Choo-choo's

As previously noted, Noob is obsessed with trains these days. And he is also potty training. The combination of these two things makes for a lot of fun at bedtime, when he wants to wear his Thomas the Tank Engine underwear ("choo-choo's") to bed, fights getting a diaper on, and then asks to go potty (requiring full diaper removal) a bunch of times before he actually goes to sleep.

To alleviate this problem, I decided to sew him some Thomas training pants for overnights.

I wanted to use the same Trimsies Trainer pattern that I used for his training pants for school (which have worked out well and are still in use at naptime, BTW). But I also really wanted to use some Zorb II quadfold inserts that I made a long time ago, because Zorb II has been the only fabric I've been able to use consistently overnight without stink issues. The Trimsies Trainer pattern is so trim that I can't use normal inserts with it, and I don't have any Zorb II left to make Trimsies inserts with it.

Instead, I pulled out my old standby, the Darling Diapers Unlimited pattern. It has a side snap option, and many people say that any side snapping diaper can be pulled up/down like training pants.

The end result...

Pattern: Darling Diapers Unlimited, side snapping. I added about an inch to the rise of the medium size to make this more of a medium/large.
Outer: Thomas the Tank Engine woven cotton (eBay seller)
Hidden layer and wings: Old t-shirt
Inner layer: Cotton velour

No PUL, so this is a fitted diaper, requiring a cover. I made it a pocket fitted so I could adjust the absorbency as needed. I bet this would catch a pee on its own as a daytime trainer, but for nights, I stuff it with one of those Zorb II quadfolds.

Unfortunately, I don't love the fit of the side snapping version of this pattern. (I think it would work better if I had put in front elastic. I meant to, but forgot. Oops.) And the wings are not really stretchy enough to facilitate pulling it up/down. But it's perfectly functional as a diaper, just not so much as a trainer. And Noob prefers it to his other diapers, so, good enough!

 

I also made some Thomas fleece longies out of the leftover fleece from making Noob's nap mat. Katrina pattern, size large. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying attention when I cut these out, and I made probably the worst cut that I possibly could have... the only pictures of Thomas ended up all crammed into the butt area on the back, and one side was upside down. Oops. But again, perfectly functional, and Noob loves these longies and insists on putting them on whenever he sees them. Kids this age are so forgiving of sewing goofs.

 

Finally, not train related, but I sewed up some fleece shorties out of Army fleece. (I've mentioned this before, but my husband is former Army.) Katrina pattern, size large again. I actually paid attention while cutting this time :) and these turned out well.

Front:

Back:

Tag:

The inseam is a little long. I've left these unhemmed for now, but I think I might go ahead and hem them a bit. I don't want to lose the "Army Strong" on the right leg, though.

 

Noob's nap mat

One of my earliest posts on this blog was about a nap mat that I made for Littles to take to preschool  It worked perfectly! She ended up using it until just a few months ago, when we stopped having her nap at school.

Between first trimester fatigue, the holidays, our China travels, and sewing Noob's training pants stash, I didn't have time to make a nap mat for Noob before he started preschool, so he's been sleeping on Littles' mat. But pink ballerinas aren't really "him," so I always planned to make him a new mat as soon as I had some time.

Let the record show that I originally planned to make this using a bunch of fleece from the great Joann's remnant bin sale of about a year ago, since I really need to use it up! But Noob is obsessed with trains as of late, so just before I started sewing the mat, my husband said, "Hey, why don't you do a train theme?"  That meant scrapping the remnant bin fleece I had gotten for cheap and had around the house in favor of buying expensive licensed Thomas the Tank Engine fleece (since, oddly, it's very hard to find train fleece that does not feature Thomas) -- but what can I say. My husband made me do it!

I made this in basically the same way that I did Littles' nap mat (documented extensively in the other post), with a few minor changes, which I'll get to later. The end result...

