Handmade slippers - Simplicity 2278 Misses slippers

I decided a needed a quick and fairly simple project as I haven't sewn anything in over a month, which is totally to be expected with a newborn baby! I know that there are tutorials on the internet that explain in detail how to draft your own slipper pattern but I wanted simple, so I decided to splurge for the Simplicity #2278 pattern when it went on sale at my local fabric shop.

I decided to use leather for the sole instead of jiffy grip as I had it on hand and it matched perfectly to the pink cotton that I had. Leather is definitely not the easiest thing to sew with and don't suggest it if this is a beginner project. I lined the interior in a contrasting black for dramatic impact. I made one minor change and that was that I omitted the provided strap and instead covered a 10" strip of 1/4" elastic with the contrasting black fabric. This project was actually a draft run to see how it turned out because if it did I was debating on sewing these for Christmas presents for all the woman in our family. It turned out better than expected as you can tell by the pictures. I made one minor mistake (as I was trying to rush it before naptime was over) and that was that I sewed the strap on the left slipper on the wrong side and didn't realize it until I had basted the bottom of the interior and exterior top together :( oh well they still turned out great! I then stitched a beautiful wood flower button onto the slippers so that the elastic would just pull over and loop around it.

ottobre 6/2007 wrap around and modified overalls

Here's ds#3 coming home outfit. What a pita this one was to make. The patterns are great just my own silly mistakes. The binding for the overalls which I initially made (see below) was too difficult to turn the tabs so instead I made the tabs more into a tear-dropped shape then stitched the excess underneath.

In the end I had to cut off the overall part because of my own eagerness to get snap happy with my new snap press. I didn't re-enforce it properly (despite testing) and was left with gapping holes in the tabs....I know...all that coverstitching...yikes. Lesson learned! In the end I am happy with the results as the overalls (in my opinion) aren't really practical with a newborn anyways. If I were to do the overalls again I would add more of a seam allowance in order to add snaps around the crotch area to make it more accessible for diaper changes.

New Look 6410

I made this for my mother-in-law's birthday this year. It's made out of a plaid twill which was given to me by her), and then a lightweight linen or rayon blend (not exactly sure). This was a learning experience for me as I never have done a lapped zipper before. I did cheat a bit on the waist as I was being lazy and didn't want to hand-sew the interior down for a cleaner finish. My theory is that you can't see it anyways, and also because I didn't want to go through all the trouble if her measurements were off :) {a lesson that I learned from the regency dress that I made for her - apparently by using only 1/4" of the 5/8" seam allowance it makes you a smaller size - LOL.}

Here's the lapped zipper

Ottobre - Elephants pj set

I decided to do elephants on my ds2 pj set. He's in love with elephants right now. I thought about also adding an applique to it but decided that I liked it just the way that it was. When he saw the elephants on the labels that I made he got so excited.

The pants are made out of 100% cotton rib knit with ribbing in white for the cuffs. I do love the rib knit for these pants especially because we cloth diaper and it stretches enough to go over the big diaper bum that he has at night time.I didn't follow the directions for waistband as I just serged then coverstitched it into place. This method is super easy and super quick.

Jalie 2918 - DS1 Dino Shirt

Here's DS1's new shirt. He loves that I can go downstairs and whip him up a new shirt. He's only 3 and picked out the embroidery design, ribbing and shirt material. The shirt is made out of black interlock and organic cotton ribbing in green. It's coverstitched with orange which you can't really see in the picture but is a really nice contrast. He said to me the day that I made this, "ma, I need new shirt, go downstairs and make new shirt, pleaze!" I couldn't resist him he's a little angel when he wants to be.

Sewing Room Completed

My sewing room is finally completed. I absolutely love it. I owe it all to my wonderful hubby. Thanks hun!. All I have left to do is tidy up a bit and get some rubber mats for under the heat press.

Sewing Room (before reno)

above: before sewing room reno

(left: purchased used cabinets right: emptied sewing room space)

I haven't been sewing much lately because for the past month I have been busy working on my new sewing room. I have enlisted the help of my dear hubby to complete this huge project. (Everything is a huge undertaking when caring for a 2 year old and 5 month old) I have longed for a sewing room for a few years now but never did I think I would actually get a personalized space just for me to sew and craft in. I knew what I wanted. Storage, storage and more storage.

I really like the storage solutions from ikea. But every time I found something I really liked, it proved to be too much money for me to do (once you add it all up ikea stuff costs a fortunate).

