Category Archives: Kid sewing

The Creative Process

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I thought that I would show you a little behind-the-scenes tour of my etsy shop and the creation of my embroidery hoop art. This past week I received a custom order for 3 hoops.

The client wanted to buy this red and blue striped balloon hoop shown above that I had listed in my shop and asked if I could make 2 more hoops in varying sizes to coordinate with her nursery colors. She sent me a picture of her fabric swatches for the nursery.

fabric swatches

We communicated back and forth about hoop sizes and design and settled on a 8″ and 10″ hoop. The 8″ hoop would have one balloon with grass and clouds, and the 10″ hoop would have a group of balloons in the clouds- with at least one balloon far back in the picture. I sketched out a quick picture of each on a sheet of paper placed under each hoop for sizing guide.

After determining what type of hoops I would design, my next step was to decide on fabrics. I needed to coordinate her swatches with the hoop she had already bought. I pulled to some coordinating fabrics to see which would work best.

I struggled a bit on my final fabric choices. I thought my hoop was a bit off in color from her fabric swatches (red instead of burgundy) so I needed to make all three mesh nicely while not clashing with her colors. After some trial and error, I picked out some stripes and chevrons that I thought would mirror her theme well. Then came the cutting out of the balloons, grass, and clouds (using templates I had made previously); applying the fusible webbing to the fabric and felt; and ironing the web-backed fabric to the background fabric. My last step in this process was to machine stitch around all the designs in order to ensure their durability.

Now to back the hoop with a second piece of background fabric for a nice clean-looking back and, voila, a finished set of 3 hoops, custom designed for a little boy’s nursery. I hope he and his mommy are very happy with their new art!

Zippered Wet Bags

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I received another commission last week for more wet bags for cloth diapers. This client wanted zippered pouches. I have to admit, I most definitely like the drawstring bags better than the zippered ones. I just do not enjoy putting zippers in. However, I am happy for work: more jobs= more fabric money. 🙂 The first bag is a small 13×16 inch perfect for the diaper bag. The second one is a large 17×21 inch bag meant to be used in the house as a wet pail. Everyone seems to have a tutorial for zipper pouches and I have read many of them and come up with my own way to make them- kinda compiling all that I have read. I did use this tutorial to do the covered zipper ends. I have never done that before and I like how clean it makes the zipper look. I am pretty pleased with how my business both on etsy and thru word-of-mouth is building up and I hope to have some time in the next few weeks to make some more inventory to share with a few different sources. First, I need to stop making these Washi dresses! I can’t wait share my purple shot cotton one with you next week!

A Wet Bag for Oliver

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You know the saying about the cobbler’s children running barefoot? Well that happens to be the case in our house quite often as well. I bought some PUL fabric months ago and planned to make Oliver some wet bags for his diaper pail liner and (up till now) had yet to do it. BUT my recent commission for a hanging wet bag put me on a roll, and I whipped one up for Oliver this week. This bag hangs in our laundry room and collects all the diapers until wash time. I like this method better than what we were doing (laundry basket collecting diapers till wash) because it is super easy to throw the bag into the wash with the diapers and all get cleaned at the same time. Ideally, I think I need two so one can be in the wash and one can be in use, but one thing at a time, please. 🙂

I made this bag in the same dimensions I made the previous one (roughly 17×21), and I love the size of it. I also love that it is drawstring so no zippers! If you know me, you also know that I am a big Dr. Seuss fan so this bag makes me happy just looking at it. 🙂 I bought quite a bit of Dr. Seuss fabric when I was pregnant with Oliver and have yet to use it all, so I am happy to have found another good use for it. I have another commission for zippered wet bags and am hoping to get those whipped up this weekend… this is becoming quite the side business for me!

Hanging Wet Bag for Cloth Diapers

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Remember a while back when I  blogged about a wet bag I made for a baby shower? Well the same friend commissioned me to make a hanging wet bag for the bathroom. Because this bag will hang in the bathroom, she decided that a drawstring bag would be nice instead of a zippered bag. I bought Jeni’s pattern for drawstring bags in order to have easy instructions at hand and save myself the trouble of doing any math. It was fun to get to play around with girl fabrics for a change. The bag is lined with PUL to make it waterproof. If you have never worked with PUL and want to make a bag like this, one tip I would offer is to try to keep the PUL fabric on the bottom (next to the feed dogs) while you are sewing because it is quite slippery and can be a bit of a pain otherwise.

I made the laundry size bag Jeni offers in her pattern with the change of shortening the length from 26 inches to 20. Jeni’s instructions are so great that this bag came together very quickly.  If you need to make some drawstring bags, I highly recommend buying Jeni’s pattern. It is very reasonably priced and includes x-small to x-large sizes. She also gives you license to sell with the pattern purchase. I can’t wait to find a reason to make another one. 🙂  Hmm, I still haven’t made a wet bag for my bathroom which is the reason I bought the PUL in the first place. LOL.

For picture purposes, I put 7 of Oliver’s cloth diapers in the bag. I would say that this bag can comfortably hold between 15-20 cloth diapers.