Bottom of the nap mat and straps: Royal blue fleece (I was able to use some from the great remnant bin sale here)

Top of the nap mat: Flannel

Pillowcase: Thomas the Tank Engine woven cotton. (I got this a while back as part of a bigger fabric order, figuring I'd find some use for it!) I used my serger on this, rather than doing French seams like I had to do on Littles' nap mat in my pre-serger days -- sooooooooo much faster.

Blanket: Thomas the Tank Engine fleece, from Joann's

Here's a close-up of the pillow and top of the blanket. I made the blanket a little longer than I did with Littles', so it can come up and over the pillow a bit. But I didn't attach it to the side of the nap mat at the top, so it can fold down, as shown here (and above).

Rolled up...

The light blue piece is a shoulder strap -- a new feature I added on this one. It's just a single layer of fleece, about a yard long. I thought that might be too short, but if anything, it's too long. It's very thin, by design: It lies under the mat when it's unrolled, so I didn't want there to be a big bump when Noob lay down. I don't love it, but it works OK for now, and it'll be easy enough to cut off in the future if I decide I really hate it.

Close-up of the name tag:

The light blue is fleece again. Gahhhh, this picture makes it look like the edges are really crooked -- I promise they're not that bad in person. For the tag itself, I used printable fabric that I got on clearance at Joann's a while back. It's canvas material that you can stick in your inkjet printer and print on directly. It's not supposed to be washed, so we'll see if we remember to always unsnap the tag before washing :) If not, no big deal, it's easy enough to make another one of these.

By the way, the picture is of Noob riding on a high-speed train from Shanghai to Beijing :)

Overall, not my best work. You can't really tell from the pictures, but I had serious trouble sewing straight lines, for some reason! So there are a lot of places where the mat is kinda cockeyed. But it's definitely usable, and most importantly, Noob loves it. OK, he might not look like he's loving it in these action shots, but trust me, he was super excited about his new "choo-choos."

Christmas gifts: Getting back on the wagon

I know, it's been way too long! But I've been busy... growing a person :) That's right, we're expecting our third baby in July! First trimester fatigue has hit hard this time around, and so my prime sewing time (after the kids are in bed) has become my prime sleeping time. But I'm getting out of the first trimester now and getting a little more energy, so I'm ready to get back on the sewing wagon!

This past week, I worked on a couple of Christmas gifts for my husband. The first one was a no-sew fleece blanket:

I found the front panel on the red tag shelf at Joann's. The back is plain black fleece. These blankets are technically easy to make (and truly require no sewing), but they're somewhat time-consuming. You cut out a 4" x 4" piece from each corner, and then cut a 4" x 1" fringe all around the blanket. Then you tie a knot on each piece of fringe. That's the part that takes a while. My sewing room now doubles as my office (I guess it really should be the other way around, haha! :) so this was a perfect project to work on while I was stuck on conference calls!

Really, this panel would have worked better as a sewn blanket, if I had left on some of the fleece that originally bordered the design, as a seam allowance. See how the Longhorn logo in each corner gets kinda cut off in the no-sew version? I could have avoided that if I had sewn it. But I didn't realize that until after I had cut off the bordering fleece, and anyway, the Joann's lady cut the solid black fleece just big enough to match the panel, so I didn't really have any extra to work with on the back side. Oh well! It turned out fine anyway.

The second project was a cover for my husband's Kindle:

Since I don't use a Kindle myself, I started off by asking some of my friends who have one what they liked about their covers. There were two big features that most of them liked:

1. A pocket on the inside
2. A cover that opens like a book and allows for reading without removing the Kindle (as opposed to a pouch/slipcover style)

I did some searching and came up with a bunch of tutorials. I ended up finding inspiration in this tutorial: http://sewlostforyou.blogspot.com/2011/01/kindle-cover-tutorial.html

But it used leather, while I wanted to use Cowboys flannel (left over from making Hubby's pajama shorts for Fathers Day). Leather is a lot thicker/stiffer than flannel, and it doesn't fray, so I had to make quite a few modifications to make my flannel "behave" more like leather.

