Tag Archives: Baby Clothes

pretty green ebony, bibs, masks

04/07/2021 11:23 pm \ 3 Comments \

I’ve made lots of Closet Core patterns’ Ebony tees and dresses for others and this is the first one for me!  I finally used this absolutely beautiful, delicate grey/green wool knit that I bought in Tokyo, one of of our trips over there.  It’s beautiful stuff, with an almost lace-like texture to it, but unfortunately it had developed a few little moth holes over the years since I bought it.

So I fixed these up with some carefully invisible mending.  Yes, I know visible mending is all the rage nowadays but personally I like my mending to be of the other sort if possible.

See my ghost-like hand up there?! The knit is very sheer, so I fully lined my Ebony tee using the leftovers from my recent Forest Nettie, from two posts ago… I had just enough to squeeze the Ebony pieces on for a lining!

 I stitched the outer and lining together around the neckline, and under stitched using a wide, shallow zigzag stitch.  I also handstitched them together at the underarm points, just to anchor the lining inside secretly.

This is the latest thing in my use-12 challenge for the year, where I’m making a little capsule wardrobe from 12 pieces selected from my stash.

I’m also wearing this skirt from Vogue 8363, drastically modified, and self drafted tights

In the last week we had another mini lockdown, and I kept myself busy by making some much needed things for Theo…. bibs!

These are made using the piece from Butterick 5583, and the fabrics are all scraps and leftovers from other projects.  One of them is from one of Cassie’s old skirts, another two are from Craig’s old shirts, and one of the boys’.  The other cute prints are all from the leftovers from Craig’s surgical caps, fabric originally from Spotlight.  The backing is thin cotton towelling, that I already had in my stash too.

Some of them have completely useless, but also completely adorable little pockets.  What can I say, I couldn’t resist!

I made 10 in the end, and I also made a few masks for Cassie, just in case she wants to match her baby.  Masks are newly compulsory here again, after a few months without them, so it’s becoming more necessary to have a little supply on hand…

I’d made a few more for myself as well during me-made May, which fell on the tail end of our last period of compulsory masks; here are some of my favourites.  These are also from out of those cute surgical cap leftovers.  I have successfully and completely used up all these fabrics now, yay!  The pattern is from Trend Patterns…

pinterestmail
Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

nighty night!

01/07/2021 4:03 pm \ 3 Comments \

Last month I also devoted some time to updating the pj situation in my life, and in little Theo’s life too!  It suddenly got really really cold overnight, and my fave old bunny pj’s, that I still LOVE btw are sadly too thin to really cut it any more…

I actually bought both the white and mustard, fluffy cotton flannelette at Spotlight very early out of our first lockdown last year… I panicked that we might have another lockdown and I would need new pj’s and that I didn’t have the fabric for a new pair, so rushed out and quickly bought some.  Then decided my bunny pj’s would be fine for another year after all.  Anyway, they’ve been made now and ooooo, they’re so fluffy and awesomely warm I’m in heaven as soon as I put them on..  😀

I used my namesake pattern, the Closet Core patterns Carolyn pj’s for the bottoms, and for the tops I used my now standby pj top pattern Burda 10-2009, 121; which is just so quick and easy and comfortable.  I jazzed up both pieces by incorporating a bit of faux piping in some horizontally placed seams.  I used the selvedge of both white and mustard flannelette in their opposite pieces’ nd found a piece of gorgeous raspberry cotton jersey in my stash in both to tie them both together.  The selvedges are just single thickness with the selvedge edge facing out, and the raspberry jersey is folded once with the folded edge facing out.  On the inside, all the raw edges are overlocked together to finish, and the seam allowances are stitched UP in all cases.

One of the best things is that I think they look great with my fluffy pink robe, that I made two years ago and that is still going strong.  It’s VERY IMPORTANT that one should look exceptionally well put together even in one’s pj’s, ahem…

Also, little Theo needed a sleeping bag… we had some very cold nights during June and Cassie had put in a request.  I already had both these pieces of fabric in my stash too… the red fleece, well I’d previously used most of it to make kangaroo pouches last year, when we had the bushfire wildlife care callouts.  I still had a few pieces big enough to cut out the sleeping bag, fortunately! I cut the collar and cuffs from striped cotton jersey, just to make it look more interesting and fun.  The only thing I needed to buy in all of this was the red zip… I feel like my stash busting efforts are going really well!

