Covering the Assets - DIY Nursing Gear

I had a minor nursing in public (NIP) "incident" a few weeks ago. We were taking our toddler to the park and the baby needed to eat. You gotta do what you gotta do, so if you're a nursing mom who doesn't want to or can't be home all the time, you need to NIP. I fully support NIP and the way the mom chooses to do it, covered or not. But I'm shy, man. I have GOT to be covered.

To illustrate my point, while my husband took the toddler to the park, I was across the street facing a water tower, hidden from park view behind a large tree AND covered with a nursing cover. NOBODY was seeing these boobies. However, it was extremely windy and as I was holding down my cover on the left side, a huge gust of wind blew the right side right off. And there it was. A boob in the open. 

Since I was behind the tree, I felt pretty safe from view but I looked up anyway to make sure nobody saw my little mishap. I saw a truck driving right by me on the way out of the park. There was no way the driver didn't see. I drew attention just by being a person sitting up against a tree, facing away from the park. I looked away as quickly as possible, not making eye contact with the driver. I totally wanted to die of embarrassment. 

I'm still going to have to NIP from time to time so I wanted to make sure that I don't have any more of these boob sightings occurring. Before little O was born, I found a few things on Pinterest that might help, so I went ahead and made them. 

The first was this nursing shawl. I was taken in by two things. First, the beauty of the model. Man, I love red hair and she is gorgeous. Surely, I would look JUST like her if I wore one ;) Second was the simplicity of the project. Cut, pin, sew a short line. That's it! Knit fabric doesn't fray so you don't have to worry about finishing the edges so the project goes quickly. 

Needless to say, I do not look like the lady modeling the shawl in the tutorial, but it's going to do the job. Mine ended up a little shorter than I would have liked, but I didn't have the full 30 inches as recommended in the tutorial, I was working with 27. It's still functional and I think it looks good enough anyway. Gotta work with what you have! And my toddler wanted to know what was going on under there. That's proof of good coverage :)

So that took care of the boob coverage, now I needed some for the gut. I'm not just embarrassed of the boobs :) I also found this tutorial to make your own nursing cami. I can't believe they charge 25 bucks for those! I got 2 cami's at Old Navy for $3.50 a piece, so I'm saving some serious cash here. You wouldn't think so, but normally, sewing doesn't really save you all that much money on things. My husband is always shocked at how much I spend on fabric, so I'm glad these projects were such money savers. The knit was on sale at Fabric.com. 

The cami's were also quick to put together, but since the area being sewn was so small, I made a huge mess of it. It doesn't look anywhere near as good as the tutorial, but I'm covering that part with the shawl, so who cares?

Below is an "action shot". You're welcome for not being in this one :)

Now I'm all covered for my adventures in NIP. I can lower the cami and the post baby gut is still under wraps and the boob is all covered up by the shawl. Easy peasy projects, money saving, boobs and gut covered. Loving it! Try them out and go get your NIP on! Or go uncovered if you like!

Craft Room Curtains - Take 2

I put things off a lot. Like A LOT. Back in January, I posted about my craft room curtain fail. FOUR months ago, I bombed the curtains and I'm just now getting around to fixing them. Want to know how long they were without curtains before that fail? According to my notes about all the things I wanted to add to my new craft room... about a year. Guess how many of those other things I've done. You're correct if you said none :)

Anyway, we are about to put our house on the market (really easy to do with a newborn by the way) and I needed to fix the single/too short curtain issue. Another thing I was concerned about was that the green and white chevrons might be too bold for a perspective buyer. From what I hear, chevrons are sooo 2011. I don't care, I still love them. But I needed to get with the times. Here's a reminder of what the one panel looked like. I never made a second one as I originally intended. I was too defeated from bombing sewing 101 with that curtain.

After the first curtain fail, I was perusing Pinterest and found some beautiful curtains on Apartment Therapy. I figured I could do them on a smaller scale for the craft room. I also wanted to go easy on myself. I don't have a whole lot of time with a one month old so I wanted to use the drapery rings like last time. These little things are handy. I've also used them for other fun projects like this one..