I started with the closure strap. I used two layers of flannel for this, and put some lightweight interfacing on the wrong side of one layer for stability. Then I sewed the two layers together, turned, and topstitched. Finally, I added a small strip of velcro to the strap. Here's what it looked like when completed:

As it turns out, it was way too long -- I'll get to that in a minute.

Then I did the inside pocket. For this one, I folded the flannel and cut an appropriately-sized piece, then added interfacing to the entire piece of flannel. So when I was done, I had two layers of flannel and two layers of interfacing. I cut it on a diagonal -- I totally eyeballed this, but it worked out well. If I were doing it again, I'd make the diagonal hit a little further down on the top edge of the piece of flannel. Anyway, you can see the rough dimensions here, about 7" x 4.5", minus that cutout.

I sewed along the top edge, the diagonal, and the non-folded edge (on the right in the picture above), leaving the bottom open for turning. I turned and topstitched around those three edges, leaving the bottom and the folded side un-topstitched.

Then I cut out the body pieces. I used the same dimensions as given in the tutorial mentioned above, but added half an inch to account for seam allowances, since I would be turning and topstitching. I think each piece ended up being 8.5" x 12". If I were doing it again, I'd add another half inch, and sew with a half inch seam allowance, just to give myself a little more room to work with.

I sewed the other strip of velcro to one body piece. This would become the outside cover.

I pinned the inside pocket to the other body piece, making sure to match up edges. This meant that the (still-open) bottom and the folded edge got sewn up when I sewed the body pieces together:

Finally, I put the two body pieces together, wrong sides facing, and sandwiched the strap between them. In this picture, the outside cover is on top (you can see where the velcro is sewed down, on the left side in the picture below). I helpfully noted that the strap has the velcro tab facing down, towards the inside cover:

I cut the strap way down! In the original tutorial, the strap goes all the way around the outside of the cover. Mine didn't have to go that far. I think it ended up being about 4.5 inches, with about an inch of that sticking out of the cover piece "sandwich," as you can see above.

Then I stitched the body pieces together, leaving a small opening for turning, at the top. Here's what it looked like after turning... outside:

And inside:

I stuck two pieces of Peltex in through the hole I'd left for turning. (So, that hole should be at least 5" wide or thereabouts. Peltex is SUPER heavy duty interfacing. I had some left over from my failed attempts to make the collar for Littles' Halloween costume, so I was glad to find another use for it. Here's what it looks like inside the cover:

You could also use headliner fabric if you wanted a softer/more padded case. But one thing I discovered in our big move is that I have a lot of fabric, haha. So my mission over the next few months is to sew out of my stash as much as possible!

OK, moving on. This wasn't in the directions for the original tutorial I was following, but I went ahead and fused the Peltex to the fabric, by putting a wet cloth on top of it and ironing.I figured that would keep it from shifting around.

Finally, I topstitched all around the cover body, which also closed up the hole for turning. And I sewed a couple of lines going down the "spine" of the cover.

Here's what it looked like when it was finished!

With something in the inside pocket, just to show it off, since it tends to get a little lost in the pattern.

I do have one more thing to completely finish this off. I need to sew four strips of elastic to secure the Kindle in the cover. (Inspired by this tutorial.) I couldn't find Hubby's Kindle when I was working on this, and didn't want to ruin the surprise, so I gave it to him as-is and plan to add those strips now that I can make sure to get them positioned just right.

Now... Hubby got a new Kindle Fire for Christmas! And it fits well inside this cover, too. But he has some suggestions for some minor modifications, e.g. making the strap longer so that he can "stand up" the Kindle Fire when watching movies on it. So, he'll use this one for his original Kindle (which he's keeping) and I'll probably sew another one of these soon. It seems like a lot of steps but it's really not too hard, and should be even easier now that I've figured out the modifications I need to make to that original tutorial.

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 :)

Still more baby gifts

As I mentioned previously, I had an insane number of friends expecting babies. I think there have been four new arrivals just since the beginning of June! Now I have a few months off before another mini-boom coming in December/January...