Oh of course, the pattern… this is Butterick 5583 and I added 18cm in length because he is apparently a very tall baby!

pinterestmail
Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Theo

25/01/2021 11:00 am \ 15 Comments \

… so first post for the year! the most exciting news of all for us is the arrival of our darling little grandson Theo; Cassie and Daniel’s baby boy.  He’s very little right now so he is extremely busy eating and sleeping… in fact, more sleeping than usual since he was a tad on the early side.  I’m so proud of Cassie how she has coped in difficult circumstances… Mum and baby were sent home from hospital only a couple of hours after birth, and coming from a generation that was typically spoilt with about five days in hospital for your first baby, this is pretty shocking to me.  She’s doing amazingly well!!

Anyway, I made little onesie for Theo, just before he was born; in fact I gave it to her at his baby shower which was held just barely a scant week before he arrived actually.  Man, things went so fast… anyway, here it is!

O course there is a little story behind this… a few years ago, Cassie made a few workout tank tops for Tim and Sam for Christmas pressies.  She drew the screen prints and printed them herself, and then sewed up the tank tops too.  She gave one each to Tim and Sam, and I’m not sure what was the story with this particular one but it has sat unworn in the fabric stash every since.  She can’t remember now either!  Maybe it was always an extra?  Anyway, I always thought it was such a thoughtful idea of hers, and it’s a pretty cute and clever print too.  Couldn’t possibly just let it continue sitting there!  So, I dug it out, and in the tradition of babies in this family; I made a little onesie for Theo out of it.  The pattern is my own, I just had to make this one a bit bigger, because the writing on the back would not fit on the smaller size I’d made previously for newborns.

Pretty cute, huh?!

I’ve also made a much-needed, new maternity dress for Cassie, the same design as the white one I’d made previously.   I had a few … issues… with this one, suffice to say stripes are always a nightmare and even when you think you’ve accounted for all stripe contingencies that may arise, a new one IS probably going to crop up and surprise you.  Ok, guess I may as well go into it… somehow, despite careful measuring and checking, I STILL somehow managed to hem the dress with an extra stripe along one side seam than the other.  Honestly thought I’d cut them the same, but well, turns out I had not.  I had to cut off the old hem and make a new one.

The other disaster was that I somehow managed to stitch the separate tank front INTO THE WAIST SEAM! thus rendering it useless for its intended purpose as a maternity dress.  DOH!  This required unpicking the seam plus the overlocking, because OF COURSE I overlocked it before I’d noticed!  in what is actually quite a delicate fabric, and well, fixing up the whole shemozzle.  So, for a simple little make it ended up taking most of my day, which I can ill afford right now, to be honest, but at least it got done.

And she looks lovely in it, so it was all worth it actually.

I’ve finally finished another very long-term thing recently too… for me! and am hoping to get it posted in between packing boxes and organising some minor work done for our new house as well as this, our old, one.  Oh, and of course our new pattern, which is far more challenging to finish now that I’m on my own with it, since my helper has her precious new baby to attend to.  Aaahgh, my head is going to explode…

Onwards and upwards!

pinterestmail
Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: , , , , , ,

I’ve been making a whole bunch of stuff…

22/12/2020 8:01 pm \ 13 Comments \

Ok… stuff!   I just have to write this quick blog post or … I dunno, explode or something!  because right now I am the Red Queen, running as fast as I can just to stay in the same place… and if I don’t just get on with a thing right this very minute then will it ever ever get gone on with, at all?!  That is the question?  So, on with the stuff!

So, a while ago I’d written about how the Burda baby onesie pattern I’d been using for Arthur had proved itself to be too wide for the height of it? Like way too wide, fall off the shoulders wide, while the poppers at the crotch were straining to stay shut?  Well, I made a new pattern, and it’s super cute.  Of course it is!  When are tiny weeny baby clothes NOT cute, hmmm?  Exactly!