These came together easily, but the trickiest part for me was piecing it together. No matter what I do, I can't seem to cut or sew a straight line. But I made do. Top to bottom, the window was 3 feet, which made for nice, even stripes. I wasn't too sure how wide to make it so I just added 8 extra inches to half of the window width measurement. I didn't put too much thought into it, but it worked out. I didn't add black out backing or clean up the back that faces the neighbor's house. Why put all that effort in for someone else? When I moved in here, the first thing I did was take down all their hideous window treatments. If I'm to suffer the same fate, I would rather not waste my time with the extras, ya know? And the neighbors probably won't even see since it's lower level. Look at their view.

Despite my inability to cut or sew straight (and being in a rush hoping to get done before the baby woke) the pieces came together pretty well.

It took a total of 8 hours to get it finished. It was done between 3 feedings, 3 naps and dinner. I estimate about 2 hours without the non project related activities. I actually like it better than the Chevrons. I hope a buyer will feel the same. I'm starting to really love what this room has become. I may not want to move away :)

My Last Hurrah - Sewing and Baking for Teachers

Today was teacher appreciation day at my son's daycare. He attends a Montessori daycare that's onsite at work and I love what they do. Every day, they work so hard teaching lessons, manners and caring for him so gently. I love to think of new things to show our appreciation when this day rolls around. I've done the coffee cozy thing before and baked goods in the past. This time, I decided to sew and bake. And why not? At 39 weeks pregnant, the sewing and baking days are numbered, I'm afraid.

I decided on reversible totes using this Made by Rae tutorial. I had three teachers to make one for. Here
is side one.

The prints are for ladies and the Mizzou bag is for a male. He went to Mizzou, don't hate on me KU fans :) Side two is below:

I love how they came together. The only thing I did differently from Rae's tutorial was to buy cotton webbing for the handles instead of making them. Made the process much faster, which I needed. I'm quickly running out of energy over here! I was also excited about how easy they were to make. Unlike the usual way my sewing projects go, I never once screwed up the direction of a print when cutting it nor did I have to get out my seam ripper. I call that a win. Eventually, I want to make one of these for myself. Aren't they adorable?

Finally, I added some quick cupcakes. I found these cute boxes at JoAnn's and not only did they happen to match the colors of the bags I was making, but they made perfect bag fillers. Admittedly, I cheated and used a box mix, but the crazy colored buttercream is all mine. I'm hoping to get back to baking from scratch soon...if the baby lets me get some sleep :)

Dr. Seuss Week Projects for the Coolest kid at Daycare

I'm not sure what's wrong with me lately. I used to be so practical. For some reason, when parents got the email that it was Dr. Seuss week at daycare this week and given the theme of each day, practical was out the window. For pajama day, I HAD to make Dr. Seuss pajama pants. For Wacky Wednesday, I HAD to make the Cat in the Hat's hat. Had to. This might make sense to some, but for those who know me, it's quite out of character. I'm the mom who didn't get her son a Christmas present for his first Christmas because he was only 9 months old and didn't know it was Christmas. The mom who wouldn't have dressed him for Halloween because he didn't trick-or-treat or eat candy. Luckily his grandma stepped in and bought him that first costume before he was even born. Boy was he ever adorable...

I probably spent as much time analyzing the reasons for this sudden change of heart as I did with the projects. It's a very recent development for me (as seen in this post), putting so much effort into such little things, knowing he would be just as happy if I didn't do it. He's such a great little dude! Anyway, I came up with a few things that make no sense.

1. I'm determined to make him the coolest kid at daycare. I was never the coolest kid anywhere. I was always chunky and shy, but at least I was always described as "nice". Maybe this is some odd effort on my part to make sure my kid is cool. Because it's SOOO important when you're 3 ;)

2. I'm 33 weeks pregnant with baby 2. That second part is important. Because I remember what it was like that first year with baby 1. I didn't even start sewing until he was just over a year old because I was simply too tired. Maybe there's a fear that I won't have time to do what I love because baby 2 might not sleep through the night for a long while either.

3. I'm pregnant. Yes, I said that before. But with this pregnancy, I've just been doing some weird things for no real (or sensible) reason. This is my favorite explanation. Pregnancy crazy. Way to be a stereotype.

If you have managed to hang out this long, you're awesome. And probably confused. On to the projects! I'll start with the end result of both because A. He's so cute and B. You can check out faster. You're welcome!