Anyway, I've been working on the stuff above for quite a while, and finally got around to finishing it up. It's for Hubby's friend D and his wife, who just welcomed their first baby, a little girl. D's wife went to Oklahoma University (OU), hence the fabric choice :)

Nothing super exciting here, all stuff I've done before...

• Sleep sack: McCall's 4236, size medium
• Pants: Simplicity 2291, size small
• Onesie: From the Babies R Us clearance back in March, with one of the fleece squares sewn onto it.

Yes, it felt pretty funny sewing a bunch of fleece with temperatures well over 100 degrees these days, but that's why I made everything in 6-12 month size!

Pocket diapers

My dad visited last weekend and asked what I would sew once Noob is potty trained :) OK, so I have been doing a lot of diapers as of late... but part of the reason is that I do know that I won't be sewing diapers forever. (Thank goodness!) It's also a good thing to practice sewing skills on, because if a diaper comes out less than perfect, I can still use it without anyone else seeing it. And I do have a couple of non-diapering projects that I'm working on, too; they're just taking a little longer to finish up. Because I keep stopping to sew diapers :)

I've been working on pocket diapers as of late. First up...

Pattern: Very Basic AIO (by Very Baby), size medium

Outer: PUL (from fabric.com)

Inner: Suedecloth (from Joann's)

Closure: Aplix loop with touchtape hook. I did this because I had a little bit of touchtape hook that I wanted to use up, but I really like the combo. Touchtape hook/loop is a little too strong, and aplix hook/loop always sounds like it's about to rip open as Noob moves around (although it never actually does open). Touchtape hook/aplix loop is just right, grippy enough to feel like it will hold without being so grippy that you have to pry it apart.

This pattern does not have an option for a pocket, and somehow, I missed the excellent directions online for sewing it with a back pocket. Instead, I sewed it using the Darling Diapers Unlimited directions. Specifically, I cut the outer and inner layer as directed in the Very Basic pattern. I used those as being equivalent to the DDU pattern with and without color sides, and followed the DDU instructions for sewing a pocket with rolling leg elastic.

I've found that the medium size fitteds I sewed using the Very Basic pattern are a little short in the rise, but this pocket actually fits OK. I think it's because II sewed the back elastic on differently. With the fitteds I've done, following the Very Basic instructions, the back elastic is about an inch below the back edge of the diaper. With this pocket, following the DDU instructions, the elastic is in a casing right at the back edge of the diaper:

That makes it fit just about perfectly.

Now, for some action shots. I don't love the fit of this diaper on Noob. It seems bulky. Keep in mind that in these pictures, it is stuffed with his overnight insert, which is definitely bulkier than his daytime ones -- but still, the diaper itself just seems to have a lot more room in it, and not in a good way.

 

Awwww, buddy, it's not that bad :)

 

So. It's usable, but definitely not my favorite. Next up...

Pattern: La Di Da, size medium

Outer: PUL body, Later Gator print. I purchased it from another mom, but this print is widely available online, e.g. at Nature's Fabrics. Tabs are anti pill fleece from Joann's. I used this tutorial to do the tabs. (You must register for Diaper Sewing Divas to see the tutorial --  DSD is free, and it's a fantastic resource if you're sewing diapers!)

Inner: Microfleece, purchased from the Swaddlebees clearance section last year. (It's not there anymore, sorry.)

The pocket is a modified welt pocket, sewn using this tutorial, also on DSD. I did it this way because the LDD pattern only comes with instructions for a front pocket, which I wasn't thrilled with. But I'm glad I tried the welt pocket, because I love it! It is ridiculously easy to sew, it looks very professional, it does a great job of keeping the insert in place, and it works with any diaper pattern. (You cut out the inner piece following the pattern and then add the pocket to it -- there are no special cuts or sewing instructions required for the pocket, so you can do it on any pattern that has an inner!) I might give the Very Basic pattern another shot and do this type of pocket...

See? No insert peeking out!