So above is the first one… yellow striped cotton jersey from Spotlight stores…  At the same time that we got this fabric, we also bought some lengths for bunny rugs for the baby.  When I say “we” by the way, that is NOT the royal we, although I am indeed in the thick of watching the Crown at present and as such am become quite proficient in such conversational niceties…  no, actually Cassie and I went to Spotlight together and selected fabrics for the new baby’s, new nursery.

I had also previously bought some white cotton jersey, to make a maternity frock for Cassie.

She’d sort of semi-designed what she wanted in the dress, a tank dress, with the tank front able to be lifted up for breast-feeding, layered over a sort of boob tube with an elasticated top edge underneath.  The skirt is a quarter circle skirt. It’s a pretty simple design and style, and she loves it!

Side note: I’ve had to look at the messy lower half of this dresser for years.  It took putting the house on the market for me to finally do something about making this a wee bit prettier to the casual observer.  Voila!!  A sweet lace curtain!  Side note to the side note;  we sold the house… very quickly as it turned out.  The beach house also sold very  quickly, like before it even went officially on the market.  My head is spinning!!  I’ll talk more about this later, right now it’s all still a bit overwhelming.

Next!  I bought this shark print cotton jersey from Spotlight… actually, ALL these fabrics are from Spotlight, to be honest!  I bought this fabric months ago, pre covid, always with the intention of making a little Watson bra and briefs set… ta da!  Simple, pretty – well as pretty as a shark can get I guess! – and comfy.  And finally done!

Lastly, I had a small bit of sharky leftovers.  So, obviously…  🙂

This one is a little bit bigger than the yellow one.

So, I think that’s it for now!  I have a few other things in the works, and will definitely/hopefully?! be posting everything before the end of the year.  I’d better pull my socks up, eh?

pinterestmail
Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: , , , , , , ,

stuff for Arthur…

02/10/2020 2:32 pm \ 13 Comments \

those little pursed lips!!

So, Kelly had lent me one of Arthur’s onesies so I could make a better fitting pattern than the Burda one I’ve been using up until now… for some reason that pattern makes for a very short, wide onesie.  And I guess he could be a very tall, skinny baby?  Although I think the sizing could be a bit off, because he looks like a perfectly normal shaped baby to me?!

Anyway, my first go was using one of Tim’s old T-shirts, above.  To be honest, these are my favourites for babies, teenage T-shirts are so cool and so they of course make for very cool babies’ onesies too!  I used some of the details for the new onesie, even the little Rusty tag which I un-picked and re-stitched into the sleeve seam.  Cute!

Then I made him a new one using new fabric.

So, dilemma… The new one will be a lot more robust, because of being made of new fabric, obviously.  The ones made out of old T-shirts are a little fragile, since the T-shirt itself has been washed and worn, over and over and over by the time you’re refashioning this much-loved thing, with all its sentiment and memories, into a new thing for your much-loved baby.

The new onesie, though it’s going to be a “better”, has none of that, so it’s just not quite as cool or interesting.  I kinda love the refashioned ones the best, though you know they just can’t wear them with as much confidence in durability as the new.  Hmmm.  Anyway, he still looks cute in them both!

And, I have a reasonably good pattern now.  The clincher, which gives it a really great fit, is that gusset bit.  To make the neckline fit over his head, it is one of those open ones, where the front laps over the back at the shoulder, but is otherwise not stitched together.  It works really well.

Also, I’m looking forward to making Cassie’s baby some things out of the new pattern too.  When/If I get time!

pinterestmail
Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: , , ,

baby Arthur

29/01/2020 5:46 pm \ 23 Comments \

Our new baby grandson is here!!!  We’re so excited and thrilled with him, he’s such a beautiful baby boy, speaking in a totally non-biased way, of course!!   note: so clearly above photo is NOT of new baby grandson…  sorry!  But thanks to R2D2 for modelling the new beanie!!

I just had to make a few new things to welcome our family’s new bubby…

Items one and two are my favourites, obviously!   I knitted a little yoda beanie, based upon this terrific free pattern by Shinah Chang on her FuzzyCloudDesigns blog.  I used the pattern for the ears, but adapted my own for the beanie itself, my yarn was completely different and with a completely different gauge from the recommended.  I think from memory I cast on 60 stitches? and for the crown I did the cast off in a 6 segment fashion. In other words, 1 per 10 stitches in the first cast-off row.

