More wetbags

I made these for my friend C. Her son recently started preschool, so she wanted a bag that she could put his spare clothes in, and that his teachers could send any soiled clothes home in.

This is my standard wetbag with a woven cotton outer (from Joann's), PUL inner (still working through that white PUL I got directly from another sewer), and zipper (from my eBay zipper stash).

I added a snap-on name tag. C's son is going to a Spanish immersion preschool, so it's in Spanish. It says "Ropa de emergencia de J______ R_______." Translation: "J_____ R______'s emergency clothes."

I spent way too long on the darn name tag, but once I figured it out, it was very simple. I designed the graphics/text in Microsoft Publisher and printed it on t-shirt transfer paper. I transferred it to a piece of white broadcloth. Then I took a piece of flannel, reinforced it with interfacing, and added snaps. Finally, I serged together the broadcloth, the flannel, and an extra layer of flannel in between (so that the snap caps wouldn't be visible through the broadcloth).

The reason it took so long was that I kept trying to make the tag almost the same size as the snaps. (There are four of them, in a rectangular shape.) Then I wasn't able to sew or serge, because my presser foot kept hitting the snaps. Finally, I just made the darn thing huge, which gave me plenty of room to work with when sewing it all together.

I made another, larger wetbag for C, to put wet clothes/towels in at the pool:

Again, it's a woven cotton outer (from WalMart), PUL inner (same white PUL), zipper (from my eBay zipper stash). Close up of the print and the zipper:

Birthday gifts

On Saturday, we attended a joint birthday party for "J," age 3, and "D," age 1. Two different families, but we (along with many of the other invitees) are very close with both of them, so it was wonderful being able to celebrate together!

Both families also happen to have a place of significance in my sewing "life." I wanted to sew gifts for both boys to commemorate that.

J's mom was the one who lent, and eventually sold, her sewing machine to me when I first got started. For J, I made a crayon wallet. I first heard of crayon wallets back in May, from one of my other friends, who had purchased some off Etsy for her kids and nieces. It seemed like the kind of thing that someone would write a tutorial for, and sure enough, some quick web searching turned up this tutorial.

It seemed a little tricky, but the blogger insisted over and over that it really wasn't that hard, so I took her word for it. Indeed, it really isn't hard at all! Once you get started, it quickly becomes clear how it all fits together.

I know that J loves anything with wheels, so I chose a Cars print for him. I actually got both types of fabric (the blue Cars fabric and the contrasting red fabric) at Walmart, of all places! My Walmart recently got rid of their bolts of fabric, but they do have an entire wall of precut 2 yard cotton pieces, including lots of Disney licensed stuff, for fairly reasonable prices ($6 for solids, $8 for licensed prints). I didn't have time to make it out to Joann's, so this worked out well.

The finished product:

The outside, unfolded:

Inside. The pad of paper is from Target, and then I taped on a cover that I made using Cars clip art that I found online:

I love how this turned out and will probably make more of these for future birthdays and other events.

On to D's gift. D's mom is a Texas A&M grad (yes, this is the same D for whom I made an A&M sleep sack as a Christmas present), and D is also the only other cloth diapered baby I know. Now, early last year, immediately following Noob's birth, I really wasn't doing a lot of sewing. I just wasn't into it, with everything else going on. But when D's baby shower rolled around, I decided to sew some A&M wetbags as a gift. That project is what really got me started on sewing again -- and I haven't stopped since :) I recently came across the leftover A&M fabric from the wetbags and decided to use it to sew -- what else? -- a diaper!

The fabric is cotton, so I didn't want to use it directly over a layer of PUL (to prevent wicking issues) and I also knew that D's parents don't use fitteds. I decided to try a pocket with embellished tabs, as I've heard that even cotton works fine on those tabs, since they don't really get wet.

I used the Darling Diapers Unlimited pattern, size medium. I've shown off embellished-tab diapers I've made using this pattern in the past, but here are some pictures for how I actually altered the pattern to do it. I took the idea from this Diaper Sewing Divas tutorial (free registration required), but that uses the La Di Da pattern. For DDU, I followed the same directions to cut off the wings at the line connecting the elastic endpoints (marked by stars):

And I did the same for the wings:

The LDD tutorial talks about trimming the little "tail" that you get when you put the tab pattern on top of the body pattern. For DDU, there are two little "tails" that need to be trimmed, one on top and one on the bottom. See them here?

Final tab pattern with both tails trimmed:

I traced the tab pattern onto vinyl. This allowed me to position the pattern just right on the fabric, because I could see through the pattern. Do you see the shiny vinyl on top in the picture below? The blue dots mark the snap placements (for both a single row and double row of snaps):

Once I have the tabs cut out, I sew them to the body, then proceed with diaper construction as usual.

The final product:

I didn't get the logos placed on the tabs quite as well as I would have liked, but I think it looks OK still!