Pajama pants were the theme for Monday. Mommy got a break on Tuesdays Crazy sock day (although for a fleeting moment I considered making dinosaur socks) and Wednesday was Wacky. I figured the hat was a little wacky. Plus, he loves hats. You can tell because of the posing :)

I don't really have much to report on the pants. I bought the Dr. Seuss fabric for this exact purpose probably a year ago. That pretty much sums up how I roll. Big plans, but not a whole lot of follow through. Thankfully, daycare came up with this event to push me along.

I used this tutorial because it was by far the easiest one I found. I only had 2 issues, which is not bad for me. 1. My son doesn't have pajama pants, so I used a pair of jeans as my template. I ended up with the first pair of pants being too small because they wouldn't go over the hips. I did not account for the fact that the jeans were smaller because they open up over the hips. 2. I was trying to save fabric (which didn't work out anyway because of #1), so I ended up a little short on the legs. But this allowed me to add the stripes to the bottom, which I thought was a cute little addition.

There's a bit more on the hat. It just took longer and I added some extra stuff. Don't mind the basting stitches I left in the brim and the top of the hat. I should have taken those out before I took the picture, but it was already 12:30 and I just couldn't wait. 

I had intended to fully use Mama Lusco's tutorial however, I didn't start until the night before Wacky Wednesday and realized last minute that I had to pay for a Scribd account to access the pattern pieces. Luckily, I found this post and sort of flipped back and forth between the two. Both are great.

The one thing I wanted to change was to add interfacing. It looked fine in both posts, but I was sure that my hat wouldn't stand without some interfacing. I bought it intending for it to circle the entire hat, but quickly found I didn't buy enough. So I did this instead.

Keep in mind, I have no clue what I'm doing, but I cut a few strips to the length of the hat and hoped they would be enough to keep it standing upright. It ended up working thankfully!

I ended up spacing them semi-evenly and sewing them on. I was going to be all lazy (or practical depending on how you view it) and use fabric glue, but as I was cleaning the dried glue out of the cap, I inadvertently dumped the glue out of the bottle. Luckily, my big fat gut was in the way so none of it spilled onto the carpet. Yay!

I also put interfacing in the brim. On the left is the felt. I just used that as a template and cut one of the same size from the interfacing. Then I cut a bit off of the inside and the outside so it wouldn't get in the way of my seams. It's craft interfacing so it's pretty thick. All in all, it took more time, but I'm glad I used it. The hat stood pretty well on its own. I might have cut one more strip on the hat itself and not made them as long as I did. They did get in the way of the seams a bit. 

All in all, I thought the boy looked adorable (completely unbiased opinion there) and best of all, he was totally in love with what I made for him. Makes the late nights worth it!

I do this for me...I think

This right here is why I started blogging :

Not this exact thing, but projects like it. This is pretty terrible. Granted, it's only one of the panels and you wouldn't pull it across the entire window like this, but still... After seeing this, I just couldn't finish the other one. What would be the point? This is the kind of thing I do all the time. Honestly, I spend more time with the seam ripper than I do sewing. The issue this time? Poor prep. I measured the window, cut out both panels, sewed one and took off to the grocery store, leaving my dear husband to put up the curtain rod. 

I should have done that last part first. As it turns out, you are supposed to put the rod a few inches above the actual window. You can see those missing inches there at the bottom of that curtain panel :)

This project was supposed to be me being productive. Me taking a break and finally attempting to finish this craft room. Productive isn't necessarily my thing. I just looked it up and I painted this craft room in February of last year. It really didn't feel that long, but the window has looked like this ever since:

I got a little off track as usual. The blog. There are so many awesome blogs out there and don't these women's lives seem SO perfect? Doesn't every baked good look amazingly delicious and every crafty project seem to be whipped up quickly with precision and ease despite the fact that there are children around? Who are these women? And why do I keep reading even though I end up feeling completely inadequate? 

So I decided to start this blog. It's not a place where perfection lives. This is where random lives. This is where just ok is sometimes as good as it gets. This is where I document my baking and sewing adventures. Adventure is kind of a nice word for me getting frustrated and crying or ripping out seams or throwing out a baking fail. But it's my adventure and I always end up learning something and this blog allows me to laugh at myself and hopefully you can too.