The yarn is from the big bag I picked up off a neighbour’s verge recently.  I cannot believe someone was throwing away so much great yarn!

I made the matching onesie using my current favourite onesie pattern, Burda 9434.  I made it using a scrap of cream coloured cotton jersey, and white plastic snaps, that I bought along with their matching tool from Spotlight.  I don’t know why I haven’t used these before! because they really are far superior to the metal versions…  I’m only sad that the white plastic did not take up the dye, like AT ALL.  Oh yes, I obviously dyed the cream onesie to make it motley brown, like Yoda’s robes.  I used dark brown thread so it would match the final colour.

I think it turned out super cute!

The other onesie is pretty plain, and in retrospect rather boring, it’s saving grace is that it’s for size 3 months, and I’m pretty sure Tim and Kelly have basically hardly anything in this size yet.  So it will come in handy  🙂

omigosh, he’s really so beautiful!! thanks Tim for giving me permission to post this!!  I’ll never ever tire of watching it…  🙂

In complete random and unrelated-to-sewing, life stuff; Dolly Parton- yes, THE Dolly Parton! – set the following challenge meme and I had great fun fulfilling it on behalf of Mischka.  Behold, the cuteness!!

 

pinterestmail
Posted in: knitting, sewing \ Tagged: , , , , , , ,

jungle baby mobile

22/12/2019 2:13 pm \ 5 Comments \

Yesterday we attended a very special event, and I made a very special gift for the occasion! … Kelly’s bridesmaid and Tim’s groomsman, now a newly-wed couple themselves, hosted a baby shower for who else but our newest little not-quite-here-yet bub…  The new nursery is to be jungle-themed, so I thought I’d make an animal mobile.

I bought acrylic felt sheets, wooden beads and a bamboo hoop from the craft section at Spotlight, and everything else from my stash… embroidery thread for the embroidery, upholstery thread for stringing everything all together, and all-purpose glue… the blue/green wool that I used to wrap the hoop was from a large bag full of wool that a neighbour put out on their verge as rubbish.  When I spotted it I was like… whaaa??? well yes please and thank you! #wastenotwantnot

The designs are all my own:

toucan;

sort of a generic monkey… I kinda wish now I’d made him a specific type but oh well…

gorilla.  btw, most of them have a definite front and back so I’ve pictured both of his here…  He was one of my early favourites so I can’t believe I forgot to take his special close-up photo!  we’ll have to make do with a couple of zoom-ins …

tiger.   I’m pretty pleased with my tiger, it was easily the most labour intensive and fiddly of them all!  This is actually version three; I was dissatisfied with two earlier versions but kept going until I had one I was happy with.  He also has a definite back and front.

panther

blue and red macaw

blue and gold macaw.  Until I was making this mobile and made a point of looking it up, I wouldn’t have noticed that these macaws have black beaks while the red and blue ones have white beaks!

python.  this was a last minute inclusion and I really love him!  My python has a lovely diamond pattern along his length, and it should be noted btw that this is not a very common marking for this particular colouring but I’m claiming artistic license!

There are three different leaf sizes, and I went to a careful effort to balance everything out; the ground dwellers are at the bottom, then there’s the mid-range dwellers, with the birds flying up in the canopy.  Except for the toucan, he’s not flying but I imagined him perched on a branch.

I like the way the blue/green yarn I used to wrap the hoop is sort of “planet earth” colouring, as well as sky/leaf canopy colouring.  Seems sort of fitting.  And the dark wooden beans that are really there to weigh down the motifs, also sorta represent nuts in the trees and on the ground,  and the wooden trunks of the trees.

Lastly, here it is in motion.. thanks Cassie! for holding it up for me to film it!

Kelly sent me a picture this morning showing it hanging up already, which is so cool! and I sure hope baby enjoys watching it from his cot!

Before anyone points it out; yes I know these animals do not necessarily live in the same jungles as each other, but hey; at least they’re all actual bonafide jungle animals and I didn’t pop a cheetah or a zebra in there!