Inner is suedecloth with a modified welt pocket:

Insert is a Zorb II trifold with serged edges:

Folded up for stuffing into the pocket:

I hope the recipients enjoy these gifts as much as I enjoyed making them!

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 :)

Vidia slippers

Littles somehow managed to lose one (only one!) of the Silvermist slippers I made for her a few months ago. I know it's somewhere in the house. But it's freezing here right now and she's been off school for the last three days due to snow/ice and I'm tired of seeing her poor bare feet around the house. So I decided to sew her a new pair.

This time, I asked Littles what color she wanted, and she chose purple. In the Disney Fairies world, purple is Vidia's color:

Vidia isn't one of the nicer fairies, but Littles loves her because she loves purple. I bought purple crushed panne months ago to make a Vidia costume for Littles (to go with her Tinker Bell and Silvermist costumes), but I haven't gotten around to it. Since she requested purple slippers, I figured I'd make them to match the Vidia costume that I will sew eventually :)

I used the same technique as the Silvermist slippers: Sew Darling Mini Mocs pattern, crushed panne for the outer, fleece for the inner, and anti-slip fabric for the sole.

Hopefully we can keep track of these ones :)

The tutu fix

A few weeks ago, I blogged about a tutu that I made for Littles' dance class, and mentioned that the waist was a little too big. Well, I fixed it! I simply added some snaps on the waistband. This makes the tutu much more adjustable, and more secure, too:

It's hard to see in this picture, but I placed the snaps right above the seamline going through the middle of the ribbon. They only go through the ribbon, not through the tulle, so they are hidden by the gathered tulle above the seamline and aren't very visible when the tutu is on.

This also addressed the problem with the old ribbon waistband where it was hard to tie it tight enough to prevent a gaping hole where the two edges of the tutu didn't quite come together. With the snaps, the two edges naturally overlap, creating a nice smooth look:

Littles approves of the fix :)

I love those snap pliers! They come in handy for so many projects.

Preschool nap mat

Today was Hubby's first day back at work after his paternity leave. During our respective leaves, we took Littles out of extended care at her preschool: We picked her up at the end of the school day (2 PM) and brought her home to nap. Now that we're both back at work full-time, she'll start napping at school again.

A few weeks before Noob's birth, her preschool started asking parents to provide bedding for naptime. For those last few weeks, we just sent a small travel pillow and blanket. But for her return to extended care, I decided to sew her a nap mat. She picked a ballerina theme, and I got to work.

The mat
To make the mat, I started by cutting a piece of Warm and Natural batting, sized 90" by 27". I chose this size because it will allow me to make four nap mats using one queen size package of Warm and Natural. I figure Noob will need one eventually, too!

I folded the batting in half along the short edge, so I had a double layer, sized 45" by 27".

I wanted to make the nap mat somewhat waterproof in case of an accident. So I found a big piece of PUL (polyurethane laminate) and sewed it to the batting. If you're not familiar with PUL, it's the material used for the waterproof layer of many cloth diapers. It's soft and flexible, not at all like the plastic pants of cloth diapers of yesteryear, but still very waterproof. It can be found at Joann's (utility fabrics section) or Hancock Fabrics, as well as online.

Here's the batting with the PUL piece sewed on. Most PUL has two sides, a shiny/sticky side and a soft/smooth side. The shiny/sticky side is the waterproof side, so I sewed it with the shiny/sticky side touching the batting, and the soft/smooth side up.

I cut two pieces of fabric to match the size of the batting. For the top of the mat, I used an old flannel crib sheet. For the bottom of the mat, I used fleece. (Fleece repels moisture, so I'm hoping that layer also helps keep the floor dry in the event of an accident.)

To assemble the nap mat, I put the fleece wrong side down, then the flannel right side down (so the fleece and flannel had right sides together, then the batting with the PUL piece facing up.

For a basic nap mat, I could have started sewing at this point. But I wanted to add a couple of additional features.

Straps and name tag
I cut two long straps out of the same fleece that I used for the bottom of the nap mat. I think they were about 4" wide by 25" long. I made them way longer than they needed to be, knowing that I could cut them down later.

I folded each strap in half and sewed along the long side, making a tube. I turned the tube inside out, then topstitched each side.

I decided to make the straps snap into place, because I was too lazy to sew on velcro :) I rolled up the nap mat both with and without a pillow inside, and marked a good location for the snaps for each.

I pulled out the snap pliers that I usually use for cloth diaper snap conversions, and used them to add snap sockets in the locations I had marked. I reinforced each snap with an extra layer of fleece and a piece of interfacing, underneath the socket. This didn't look very pretty, but it didn't matter, since it wouldn't be visible on the finished mat.

In between one of the sets of snaps, I added two more snap sockets, about 3" apart, also reinforced with extra fleece and interfacing. These would be used for the name tag.

