Fleece: Are you ready for some football?

 

Ah, fleece. If you've been following my blog from the beginning, you know that "fleece" was the most-used tag in my tag cloud for quite a while. Then summer in Texas hit... and fleece is not exactly my fabric of choice after 64 days (and counting) of temperatures over 100 degrees.

But we've been preparing our house to put it on the market, which has entailed a major clean-up of my sewing room. And oh my goodness, I have a lot of fleece. Mostly from the great Joann's remnant bin sale late last year. So, my goal over the next few months is to sew a lot of it up.

With football season right around the corner, I figured I'd start with some football-themed items. Starting with the fleece shorties shown above on Noob. Here's the back:

As I've mentioned previously, I'm an Eagles fan and Hubby is a Cowboys fan. Not surprisingly, Cowboys fabric is easy to find here in Dallas, but I had to order this Eagles fleece online. Well worth it, though. I love how these shorties turned out.

I put in a "hammock-style" extra layer in the wetzone, which allows me to use these directly over non-waterproof diapers, such as prefolds. The extra layer is just a strip of fleece, to provide extra protection from wetness. It makes for really easy diaper changes when we're hanging out at home. Here's what the inside looks like:

I didn't make this shirt -- my parents bought it for Noob. But it makes for a nice set!

Of course, Hubby would never let me get away with sewing Eagles stuff but not Cowboys stuff. And anyway, I have Cowboys fleece coming out my ears. So I sewed not one but two Cowboys soakers. Again, these are intended for use directly over a non-waterproof diaper, such as a prefold -- but they are also just cute and fun for wearing around the house!

I used embroidered fleece on the first one and it turned out OK, but I don't really like the partial star on the back:

 

The second one turned out just about perfect! I thought I had some action shots of Noob wearing it, but I guess not. Too bad, because it's so cute! And that is a high compliment coming from an Eagles fan :)

 

Finally, a soaker that Hubby and I can both approve of:

 

A couple of specifics for these projects:

• I used the Katrina longies pattern to make the shorties, and the Katrina soaker pattern for fleece to make the soakers. They are all size large.
• As I mentioned, I did a hammock-style extra layer in the shorties. For the soakers, I used an extra wetzone layer.
• I tried one of the soakers a few nights ago over a fitted diaper, and it held up great!
• The contrasting waistbands and leg cuffs all came from fleece from Joann's remnants bin. The remnants bin is a perfect place to look for contrasting fleece, because you only need a small amount (about 4") to make waistbands/leg cuffs. So it's easy to find for super-cheap in the remnants bin.
• These sew up fast. Less than an hour from cutting to done. And I am not a fast sewer, by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm sure there will be many more fleece projects to come, so stay tuned :)

What can you get for $1?

Hubby and I do most of our shopping for kids' clothes at thrift stores. There are a couple of awesome ones near our house, and it makes no sense to pay $10 or more for a piece of clothing that will be worn for just a few months. So, I did some shopping for the kids a few weeks ago, and stopped by the men's sweater rack while I was there to see if there were any good items for upcycling into diaper covers. I know, I know, I should really limit myself to sewing out of my massive box of sweaters that I got for $10, but... well, what can I say. I'm not that disciplined. And anyway, the sweater rack is pretty hit or miss, so it's by no means a certainty that I'll find anything good when I look.

Well, turns out that it was a "hit" day. I picked up three nice wool sweaters for a grand total of $3.50.

Here is the first one. It was priced at $4, but since it was sale day at the thrift store, it was only $1. (Yeah, that's right, I'm so cheap that I don't even shop thrift stores: I shop sale days at thrift stores.)

It's from American Eagle Outfitters. 100% lambswool, which is one of my very favorite types of wool for upcycling, because it is usually soft but still nice and thick. Men's size extra large, which meant that even after I felted it slightly (by washing on warm and then drying on high) to make it a little thicker, it was still plenty big.

So, I got to cutting and sewing. And after a few hours, I had this:

Top left - Soaker, Katrina pattern size medium, made out of the body of the sweater.

Bottom left - Shorties, Katrina pattern size small, made out of the bottom of the sweater's body.

Right - Longies, Katrina pattern size medium, made out of the sweater sleeves.

Now for some action shots! The soaker is a little big on Noob, but not too bad:

By the way, I cheated on this one :) I didn't have enough fabric in the sweater for an extra wetzone layer, so I cut one out of a coat (from my $10 box of sweaters... so I did use it!). It's super thick, so this soaker should be pretty bulletproof. Here's a shot of the inside with the extra layer:

Here are the shorties. They are a little long, because I cut them the same length as the other pair of shorties I made, forgetting that I wouldn't be hemming these ones :) (I used the finished edge of the bottom of the sweater instead.)

And the longies. Obviously, Noob won't have any use for these until next winter, so I made them pretty big:

Not bad for a buck.