Now before I forget… I said I only had two more things to blog about before the end of the year, but I was forgetting the following!  for Kelly’s birthday she mentioned how she needed maternity clothes, so I offered to take her shopping for fabric and I’d run up a few things…  I’ve shown some of them here but not all of them for some reason, anyway, here are the rest…

  

a Closet Case patterns Ebony dress with set-in sleeves; in cotton jersey bought from Spotlight for this project

A raglan-sleeved Ebony tee, and a skirt made using Burda 7023.  Apart from the navy blue merino for the sleeves which is leftover from my Nettie tee, these fabrics are all long term residents from my stash, some give to me by Mum.  It’s not a glamorous outfit, but one I thought she could wearing hanging around the house or on the weekend for housework or something… hey, we all need those clothes too!

another raglan-sleeved Ebony tee, and Burda 7023 skirt combo… striped jersey a long term resident from my stash, originally leftovers from this dress; and black jersey from Spotlight, not a leftover but bought specifically for this project.  For my previous notes on adaptions to this skirt pattern, see here.

 

So; NOW I’m pretty sure I have only one thing left in this year to blog and it’s a lovely one if I say so myself …. stay tuned!

pinterestmail
Posted in: crafty stuff \ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,

funsies with onesies

30/07/2019 2:05 pm \ 9 Comments \

I’ve made another little onesie!  Looks a bit goth, you say??  well, there’s a story…  🙂

The sewcialists blog had this fun, little mini-challenge last weekend; you spun the wheel to get a colour and then you had the weekend to whip up something with your colour.  I spun and got:

 

I’m sorry to say I felt very uninspired at first, and just left it for a few days.  And yes, it did say you could spin again and again, in fact as many times as you like to get the colour you want! but that’s just not me… I’m a stick-with-what-you’ve-got, kind of a person, and spinning a second time would have felt like cheating.  Stubborn? oh yes, but you know, gotta own what you are!

Then it occurred to me… make something else for the new baby!!  Now if that’s not a fun motivation I don’t know what is!!  So, you know I’ve got a huge bag of the family’s old clothes that are still very good quality fabric, and I fished out this old T-shirt of Tim’s…

I had this idea he might like for his new baby to have a little something of Dad’s when he gets here… pretty cute idea, huh?  Well, I thought so.  🙂  No sooner did I post a picture on instagram, than Tim sent me this one picture of himself wearing the T-shirt.  The grim-looking persona here is all an act, honestly; he’d dressed as a rocker for a dress-up party, haha.

Pattern; I again used the pattern Tim and Kelly had given me; Burda 9434, the 1 month size, except this time I cut the front as one piece, so as to maintain the cool tree/crows motif on the front of the T-shirt; and put 3 snaps in the crotch for closure.

I also made the little ivory beanie; using part of an old dress of Cassie’s.  No picture of that one in its original condition sadly; and it’s already been cut up in the past for a heap for other things; in any case, this is totally a very recycled and eco-friendly outfit for the new bub!

Just some boring construction thoughts:  I did have to cut and piece a little bit near one shoulder, because for some reason the motif had been placed super high on the T-shirt; so close to the neckline edging that you couldn’t possibly cut out the narrow baby onesie piece AND keep the motif intact otherwise.  You’d think the manufacturer’s would consider that people might want to cut out a baby onesie when they print their T-shirts, wouldn’t you; sheesh.  So inconsiderate!  Really, in retrospect I should have pieced BOTH shoulder pieces, which would have centred the motif better, but oh well; you live and learn.  I think it’s super cute, and honestly, I can hardly wait for Tim to be holding his new baby wearing this onesie! seems like full circle, you know?  That is; the baby wearing the onesie, not Tim, obviously!

addendum; aaaaaaaaand, I’ve just finished another shortie onesie… and matching beanie. Reason number one; Kelly and Tim really did buy SO MUCH of this fabric! and reason number two; because I’ve made a salient discovery; you can never actually get tired of making baby onesies.

So, the beanie matches the very first “long-ie” onesie I made, obviously, because it’s from the same fabric; and this onesie also matches the above, ivory beanie; because I used the ivory fabric for the binding… I stitched on miniature sew-on press-studs for the closure on this one because I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with the hammer-in ones, and am currently residing in the hate phase…

pinterestmail
Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: , , , ,
Switch to mobile version
↓