So there you have it. My craft room curtain fail. I hope you're feeling better about your sewing skills right about now :)

DIY Reading Pillows

I know, I know. I really need to get to the "Baked" part of this blog. Soon enough. It is almost Christmas :)
But I had to get on this little project right away since it was requested by Tuesday. At my son's daycare, we have the option to let the kids give their class a gift for Christmas. On their wish list was new reading pillows for the floor. Being the awesome husband he is, my husband chose this for me, knowing I will take any excuse to sew something.

He was a little disappointed that I used Chevron fabric. I tried explaining that craft stores don't have kid friendly patterns in duck cloth or home decor fabric. I wanted something that would stand up to the tornado that is a toddler AND be cute. So it is what it is. Plus I LOVE chevrons, even if it's the oldest trend ever.

There's my little guy testing them out for me. Makes them even cuter in my humble opinion!

These are really easy to make. I just used this tutorial from Six Sisters' Stuff. When I say easy, I mean after I really messed up the first one, then got the hang of things. In full disclosure, I have the ability to mess up the simplest of projects. I was using a 20 x 20 size pillow insert but reading the directions for the 16 inchers they were making and got numbers crossed somewhere. Ended up with a 16 x 20 cover for my pillow. I went back to Hobby Lobby and traded the 20's for 18's so I could fix the pillowcase, but then ended up making friends with my seam ripper again when I forgot to sew it right side in. Just keeping it real. After that mess, the next two were a breeze :)

Toddler Proof Tea Towels

If you have a toddler, you know why these are awesome. I don't know about you, but mine likes to grab whatever he can and put it in a place it doesn't belong. Towels hanging from the oven are an easy target for the little munchkin. But these aren't for me. After picking up too many towels from the floor, I've given up and gotten used to not hanging towels from the oven anymore. I'm gifting these to people with grandchildren. They aren't always prepared for the tornado that is a 2 year old, so I'm doing my part to help out :)

I got the idea/tutorial for this from a lovely Crafty Sewing Mama. It's the second post on the second page. I seriously heart that group. Just being part of it makes me feel like I can consider myself crafty, I get lots of inspiration, and they are always so willing to help when I'm frustrated and ready to throw my machine out the window. My Singer should thank them.

This is what it looks like when you unfold the towel after sewing on your fabric strips. Then, just thread your ribbon through and voila! Easy Peasy. You can be done there, but as suggested, I sewed the ribbon to the ends of the fabric so I wouldn't lose it in the wash. Smart!

I liked them so much, I made another set for gifting. I love how they turned out, so it looks like I'll need to make another set for me :) If I had to do it again, I'd use a little extra ribbon. I used a bit too much on the red ones and can make bigger bows there. You can't see the bows as well on the yellow. I also might sew the ribbon to the middle instead of the ends so that I have more options for how much I bunch them. Everyone needs more bunching options, no?

Skirting the Issue

Well, I had hoped to come up with this amazing first post that showed off my beautiful new craft room. A craft room! My very own place to shut the door and sew away and pretend I'm 60. As it turns out, once I got the space, my motivation to do anything in there other than sewing was pretty low. I painted the room 4 months ago and have done nothing else. It'll get there. For now, I'll keep the first post short and sweet.

While I was reading one of my favorite sewing blogs, I saw a post about Skirting the Issue and I knew I had to participate. You can read more about it here, but basically the project is about getting as many handmade skirts as possible donated to girls in foster care. A young girl going through a really tough time gets a skirt and I get time in my sewing room. It was a no brainer for me!

I used this pattern to make 2 cute skirts. I was so happy with it because I'm slow at sewing and they came together really quickly. 

So there they are! If you have a sewing machine and a few hours to spare, I would highly suggest you participate. Right now, Simple Simon & Co. has tons of cute skirt tutorials up. Even if you haven't sewn in years, dust off that machine and brush up on those skills. It's all straight lines. You CAN do it!

I know I promised to keep it short, but I would be insane not to update this and add my inspiration. I've put these skirts on Facebook and had people tell me how awesome it is and it just makes me think of how much more I could be doing. Check out my inspiration. Heidi does all this with four (yes I said four) young men running around the house. In her "spare time" she has another blog too. She's taught me a lot about sewing, charitable giving and life in general. It seems odd to say this about someone barely older than me, but I want to be just like her when I grow up.