Sewing for Kids Workshop

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I realized that I never blogged in detail about my sewing class that I took at Whipstitch back in March. Because I learned so much at that class, I wanted to discuss it a bit and show off a few pics. To begin with, I have talked several times about how much I LOVE Whipstitch. Seriously, if you get a chance to go to Atlanta, you MUST go to her store. It is the perfect shop for the modern quilter/sewer. But even if you can’t get to Atlanta, she has an etsy shop where you can buy her fabric online.

I had been to Whipstitch last year when the hubs and I went to Atlanta for our anniversary. It is so modern even the hubs said he doesn’t mind going into it- Score! When I saw Rae blog about the class she and Karen would be teaching there in March, I jumped at the chance to go- meet one of my bloggy heroes and learn more sewing tips…perfect weekend. It just so happens that I have a birthday in March so the timing worked out well for me. No need for the hubs to buy me any other presents!

And it pretty much was the perfect weekend. We headed down to Atlanta after the hubs got off work Friday night (about a 2.5 hour trip). We have a very generous friend who lives there and offered for us to stay with him all weekend- thanks, Andrew ,for making our trip possible! (I’m sure he doesn’t read my blog but I’ll give him a shout out anyway. 🙂 ) There was a crafty meet-up on Friday night that I really wanted to go to but we got in too late for that…bummer.

I stayed at Whipstitch all day Saturday and the hubs very generously watched the Little Man for me. He dropped me off early in the morning for a free clothing workshop- given by Karen and Rae, came back for lunch with me and then took Little Man back to the house for an afternoon nap while I went to the Sewing for Kids Workshop. All day I was pretty much like a kid in a candy store.I know I am being a bit melodramatic here, but it was a dream come true for me. Being a mostly self-taught sewer, it is so helpful for me to get instruction from others. The Saturday morning tutorial was all about constructing handmade garments that look professional. A lot of discussion was given to seams and finishing touches. I really took away tons of helpful advice for clothing construction. Then in the afternoon class we made the treasure pocket pants that I have been addicted to since…from the book Sewing for Boys. It was a crazy whirlwind class because we were trying to finish the pants in 3 hours but it was loads of fun! Rae and Karen are great teachers! I am just sad I don’t live closer to Whipstitch or Michigan to make attending more classes at either a regular occurrence 😦 . Whipstitch just happens to be about 5 minutes away from Ikea so after my class was over, we headed over there with our friend Andrew to have some fun.

Here are some pics of the weekend…They are mostly instagram shots because we didn’t bring the regular camera.

my nerd shot- getting a pic with Karen and Rae (both of them made their dresses…love!)

frantically sewing during class

rae busy sewing the demo pants

the boys having fun while I sewed

Oliver loved Ikea!

The finished pants!

Grand Opening!

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Just a quick post to tell you that the etsy shop is now open! See that new widget button to the right of this post with an E on it? That’s the link to my shop. I set up shop yesterday posting some of my hoop art and appliqued onesies, and I have already had my first sale! So pumped about this. I hope to continue to refine my shop over the next few weeks to increase its popularity but I feel that I am off to a good start. Wish me luck and feel free to pop over and take a look around. 🙂 I haven’t posted a ton yet because I know you are only supposed to post a few items at a time to increase views so I will be adding more items to the shop over the next few days. This is a step out for me and I look forward to see where it goes!

Fun with applique

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The last several weeks I have been working on some ideas that I hope will turn into money-making adventures for me. I would love to find a way to make some money from this sewing habit of mine-if only to help fund my fabric habit. This hobby sure does get expensive at times! But I think that it’s worth it to be able to create handmade items for friends, family, and myself. 🙂

I have focused on handmade items for boys because I think that so many people make cute things for girls and leave a lack of options for the male child. Having a male child myself has opened my eyes to this problem. I hope to open up my dormant etsy shop this weekend and see how my creations do out there in the big world. It has been fun creating all kinds of new outfits for Oliver in the process of trying out different ideas!

I have also delved a bit into the realm of decor- as you will see in the pictures. I am in love with embroidery hoops and have received such a great response from some hoop art I made for my house, that I decided to try out some options with that as well. Not everything has turned out great, but it has been a good learning curve. I really like the quirkiness of many of the resulting creations. Although I am marketing boys’ items, many of these creations could very well be used for girls’ rooms or even for general house decor.

Here are some pics of the resulting projects. All of the applique is adhered with an iron-on adhesive and then machine stitched for some extra durability. I primarily used fabric for the applique pieces but also used a few felt pieces for the hoop art. I did not use felt for the onesies because I want them to last through many washes. By the way I realize that the South Carolina pieces do not have the heart/star over the capital city. I thought these would be fun pieces for local people- therefore I have made Greenville the highlighted city!