Finally, I inserted each strap into my assembled nap mat, in between the flannel and fleece, so that just a small piece of each strap stuck out.

Here is how the bottom of the mat looked when I was done. This is the "wrong" side of the fleece. You can see a little bit of the straps sticking out at the bottom.

Blanket
I wanted to add a built-in fleece blanket. I could have cut the blanket and sewed it into the nap mat, but instead, I decided to make it snap in, so that it could be swapped out later for a new blanket. This also gives Littles the option of pulling the blanket from the side, or pulling it up from the bottom, or both.

To accomplish this, I cut two pieces of fleece to attach the snaps to. The longer piece was about 10" by 35", and the wider piece was about 10" by 25". As it turns out, these pieces were way too wide -- I think I could have easily done just 5" wide for both.

I folded the pieces in half, then stuck them into the assembled nap mat, in between the fleece and the flannel.

Pillow
Again, I wanted to make the pillow snap in. I added two snaps towards the top of the flannel piece, about 10" apart, reinforced on the wrong side with an extra piece of flannel and a piece of interfacing.. This picture shows the snaps along with the markings I made to line them up properly:

Turning and topstitching
Once I had everything in place, I sewed around three of the four mat sides, leaving the short end without the straps open. Then I turned the whole thing inside out through that opening:

I pinned the fourth side closed:

And topstitched around the whole thing. This closed up that opening.

Blanket, again
I cut the blanket to come all the way up to the top of the "wing" on the long side of the nap mat. As far as width, I wanted it to be about 10" wider than the nap mat, so that it would fully cover Littles when she was lying under it. I added about 1" on each side for a hem. The final size ended up being about 36" by 36".

I hemmed the blanket all the way around to finish the edges. This is optional, since fleece doesn't fray, but it worked well to give me a double layer of fleece on the two edges that needed to snap in.

I added snaps to the bottom and one side of the blanket, about 5" apart. Then I added corresponding snaps to the two "wings."

Pillow, again
We still had the small travel pillow that we had purchased for Littles to use at naptime immediately prior to Noob's birth. We had a lot of trouble finding a small pillow of this size! I eventually found one at Joann's.

I wanted to make a pillowcase to match the ballerina theme. I found some cute ballerina flannel in the remnants bin at Joann's. It was about 27" wide. The pillow is roughly 16" by 12", so I cut a piece of flannel about 40" by 15" and folded it in half to get a piece that was 20" by 15".

Since flannel frays, I wanted to avoid unfinished seams inside the pillowcase. So I did what I think is called a French seam. Fancy! What I did was sew the two parallel open sides with the wrong sides on the inside. Then I trimmed down the seam allowance to be about 1/8". Here's how it looked:

I pressed the seam open. Then I turned the pillowcase inside out, and sewed again, using a 1/4" seam allowance. This enclosed the raw edge, so I had nice finished edges both inside and out.

I still had one open side. I folded it, then folded it again, and sewed it into place, creating a hem with no unfinished edges.

Here's how it looked when I was finished sewing. Nice, clean edges, both inside and out!

I added some snaps to the back of the pillowcase, reinforcing with a small piece of flannel and some interfacing.

Straps, again
I rolled up the nap mat both with and without the pillow inside, and marked where my previously-added sockets hit on each strap. Hubby had the idea to add multiple sets of straps, just in case Littles' teachers want to send something home inside the nap mat, making it a little fatter than usual. Easy enough!

Once I got the snaps added, I cut the straps a few inches above the last snap. Then I folded the strap in on itself and stitched it closed to give a nice finished edge.

Name tag, again
The final touch! Noob's soft book gave me good practice for putting this together.

In Microsoft Publisher, I created a box about 4" by 2". I added Littles' name, along with a picture from her ballet recital last year. I printed it out on photo transfer paper, then transferred it to a piece of muslin. I added some Heat n Bond Lite on the back.

For the background, I cut a piece of fleece using a pinking blade on my rotary cutter. It was about an inch wider/taller than the muslin piece. I used a slightly different color fleece from what I used on the mat bottom.

I added two snaps to the fleece, reinforcing them with a small piece of interfacing.

I placed the muslin over the snap caps and ironed gently to fuse the muslin to the fleece.I did a satin stitch all the way around the muslin to secure it to the fleece.

Finally, I snapped it into place on the outside of the nap mat.

Some parting shots!

Rolled up, name tag visible:

Snapped closed for transit:

Unrolled:

Action shot... Littles refused to lie on it properly. Oh well!

So that's how I did it! Despite all the steps, it was really fairly easy to put together. Good thing, too, because I don't know how much napping Littles will actually do on this :) These past few weeks, while she's been home on Christmas break, she's only napped maybe one or two times a week. And I'm sure that once she's back in extended care, she'll be more interested in playing with her friends than napping! Oh well. This mat will work well for overnight visits to see friends and grandparents, so I think we'll get some use out of it that way, even if it doesn't get used much as school!

