Babywearing Poncho

To state that I have sewn something today would almost be a white lie ;-)

Time for DIY projects has been very scarce since our Little Miss Madam has arrived. After almost eight weeks since her birth, I have finally gotten around to making something practical yet simple (as stated: time is scarce).

To be completely honest, the weather forecast made me nervous and persuaded me to finally get a move on and buy some fleece. Snow is scheduled for the end of this week, even though we have hardly had a proper November beforehand, and we live at the bottom of a hill. Bottoms of hills have their advantages (like not having to climb back up the hill to get home after a good round of sledging), however, if the school is over the top of the hill and in addition to the child that has to get there on time, you also need to push a pram - well, some disadvantages also come with this domestic location.

It's good to have a baby carrier in such cases. And I for one love wraps. They're so versatile, compact and my middle one and Little Miss Madam loved to /love being carried around in one. The only problem was, that I have absolutely no winter jacket/coat available where Little Miss Madam will also fit into when being carried in the wrap.

I have spent hours browsing the net to find some sewing instructions for a babycarrying solution, thinking a poncho would maybe be a good compromise for the time being. Until yesterday I had only found babycarrier pouches for just around the babies (the solution for when you can get part of your jacket zipped) or babycarrier zip-in pouches (basically extensions for the jackets you already have). As my jackets are too short in order to just use a baby pouch and that I have not yet really dared to work with zippers yet, I was looking for instructions for a poncho. At the end, I only found two. The first one was one that I could have created on my own and almost settled for (hole in the middle of a piece of fabric, round the bottom if wanted and a second hole for baby's head) when I then found this amazingly simple, yet very effective guide on creating a No-Sew Babywearing Fleece Poncho.

So I went shopping at a discounter this morning, picked out two fleece blankets that I found nice, and used the napping time of Little Miss Madam to cut and knot. The poncho itself took just over half an hour but I thought it looked a bit boring. So it was then I decided to 'sew' for the No-Sew Poncho and created some butterflies for the front. This is was came out:

I am not really great with applications but I think I can dare to brave the outside world with this particular result. The 'purple flash' across the breast is the head opening for the baby. Now I only need to make Little Miss Madam a scarf for her neck - net browsing for this has already begun...

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The Latest Creations á la Nessie

Despite the current impression I may be making by hardly updating my blog, I am actually doing something ;-)

The first thing I decided to try out was a so-called apron dress for my godchild. I hope it fits, it's a german child size 80 and has been sewn so it's a 2-way dress (is the material familiar to you?) :

This was the first item for which I bought a sewing pattern: Schürzenkleidchen. I found the pattern very easy to understand. The only fiddily part was to include the seam allowance for the two pieces of fabric. If you use just one fabric piece and rim the edges, you only need to include the seam allowance for the straps, however, if you would like to the sew the 2-way version, you need to plan in the seam all around. If you have sewn a few of these, I would guess that this is a very nice 'short time filler', as the basic idea is not very complicated.

The next project was the bedclothing for the pram in which our third child shall soon be travelling in. I am a fan of pillowed covering for prams and newborns. The baby will only be sleeping in a sleeping bag at home, but when going for long walks during the autumn and winter, I am a pillow fan. It's warm enough and it creates this cute buldge just over the top of the pram's rim (sooo cute!).

As we are still expecting a 'surprise', we needed some bedclothing that is quite gender-neutral (so similar to the draperies for the baby bed). As the pram is of olive-green colour, I opted for a light-gray cotton-stretch fabric, with an elastic black-white checked frilled finishing for the front side, just to set a small highlight. Matching the pillow case, a two-layered 'dribble cloth' (our second child really made use of these things, so I thought I would make some this time, just in case ;-))

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Finally...

... finally, finally: the baby bed is finished! Well, the draperies at least ;-)

This has been the reason that I have not had that much to post during the last weeks. The material had been lying around, waiting for me to take up the challenge at last. I was a bit reluctant to start, as  my darling husband fell in love with the beetle material and so I needed to also use some material that would keep out the light to some extent - especially for the canopy. And all this without a pattern *eek*

Well anyway, after having finished the top trim of the canopy, everything else seemed to work fine. A few hiccoughs with the tunneling for the top bar (4 layers of material and only one tunnel will work after sewing it the way I did *rolleyes*). I did this during the evenings after work and when the kids were in bed, which meant that progress was slow.

Not so with the so-called 'nest' (the padded lining in the bassinet). I sat down to at least start yesterday. My husband bought me a cutting mat and a rolling knife for cutting material last weekend, so I thought, seeing as the kids are on vacation with their grandparents, I would just iron and cut the pieces of material needed for the nest.

Well, when that was finished, I thought it would be good to just sew the fabric together. Then the first disagreement with the sewn piece, however, I know know how to sew a huge two-lined fabric loop now - never again will I make those mistakes that I did yesterday.....

With the help of the almost Dad-of-three the padding was pulled through, the loop closed, two holes for the sticks belonging to the canopy and violá:

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The Lunchtime Clothespin Bag

As school and playschool are shut, I am working in the home office today. During lunchtime, I thought I'd give a clothespin bag a shot, seeing as our old one was only planned to be an emergency solution that my darling husband wizzed up on the sewing machine a few years back. Now it's best days are over, I felt like sewing something completely new, so here it is:.

Yes, the fabric is familiar, but now I definitely only have a few scraps left over from the blue checks and the lorry fabric!
You can find some ideas in the internet on how to make one. This one is the one I was inspired by: Clothespin Bag Tutorial

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The Next Batch of Jeans Shorts

So, after the first round of "Make Shorts Out Of Ripped Trousers", I finally was able to motivate myself in processing the next batch of ripped jeans. The sewing machine played up a little, which meant that I was spending more time threading and re-threading  than I was with the rest of the stuff (cutting the trousers to length, ironing, etc.

Anyway, here is the second batch (look a bit nicer than the first, at least!)

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'Standard' Stuff

It felt like 100 hours that were spent in front of that sewing machine - and only because our youngest finally agreed that it was time to transform his ripped-at-the-knees trousers into shorts for the summer ;-). He has enough now for 3 summers and is still finding trousers for shortening ...

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Pencil Roll

I still have quite some of the material left over out of which the apron and the book cover have been made, so I browsed the web for some inspiration. I found this: Stifterolle This is a really great guide on how to make a pencil roll yourself, even I was able to get something done here!

I cut the fabric up and began sewing yesterday evening when suddenly my sewing machine started playing up. No matter what I did, the top thread kept getting caught with the lower thread and tearing. It was really annoying.

As I have not used my eight (!) year old sewing machine that much in the past, I never ever though of the idea that I should clean underneath the sewing plate or anything before. Yesterday was a first for me, however, the problem persisted. Lukily enough, I met a friend-of-a-friend this morning who is kind of a sewing expert and asked for her advice. This led to me oiling my machine for the first time ever and looky here: it actually worked!!

Finally, my youngest has his pencil roll (my eldest is still thinking of a smaller project he can give me for himself):

Not perfect but I know what to take care of the next time. Normally you tie these pencils rolls shut but I used velcro for this one. Nevertheless, son is happy with it and that is what counts!

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