Of course I can’t resist at least one picture using my adorable model 🙂

 

More Treasure Pockets

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I have yet another pair of treasure pockets to show!  When I made the last pair of treasure pocket shorts, I had planned on using this pocket fabric with those shorts, but I didn’t like how they coordinated once I had them cut out so I stashed away these pockets until I could find some linen fabric I liked. I picked up some linen this past weekend and here are the resulting shorts.  I love how lightweight and airy this linen fabric is! The pocket fabric is an organic cotton- Cloud 9 I believe- that I picked up at Whipstitch when I was in Atlanta this spring. I only bought a fat quarter because the organics are so expensive, but I love how even a scrap can be used as a fun accent in this pants pattern.

These are my favorite treasure pockets to date! Every time I make this pattern, I improve my sewing a bit and understand the instructions better 🙂 Except for cutting the pants off 3 inches below the crotch seam (to turn them into shorts), I pretty much followed the instructions word for word.

Note what a helpful little gardener I have 🙂

Little Boy Vests

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vest fronts- ignore wonky looking pockets

As mentioned previously, my sister-in-law is getting married this Friday. Two of my nephews are in the wedding and needed some vests to wear. My other sis-in-law (I have 5 on the hubs side!) mentioned that she was not able to find any vests she liked at the store so I volunteered myself to make them since I had made one for the little man for Easter. At this point, I’m wondering why I always volunteer myself for these things, but I just can’t seem to resist. I do enjoy it and it’s good experience for me but somehow everything ends up needing to be done in about 2 days time!

I had planned on going to the fabric store to find the outer vest material but as the closest Joann is over 30 minutes away and we are a one car family, it just never worked out. I had the idea to get some men’s dress pants and use those. I went to Goodwill and found several pairs of men’s pants that were the right color in the $1 section. Score! All was going well as I took my nephew’s measurements and cut out the first vest…until I got it all sewed together and realized it was 3 inches too short. Oh drat! Back to the drawing board. This time I actually used an old pair of my husband’s pants because I wanted both boys to have the same fabric.  Final fitting went well…whew! For the back of the vest, I cut along the outer fold in the pant’s leg- now it has a nice finished seam down the middle that I didn’t have to sew! Vest number two is cut a bit wider around the back and armholes as nephew two is a bit bulkier than nephew one…He’s not here to try it on so let’s hope it fits!

The vests are a boy’s size 5/6 and I discovered that this is about the largest size I can use and still get one vest out of each pant leg. For the lining fabric, I used some boyish fabric in my stash.  I got the vest idea from a tutorial I found on Pinterest but I have tweaked her instructions a bit.

Changes I made

Topstitched around the entire vest when finished.

Wait to sew pockets on until after buttons are in place- somehow the pockets end up being lopsided otherwise. (this is a change I’ll put in place next time I make a vest as I had to learn the hard way this time. :/ )

A few other odds and ends: only topstitched once on the pockets, sewed the front arm holes closed before turning, sewed all but a few inches together before turning right-side out, vests are not reversible.

vest backs…see the factory seam I kept?

I am really happy with the final product…just have to do some seam ripping to fix the pocket problem and they are all done. Now on to cleaning the house and cutting out 100 ten inch quilt squares before we leave tomorrow morning!

The craze of May

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It seems like May is a crazy month. Between graduations, weddings, family vacations, and Mother’s Day; there is so much going on. Not to mention attempting to enjoy the outdoors before the weather becomes unreasonably hot. Well I am full-swing into this craze of May. We had family staying with us all last week and had a great time. Poor little Oliver does not know what to do with himself now that his cousins are gone- no worries, he will see them again this week! However, with all the goings-on, I was not able to get much sewing accomplished. Ah well, memories are more important, right?

What I was able to accomplish last week:

Alterations. I am now the family seamstress, even if I don’t exactly know what I am doing all the time. Last week I got to experience my first attempt with sewing knits on my sister’s graduation dress. The lining on her dress only came mid-thigh so we found another similar knit material and I added length to it. A pretty easy fix and non-stressful since no one will really see the lining. She also wanted me to change the sleeves from off the shoulder to normal sleeves, and I was able to fix that for her with minimal sewing effort. I like to do small projects like this because it gives me good experience in alterations and in practicing new techniques.

Little boy vests. I volunteered to make the ring bearer vests for my sister-in-law’s wedding and had one of my subjects staying with us this last week so I was able to measure him and finish one vest (well actually two since number one was a dud), except for the buttonholes. Thankfully both boys are the same size, making this project fairly easy. At least, it would have been easy if I had measured accurately and not made the first vest 3 inches too short 😦 Oh well, chalk up another sewing lesson on the importance of accurate measurements. I was able to be extra thrifty for this project and bought men’s pants from the thrift store to use as vest material. I am pretty happy with how the first one turned out. I hope to finish the other one this afternoon during nap time. I’ll discuss these a little more in depth when I finish both of them completely but here’s a sneak peak.

We leave Wednesday for our trip to Tennessee to attend said sister-in-law’s wedding and before we leave, I have to finish the other vest and cut out a ton of 10 inches squares for the guest book quilt (more on that later), not to mention house cleaning, packing and working in between. I will definitely not be bored the next two days!