Soft shirts

About this time last year, when I sewed my first few pairs of fleece PJ pants for Littles, I had to figure out a way to make matching shirts. I had the idea to take plain t-shirts and embellish them appropriately, but I couldn't find reasonably priced long-sleeve t-shirts, and it didn't make sense to pair those nice warm fleece PJ pants with a short-sleeve shirt.

One night, I got the idea to make a long-sleeve shirt by sewing fleece "sleeves" onto a short sleeve shirt. The result...

Cute? Hideous? I'm still not entirely sure. But certainly, these shirts were fast and easy to make, cheap (I used leftover fleece scraps and standard Hanes boys underwear shirts, which I bought at Wal-mart for around $6 for a 5-pack), and very soft and warm!

I ended up making three shirts in this way last winter. We pulled them out again a few months ago as the weather started to cool off, and Littles has worn one of them just about every night since. A few nights ago, they were all in the wash, and Littles was very upset begging for a "soft shirt." We tried giving her some other shirts that are soft, but no, no. She wanted a cute/hideous fleece-sleeved "soft shirt."

So I got to work. And I took pictures this time to show how I put these together.

I start by taking a few key measurements. First, I need to know what length the sleeves must be. I do this by measuring an existing shirt -- or, in this case, one of Noob's onesies. It's about 7" from the shoulder seam to the cuff.

Since the sleeves of the short sleeve shirt will stay somewhat intact, I need to get some measurements from it, too. This is hard to see, but it's the sleeve of the short sleeve shirt. It's about 1.5" from shoulder seam to cuff, and the hem is about 0.5".

Now I can calculate how long my fleece sleeves have to be. They must be (total sleeve length) - (short sleeve shirt's shoulder seam to cuff length) + (short sleeve shirt's hem length * 2) + (desired hem length for fleece sleeve). Here, that was 7" - 1.5" + 0.5" *2 + 1" = 7.5"

As for how wide, the fleece sleeve needs to match the width of the short sleeve shirt's sleeve, so I need to measure that. Here, it's about 3.5". I'm going to use a 0.25" seam allowance, so that means that the fleece sleeve needs to be 3.5" * 2 + 0.5" = 7.5" wide.

So I cut two pieces of fleece with those dimensions. I folded each piece in half to create a tube.

I also prepared an embellishment. This shirt will go along with Noob's Dallas Cowboys PJ pants, so I cut a Cowboys helmet out of some fleece. (The same thing I used to embellish his sleep sack.) I've also used t-shirt transfers in the past, but they get all cracked and yucky-looking over time. Fleece is much more durable.

The shirt is a Gerber size 18 months shirt. Gerber stuff runs really small, so Noob has been wearing this since he was about 3 months old. I got it at a thrift store for about 50 cents. I've been looking and looking for plain white short-sleeve infant shirts like this in regular stores, but I haven't found any! Too bad. They are so versatile.

I started by sewing the helmet on to the front of the t-shirt. Then I started to work on the sleeves.

I folded the fleece in half, right sides together, and sewed up the open side. Fleece is much stretchier in one direction, so I made sure that the stretchiness was going across the width of the sleeve. That is, the open ends of the fleece tubes stretch more than the side I sewed up.

I turned the tube/sleeve right side out and the t-shirt inside out. I inserted the fleece into the t-shirt sleeve, right side to right side, and pinned it into place:

Then I sewed the sleeve into place. I think it looks best to sew right around the original seam line on the shirt sleeve. That way, you don't see the original hem line just above the new seam when you're done.

Here are both sleeves finished. You can see the navy blue thread that I used, right near the original seam line. On the bottom sleeve, I've also trimmed the seam allowance:

Then I hemmed the bottoms of the sleeves. You could actually leave the raw edges if you wanted; fleece doesn't fray.

All done!

Here's how it looks! (Please ignore the strawberry yogurt all over the front. I should have done the photo session before breakfast.)

(Yes, he's wearing his Mini Mocs. They go well with these PJs!)

Here is Littles modeling another "soft shirt."

I got the t-shirt for this one through a co-op that I'm part of. The co-op organizer found an amazing deal on toddler t-shirts -- it worked out to be about $1.50 a shirt including shipping and everything, so basically the same cost as the underwear shirts at Wal-mart. But these shirts are much higher quality and come in colors. I had this yellow shirt in mind specifically to match these yellow Pooh PJ pants. I also picked up a bunch of pink and blue shirts so that I have them on hand for future projects!

(Yes, those are Mini Mocs on her feet, too! That's a pair that I made a while ago. They are made entirely out of pink fleece, no other materials.)

Littles loves her new "soft shirts." I'll probably make more of these before winter is through!