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."

More stupid cloth training pants :)

(See previous post for more information about these, including why I think they're stupid and why I'm sewing them anyway :)

On the left:
Outer: PUL (wazoodle.com)
Tabs: camouflage polyester knit (fabric.com)
Inner: microchamois (purchased from a coop)

On the right:
Outer: PUL (purchased directly from another sewing mom)
Tabs: cotton rib knit (Joann's remnant bin)
Inner: microfleece (wazoodle.com)

Some action shots of the one on the right, which is one of my very favorites (love that shark print PUL!) and whoa, some serious bedhead:

A few more...

Left:
Outer: PUL (purchased directly from another sewing mom) -- this is a "happy tools" print that I've seen in a number of places, and I will note that it has faded slightly
Tabs: microchamois (purchased from a coop)
Inner: microfleece (wazoodle.com)

Middle:
Outer: PUL (purchased directly from another sewing mom)
Tabs: Cotton rib knit (Joann's remnant bin)
Inner: microfleece (wazoodle.com)

Right:
Outer: PUL (purchased from the Swaddlebees outlet -- not available anymore)
Tabs: Cotton rib knit (Joann's remnant bin)
Inner: microfleece (wazoodle.com)

For the inserts, I did three layers of heavy bamboo fleece (purchased from a coop) again, but this time, I busted out some "fancy" multicolored serger thread. This is Gutermann brand bulky nylon, readily available at Joann's, and it looks awesome! I love it. It makes the inserts really easy to pick out in the dryer, too -- handy when I'm in a rush to get the diapers stuffed and ready for school in the morning. You only really need the fancy thread in the upper and lower looper; I used plain white thread for the left and right needle.

Noob has been at school for two weeks now and these are working out well. The fit seems to be decent, as I've been home for five of the days he's been in school (I was out of town on business all last week) and he's only leaked one of those days. And that was actually because the insert was soaked, not due to fit. But I don't think that will be too much of an issue, as a single insert does seem to be plenty of absorbency for him as long as his teachers stay on top of diaper changes. Most of the time, he soaks less than half of the insert. (I can tell when I go to unstuff the trainers at night.)

I'm now up to 10 trainers, which is baaaaaaaaaarely enough for two full days -- he's there between 8-9 hours/day, and I typically send him over in one pair of training pants and then he gets 3-4 diaper changes during the day. I have two trainers more cut out and ready to sew, which should give me a little more breathing room in case he has an extra-poopy day or something.

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 :)

Kitchen laundry bag

About two years ago, we switched over to using mostly washcloths to clean up spills, hands/faces, etc. around the kitchen. It really cut down on our paper towel usage, and washcloths are so much sturdier for cleaning up the big messes that kids tend to make!

I had been putting the dirty washcloths, along with bibs, dish towels, and other kitchen "laundry," in our regular laundry hamper. But this hasn't been working well. For starters, a lot of kitchen laundry is covered in food, so it attracts ants in our laundry hamper -- gross! Also, a lot of it is wet, so it starts to get stinky after a few days -- again, gross! And when it comes time to wash it, because it's stinky, I prefer to use Tide on it -- I feel like it cleans better than Country Save, which is what I usually use on our clothes. Unfortunately, Noob breaks out in a rash if he wears clothes washed in Tide, so I usually end up washing everything in Country Save, rather than having to pick wet, stinky, food-covered washcloths out of the hamper to launder separately.

I finally got tired of this and decided to make a wetbag just for our kitchen laundry:

Sorry, that's not the greatest picture, but nothing super exciting here. I made this in the same way I make wetbags for use with cloth diapers, following this tutorial. I used a food-themed woven cotton print (from the remnants bin at Joann's) for the outer and white PUL for the inner. The zipper is from my eBay zipper stash. I made the handle snapping so that it could hang from a doorknob or snap around the handle of the oven, refrigerator, etc.

Simple, easy, and very effective! I've been using it all day today and I love it already. It should do a much better job of keeping the stink contained and the ants away!

Two simple dresses (that Littles refuses to wear :)

I know I've been somewhat diaper-obsessed as of late, but I've managed to squeeze in a few non-diaper-related projects as well.

