Simplicity 3835 Maternity Versions

 Original Pattern Info and Examples

This was a very easy pattern to alter for maternity. I added 3″ (total of 6″ ) to the front by swinging it away from the center fold. Then I straightened the side so it is not curved in.   Add more inches to the front depending how big your belly is!

Navy Linen:

   

Red Stretch Mesh:

   

Baby Gifts Galore

I have quite a bit of friends and family having babies lately (plus myself!)  So, lots of handmade gifts have been in the works.  There are still 4 babies due in the next few months, so I’m not done yet.  These are what I have given so far.  Many of the embroidered onesies were done months ago, but I had to come up with something else for my cousin who is not finding out the gender.  I saw these blanket stitched onesies on Turkey Feathers Blog and I knew that would be perfect.  I coordinated the colors to her burp cloths (fabric is from Amy Butler’s Belle-Sun Glow)

I found a great way to make the fabric trimmed burp cloths.  (from this great tutorial: boutique baby burp cloths)  I have been making double sets of these-one to give and one to keep for us!  We have plenty of onesies left from our first son, but we really need some new burp cloths!  I love how they are trimmed only at the ends-lots of room in the middle for the messy stuff.  I see so many burp cloths being sold with the fabric sewn right down the middle, but I don’t think that is practical-I haven’t used any like that but my thinking is that it is just going to get yucky and the fabric would keep the birdseye cloth from absorbing.  Maybe those are just for looks, but I want something that can really be used and look pretty too! 

I have also made a nursing cover, and some sun protective blankets (like these: Secure 2 Me Eclipse, I already had some of the solarveil fabric they use). 

Recycled Sewing Projects

There has been a lot of talk everywhere about going “green”.  I have been seeing a lot of sewing projects that are using old clothing to create new things.  Some call this refashioning, but it is plain old recycling to me!!  I have a crate full of old clothes and towels just waiting to be turned into something useful again.  So here are some ideas….

T-shirt skirt (all buttoned up)

T-shirt pants (all buttoned up)

Hand Me Up shirt (betz white)

Easy kids pants (rookie moms)

Pants from a t-shirt -for adults (LJ bakedinapie)

Men’s Button Shirt to Cute Cap Sleeved Top (craftster)

Fleece or wool pants from old shirts or sweaters -flickr photoset (twelve paws)

Sweater Pants (that’s kinda cool)

Button down shirt to toddler dress (craftster)

Recycled Sweater Totes (canadian living)

Old Jeans=Toddler Dungarees (made by petchy)

Tank Top to Tote Bag (stitch lounge)

Girls Gathered Valance Top or Dress (stitch lounge)

 

Shirring (with elastic thread)

This is a new technique to me and I just got up the nerve to try it last week.  I used a mystery remnant from wal-mart since I didn’t want to waste any of the good fabric!  The remnant was the perfect size to make a top for a friends daughter.  It took a lot of fiddling with my machine and ripping out a few rows of stitching but I finally got the settings right.  It is really fun to do once you get it right!  I would show you a picture, but in my excitement to give it away, I forgot to take one.  I am planning some more though so I’ll get some pictures eventually….

I found that on my machine I had to turn the tension up to about 7 or 8 to get the right amount of stretch.  I started with it low and it would barely stretch and the fabric slid around on the elastic. 

Here are some helpful hints for shirring:

Shir Madness Tutorial (portabello pixie)

Sunny Day Top or Dress Tutorial (house on hill road)

Shirred Dress Tutorial (kuky ideas)

You Are My Sunshine Quilt (pinwheel blocks and hand embroidery)

I thought I had written about this quilt here, but it was over on craftster. (where I haven’t visited much lately…) I started this quilt in the spring when we were selling our house. Most of my other sewing things were packed up and it was my only project to focus on.

Here is the progress on this quilt for my son. One of “our” songs is “You are my sunshine”-we sing it every night as part of his bedtime routine. I thought -why not make a quilt with all of the words?? So the little guy and I headed off to the quilt shop and picked out some fabrics-yellow, since that is the color of the sun (according to the 3 year old!) and I wanted shades of blue with it since his room is blue. The fabrics are not all part of the same line- I found the tiny yellow and blue polka dots first for the background, then the big yellow polka dots, and grabbed some fat quarters for the blue parts. Then we looked again in the yellow fabrics and found one with circles all over that looked like suns, and that will be for the back and binding.

I did not follow a pattern for this quilt, I just let the idea of it tumble around in my head for a while. I knew the middle was going to have the words embroidered on it, so I needed some blocks that would make a good border for the middle panel. I tried to find a quilt block that looked like a sun, but didn’t find much that I liked. Finally I settled on pinwheel blocks. So that is where I started.  These 2 pages from Quilter’s Cache are what I used as basic instructions for making the pinwheel blocks. (Pinwheels Border and Speed Piecing Half Squares).  I made up enough blocks to form a border and then sewed them around the solid middle panel.

 

Then came the embroidery-This took some planning! I typed up the words on the computer and spaced them out on the middle panel. Then I traced the words onto some pattern tracing material cut to the size of the panel. Then I hung that in the window and traced the words onto the middle panel.  It took me about a week and 4 skiens of embroidery floss! Once that was done, I added the outside border and made up the corner squares from scraps.