Cabinets:

After deciding to become a stay-at-home, my hubby and I have been buying used, so for over a year now I have been searching the classifieds for used kitchen cabinets. I don't know exactly what inspired me to look for used kitchen cupboards for my craft room but I'm sure glad I did. I was able to get all the cabinets that were in the picture above for $75 which is about the cost of one of those cheap Canadian tire cabinets on sale. Okay I know they are fugly beyond words. But they had amazing potential. I wanted to painted them. wow was that a challenge! I first attempted to paint one with a brush and it turned out horrid. Then I realized that we had a paint sprayer for my hubby's air compressor. So we tried it and it didn't go that great at first. (Not only did we have our 2 little ones, are neighbour was driving us nuts to being all nosy and crap! I wanted to tell him to leave us alone! I was embarrassed enough that we were yelling at each other (as we were so stressed with the little ones and trying to get the stupid thing to work on one of the hottest days of the year). It took us a while to figure out the correct pressure to put the sprayer at so that it wasn't coming out all clumpy but once we did it was easy sailing, and we all calmed down. I'm so glad that we spray painted it instead of using a brush, not only would it have taken hours to do it by hand it would have left those unsightly brush strokes that I despise!

Hardware:

I removed all the hardware before painting and patched the holes from the hardware. As I suspected, the patch was visible after painting was complete. So I wanted to wallpaper the centre of them in a modern black and white wallpaper. The new hardware I picked out is stainless steel which is a great contrast to the cabinets that we painted black.

Countertops:

I wanted to do some type of painting effect to the countertop but realized that it just would have cost too much for the supplies to do it, plus there wasn't enough countertop for what I needed. So I purchased white countertops from ikea. They were each $60. I used 1.5 of them for the countertops of the base cupboards, one is for all of my machines to sit. and the left over piece is just big enough to make into a cutting table. I haven't yet decided on whether or not to put legs (from ikea) on the cutting table or to purchase a used piece of furniture for more added storage. The cost is proving to be about the same.

Lighting:

It was very dark downstairs, especially at 11pm ! I found some pot lights "grundtal" that we purchased from ikea a few years ago, but never bugged dear hubby to put them up (sometimes you have to pick and chose when to bug them! LOL) So I purchased two more packages of them. My hubby was really skeptical about putting them up because they have all these wires running everywhere. But we solved that with more added Pegboard.

Pegboard:

A couple of months ago I purchased some pegboard which I found on kijiji. It was $8 per sheet which a steal when you compare it to $20 + a sheet at home depot and lowes. We bought 4 of them. My hubby put up a huge wall of pegboard. It looked so pretty as he even trimmed it all in and painted it white. So with the left over pegboard he installed it under the cabinets for more hooks and also to hide the lighting wires underneath. All that is left is to trim it all in!

Embroidery wall and wrapping paper center:

I have rolls of embroidery that take up a ton of room so dear hubby attached a left over piece of mdf to the wall (because we only have 24" centres for studs not the usual 12" or 16" centres.) so that I could attached something for my embroidery rolls to hang on. The problem with rolls of embroidery stabilizers is that they're depths are bigger than paper towels holders. So I found that the brackets used for plant hangers would be not only stylish but also would protrude far enough for my stabilizer rolls to hang off of. A few months back, I came across a wrapping paper centre (I think it was lowes that had a how -to) I loved the idea of having all of my wrapping paper in one place, as too many times I have had crushed/torn/mangled rolls of wrapping paper. The tutorial called for cafe rods which are used for curtains. Well, the cheapest cafe rods that I found were $10 a pop. So I found some curtain rods at ikea for $1.97 each. The diameter of the rod is prefect size for not only wrapping paper but also rolls of ribbon. They are steel so they will also hold the weight of rolls of ribbon too! I will get dear hubby to cut some of them as the dowels for the embroidery stabilizers.

The new craft room is coming along nicely. Never in my wildest dream did I think that this was attainable for a modest budget. This weekend we hope to complete the sewing room. I can't wait as I have so many projects I have to start.

Sewing Rampage!

This is the place where I will keep all of my sewing and crafting projects. Read, digest and enjoy!

I have been hard at work sewing. I just got my serger back in March and am so excited to be creating. I have already sewn and turned a bunch of wool sweaters into diaper covers. I then lanolized them using the same lanolin that nursing mothers use. The covers turned out really well. I think that next time I will put in elastic in the waistband though. I haven't quite figured out how to use the 5th thread option on my serger yet, I'm sure that when I do it will save quite a bit of time. I also made my son some lime green diaper covers too. They look more like short shorts than anything so my hubby calls them his wrestling shorts. I got the fabric really cheap that's why I bought it and because I was just practicing with my new serger.

I also just finished up a pair of camoflague orange pants for my son, without a purchased pattern. I used the "copy a pair that fits him" method and made them about one inch longer in the length to compensate for growth. I will just roll them up until he fits into them. They look awesome. I even added a little label that says "sew*chic by mommy". I just came up with it yesterday. For the labels I used a tshirt press and pressed a design I came up with onto plain white cotton. I then decided that I didn't want it to fray so I sewed them up the sides and turned it so the right side was out. The whole project was one of my favorites so far. Previous to that I was hard at work putting together a diaper bag for my brother's first child. It's a girl! so I made her a diaper bag, 3 burp clothes, a bib, a blanket and a wet bag!. All that's left is to put snaps on the wet bag and bib, wrap it all up nice and pretty and wait for her arrival. oh and I course attach a label that says I love her or something.

Thanks for reading and please come back soon.
Sew*Chic Mama