancy's Sewing Basket: I was excited to check out this shop in Queen Anne, but didn't actually get much there.  They did have the same grey animal flannel print above along with several coordinating prints in the same color scheme.  They also have a ribbon room with many fancy ribbon options.  I think it was a bit too high-priced for me overall.  They did have good quality felt there, but it was double regular prices and still wasn't 100% wool.  This is a good place to go for highly specialized items like fancy ribbon, buttons, or fabrics, but I'm not sure it has much to offer for everyday users, unless you live in the neighborhood or have a big pocketbook.  I do like its proximity to Macrina Bakery though!

5.  JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts: Their Ballard store is my go to place for general craft supplies, but I don't actually buy much fabric here.  It is a good place to get sewing supplies/notions, especially when they are having a sale.  They also have a special discount card for teachers!

Up next...I'd like to check out West Seattle Fabric Company.  It's a bit of a trek for me, but I spied some of their selection at the West Seattle street fair and it looked awesome!