I made two simple dresses for Littles:

 

The one on the left is made from pre-shirred fabric from Joann's. It's ridiculously easy to make a dress out of this stuff -- just cut and hem it to the right length, add some straps (I made straps out of the bottom of the fabric, but you could just use ribbons if you wanted), and go!

The downside is that it's normally super expensive -- about 50 cents an inch, I think. But it was on sale for 50% off and then Littles found this particular piece in the remnants bin, so it was another 50% off, bringing it down to under $4 for the piece. And it is really beautiful!

Unfortunately, the remnant was just a tad bit smaller than what I would have cut had I been choosing the length, so it's fairly tight around Littles' torso. Probably because of that, she hasn't wanted to wear it a whole lot, but I did get a few action shots of her wearing it:

 

The dress on the right above is a standard pillowcase dress. I can't even remember what blog I got the directions off of, but if you search around for "pillowcase dress tutorials," you'll find lots of options! Good thing this one was cheap (I made it out of an old pillowcase that we had around the house) because Littles refuses to wear it! Oh well.

Hmmm, maybe I should stick with diapers :)

Woven fitted diaper

Pattern: Darling Diapers Unlimited, size medium

Materials: Inner is one layer of hemp/cotton fleece, from Nature's Fabrics. Outer fabric is woven cotton. I originally bought this about a year ago, from the remnants bin at Joann's, to make wetbags. I had a large enough piece left over after making the wetbags, so I figured I'd try it on a diaper!

Diaper sewing is definitely getting easier for me. The elastic has always been the most challenging part, followed closely by the snaps or aplix. This time, I do have a few slightly crooked snaps, but the elastic is perfect! Yay!

Where I still need more practice is on sewing the soakers. For this one, I made a double long soaker, with two layers of hemp/cotton fleece. (So, four layers when it's folded over.) It ended up being a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit long. Oops :)

But it does work fine folded over:

It's a snap-in soaker, so it's easy enough to switch out. I might try again, and make it a little shorter this time :)

Action shots:

I was wondering if a woven cotton outer would work for a diaper, and it does! Which is great, because woven cotton is relatively inexpensive and holds up very well to washing. Good to know!

I don't love the snaps, though. It's a little hard to get the right fit with them. The placement is particularly weird on this diaper pattern -- you can see in the first picture that there are three snaps on each wing, rather than the typical one or two. I don't know, I just don't like the way that they work, so I doubt I'll make very many more snapping diapers from this pattern. The aplix ones are great, though.

Noob has already worn this diaper overnight a couple of times. Admittedly, he's not a super heavy wetter, but the diaper worked great -- it wasn't even fully saturated in the morning. Hubby likes the ease of use of a pocket diaper for overnights, but I really love fitteds under wool covers, so I might sew up a few more of these. They are easy enough to sew (I loooooooove not having to deal with PUL!) and so soft and cute!

New baby gifts

I have an obscene number of friends expecting babies right now. Seriously, it’s out of control... seems like half my Facebook friends list is pregnant or married to someone who is! Maybe I need to defriend Hubby on Facebook, so that his wife doesn’t turn up pregnant :) Anyway, it means I’ve been busy in my sewing room, working on gifts for all the new arrivals!

First up was yet another sleep sack using McCall's 4236.

I made this one for B, who is one of my very best friends in the whole world. He was the one who first introduced Hubby and me, nearly 9 years ago! Sadly, he lives in Los Angeles now, so I don't see him anywhere near as often as I'd like. But he is a huge basketball fan, so when I saw this fabric (in the Joann's remnant bin, of course), I immediately thought of him.

He and his wife are expecting their second son later this month, so that gave me a good excuse to use up the fabric. I figured that it's already too warm for fleece sleep sacks in Los Angeles, so I made it in a size medium (6-12 months), so they can hopefully use it next winter.

More baby gifts coming in future posts...

Another fleece sleep sack

This one is made out of the same McCall's 4236 pattern that I've used to make sleep sacks in the past. I made it with long sleeves this time, as sometimes Noob doesn't have any clean long sleeve shirts at bedtime. So I think it'll be handy to have a sleep sack that he could wear over short sleeve shirts, even in winter. But to be honest, the sleeves were a pain to sew on, and they limit how long Noob will be able to use the sleep sack (hard to believe, but we probably won't be using heat anymore two months from now...) so if I do any more in this size, I'll probably do sleeveless again.