Closure: Snaps. The La Di Da pattern has an excellent suggestion for snap usage. Normally, you do sockets (the "female" part of the snap) across the front of the diaper and studs (the "male" part) on the wings. That means that you use around 15-20 sockets per diaper and only 4-6 studs, so you go through sockets much faster than studs.

The LDD pattern suggests using sockets on half the diaper front and studs on the other half. Then you can do one wing with sockets and the other with studs. This allows you to use up sockets and studs equally! Nice! You might have to click this image to see it, but the snaps on the right side of the diaper front are studs, and the snaps on the left side are sockets.

I love how this diaper turned out, but there is one small issue. The pattern calls for topstitching around the front and back, but not around the legs, just like the Very Basic diapers I've been sewing. Someone asked me yesterday about the lack of leg topstitching on the Very Basic diapers -- specifically the fitteds that I've posted earlier. I actually really like non-topstitched elastic on fitteds. For starters, it's way easier to sew. It also seems to be a little gentler on Noob's thighs than topstitched elastic.

I don't like it as much for pocket diapers, because I think it's more likely to leak. In theory, the PUL outer is supposed to "roll in" around the legs to prevent leaks. In practice, that's not always happening, on either the Very Basic pocket or the LDD pocket. The right leg on the LDD is fine:

But see how the microfleece inner is rolling out on the left leg?

I'm sure this is due to my rookie sewing "skills," but I'm not entirely sure how to fix it.

I have the same problem with one of the legs on the Very Basic diaper. I tried that one overnight and it did wick some around the legs, although that was a pretty serious stress test, so it might hold up under normal usage. I haven't had any leaks yet with the LDD. I'll keep testing them and see how they do, but for now, I don't want to sew a whole lot of pocket diapers in this way. I will keep doing it this way for fitteds, since they have a waterproof cover over them anyway, so it doesn't really matter if the inner material rolls out.

Oh, and I could just topstitch the legs on the Very Basic diaper, but the LDD's pocket is so narrow as it is that if I topstitched the legs, I don't think the insert would fit inside anymore. Too bad, because I looooooooooooove the fit of this diaper! So trim!

 

Noob approves, too :)

So far, the only pattern I've found that really gives a good fit for a pocket (large enough to stuff easily with an insert, without being too bulky) is the Darling Diapers Unlimited pattern. So I decided to give that a shot, with the same contrasting wings. It took a little bit of tweaking to get a wing pattern that worked. Essentially, it was the same as the tutorial I linked above for the LDD pattern, except instead of trimming the "tail" off the bottom of the tab pattern, there is a "tail" on both the top and the bottom.

Anyway, here it is. DDU, size medium. Outer and inner are the same as for the LDD diaper above, and I used the welt pocket opening again.

Here's the back. I like how the contrasting tabs "wrap around" to the back just a little more than they do on the LDD diaper.

Hey, do you like the size tag? :) I got a bunch of them from Assunta Store. She ships from China, so it is a little slow (I think it took about two weeks), but she throws in some extras to make up for it. One of my "extras" was the green snaps that I used on both this diaper and the LDD one -- nice, huh?

Speaking of snaps, I had sworn off doing them after using them on a DDU fitted that I sewed a little while back... but obviously, I gave them another shot. They work perfectly on this diaper, as the fleece tabs and the microfleece inner have just enough stretch to give a good fit. It really works well. I'm sad now that I didn't get more microfleece when it was available. It's more expensive than suedecloth (which I can regularly get locally for around $3/yard, compared to $5-$6/yard + shipping for even the cheapest microfleece), but it's so nice having a little stretch.

Oh, and you can see that I did topstitch the legs on this one. I had forgotten what a pain that is :) Seriously, I think it took me upwards of an hour just to topstitch the darn thing, including sewing the back elastic's casing not once, not twice, but three times because I kept catching the elastic in my stitching. Grrrrrrrrr. But it is nice when it's finished!

Whaaaaaaaaat? You want action shots? Are you serious?

Okay, okay...

 

I think this is my new favorite diaper :)