The fabric is Joann's blizzard fleece, in an ice hockey pattern -- Hubby plays ice hockey! I don't love the print, but it was in the remnants bin during the great 75% off remnants sale, when blizzard fleece was already on sale for 50% off. So I got four feet of it for about two dollars. I usually avoid blizzard fleece for cloth diapering stuff because it's not as stretchy as anti-pill fleece, making it tougher to fit over diapers, but for a sleep sack, stretch isn't too important.

Noob is sleeping in it tonight and it fits him well.

More cloth wipes

Cloth wipes are such an easy, quick project for when I have a few free minutes. The ones I made last night have a layer of flannel and a layer of terry. Both from the remnants bin at Joann's, of course! Remnants work well for wipes, because you really only need about 7" or 8" of fabric, and they are cheap -- which is good, because who wants to spend a lot of money on something that will be used to wipe poop?

More cloth diapering stuff

I sent the wet/dry bag that I made the other night to Noob's sitter today, and it worked well! I sewed up a second one tonight:

I got both zippers going the same direction this time :) But I goofed on the handle again. I decided to make it with a layer of the printed woven cotton, backed with a layer of denim, to make it more durable. I thought I cut enough woven cotton to be able to fold it over, hiding the denim. But I didn't. So now the denim is visible on the back of the handle, and it looks a little funny. But it's not too bad, and it does make the handle feel a lot less flimsy.

We're also sending lots of cloth wipes over to Noob's sitter, so I made some more for us to use at home:

Cloth wipes are super easy. This page gives a couple of options for how to make them. I do the "Tricky" way, which is really not all that tricky. In the past, I've made wipes out of old flannel receiving blankets or t-shirts, but I got fancy this time and used a cute flannel print -- from the Joann's remnant bin, of course. They came out great!

I love cloth wipes because they save so much money. For less than $10 in materials and an afternoon's worth of work, you can easily sew up a stash of cloth wipes that will last you for years.

Remnant bin

I came down with a cold at the end of last week, and didn't feel up to sewing. Then I've been traveling on business for all of this week. So it's been a while since I've been at my machine, and I miss it :( But I'm headed home tonight and have some projects lined up to work on. In the meantime, I thought I'd do a post about some great deals I found on fabric!

I do most of my fabric shopping at Joann's, and I'm slightly obsessed with saving as much money as I possibly can there. Which is a good obsession to have, given how often I'm there and how I always seem to discover something I "neeeeeeeeeeeeed" while I'm there.

One of my favorite ways to save money at Joann's is to dig through the remnant bin. "Remnants" are small pieces of fabric, anywhere from a few inches to up to a yard or so. I'm not even entirely sure where they come from. I think sometimes they are customer-returned fabric. Other times, they're the small amount left over on the bolt after a customer requests a cut.

Especially when sewing for kids, the relatively small yardages work perfectly. To give you an idea, Hubby's pajama pants required 2.5 yards of fabric -- way more than you'd ever find in the remnant bin as continuous yardage. But I can get a pair of pajama pants for both Littles and Noob out of less than one yard of fabric. I can easily find that in the remnant bin!

Anyway, the cool thing about the remnant bin is that everything in there is 50% off. Better still, it's 50% off the current price for that type of fabric. So for example, anti-pill fleece in solid colors is usually $8.99/yard. It regularly goes on sale for 50% off, or $4.49/yard. During these sales, remnants are another 50% off, or $2.25/yard -- a savings of 75%.

For some reason, one of my nearby Joann's did 75% off remnants for all of December, rather than the usual 50%. At the same time, all types of fleece (which, as you can tell from my tag cloud, is my most-used fabric) were on sale for 50%. So that meant that solid colored anti-pill fleece was just a little over $1/yard -- a savings of nearly 90%!

I took that opportunity to stock up like crazy! Here's what I took away from two trips:

22 yards of fabric. Regular price: $211. What I paid: $31 :)

I love having a big stash of fabric, so that when inspiration strikes, I don't have to find time to get to the fabric store. I can just start sewing right away! I've already used the blue Cowboys fleece on the second row for the sleeves of Noob's soft shirt and the bright pink fleece just below it for the bottom of Littles' nap mat.

I thought that the 75% off deal was some sort of special sale, but it's been going on for so long now that I wonder if it's permanent. I hope so! It makes awesome deals even better!