Now, it needs to be quilted….I’m just not sure what to do with that middle section where the words are! The poor thing sits on the shelf waiting for me to pick it up again.

Maternity modifications/alterations

Regular jeans to maternity jeans (could also be used with any other pants or skirts that are too tight) : paisley princess

Full Tummy Adjustment: Rostitchery

Easy Pattern Adaptations for Sewing Maternity Wear: Jan Andrea-Baby Crafts

Modifying shirt/dress patterns for nursing

I tried a few nursing shirts with my first baby and they were so overwhelming that I just gave up and resorted to either pulling up or unbuttoning a shirt wearing a nursing tank underneath.  The ones I tried were full two layer in front with various openings on the under layer and none of them worked right for me.   First I am petite, so they were huge to begin with.  Second I am very small breasted so it was a challenge to find the opening and get it to stay where I needed it while nursing.   BUT I have discovered a nursing style that I am in love with-and it will be easy to convert many of my current shirt and dress patterns for.  The empire nursing opening (sometimes called crop style).  This is made basically by having two layers over the bust area.  The top layer ends under the bust where an empire style would be-but it is not connected in the middle-just at the side seams.  The top layer overlaps the bottom half of the shirt and to nurse all you do is pull up the top layer and pull down the bottom layer.  You no longer have to have the whole length of your shirt bunched up over your breast-plus you are exposing very little of the breast as you are nursing.  The first brand I saw with this style was BOOB.  Then as I have been looking around recently I have found some empire nursing styles in Japanese Weekend (during and after nursing), and Motherwear. 

There are some wonderful ladies who have already figured out how to alter patterns to sew your own top with this nursing style. 

Rostitchery: Overlap Nursing Top -includes line drawn pattern pictures 

Rostichery: Two Piece Nursing Top

Rostitchery: Twist Top with Nursing Access -a bit more challenging than the overlap, but very trendy

Emma’s Sewing: Overlap Style Nursing Clothing -A lot of examples (click on Boob style nursing clothes to see examples)  and step by step instructions (after you are on the examples page there is a link at the top that says learn how to make your own dress like this)

Purses from summer

 I made these 2 purses over the summer.  They were both made with free patterns and I think they turned out well.  I usually get compliments on them and that is always nice!  They don’t hold much, but I only use a purse when I go out on my own or I am carrying a purse with the diaper bag.

Bias Tape Purse: tutorial by belle epoque

I added the little ruffle to the front and pockets to the inside.  The fabrics are natural cotton canvas and Heather Bailey’s Freshcut (mums).  (click picture to see inside pics)

Kwik Sew Clutch: free pattern from Kwik Sew 

I quilted the outside fabric, added pockets and a strap. The fabrics are Amy Butler’s Ginger Bliss (cinnamon red deco bouquet) and natural muslin lining. (click picture to see inside pics)

Mary Engelbreit Quilt-Fabrics

I have been looking for fabrics for this quilt for a while now.  It seems that I can find a yard here and there but never a lot of what I had in mind all in one place …until I found Jane’s Fabrics on eBay.  I got a set of 30 fat quarters for $35-thats less than $1.50 each!  I would have paid so much more if I ordered these from all over (especially paying shipping at each place too!)  And her shipping was super fast- I ordered Sunday night and got them Wednesday!  They are all washed up and ready to go.  I’m not going to use all of them in this quilt, but most of them.  There are quite a few of the novelty themed prints that just won’t go for what I want but I’ll find some other use for them.

Oooohh- I really have to settle on a design now….I’ll save that for another day!   

Sewing for the house

I haven’t done much sewing since we moved to this house.   I did manage to sew a few curtains before my new sewing/craft room got out of control!  (I am making good progress on the room though-I got a file cabinet yesterday so I now have a place to put my paper stacks and magazines and the computer area is now clutter free-hopefully I’ll be putting pictures of the room up soon)  Anyway, here is the curtain I put in the laundry room.  It has a door leading outside with a window on the top half of the door.  The towel we had hanging over it when we moved in was just not pretty, so with a little Denyse Schmidt fabric, it looks much better! 

All of the windows in the house have plantation blinds on them, so I haven’t been in a rush to put curtains up everywhere yet, but the only place without blinds was the sliding glass door in our dining room turned office.  This window needed covering badly.  I tried to make these curtains neutral since this room will mostly be used by my husband.  I used extra wide linen from fabric.com and topped it with a decorator fabric so it wouldnt be completly boring!  I just used clip on rings for the top-so easy too. 

Simplicity 3762- Maternity Knit and Woven Tops-planning

the pattern

Reviews:

Pattern Review

Simplicity 3835-Built By Wendy Misses Dress, Mini Dress or Top

the pattern

Reviews:

Pattern Review (24 reviews)

Examples:

marirob’s dress

lula louise dress

prudence rabbit- spring top

Supa MB -altered for maternity and another

Mine!

Embroidered Cotton

 

Anna Maria Horner’s Bohemian Fabric

Simplicity 5756- maternity separates-planning

the pattern

Reviews:

Pattern Review (6 reviews)

Simplicity 3622- Misses & Miss Petite Pullover Knit or Woven Dress- planning

the pattern

Reviews:

Pattern review (1 review)

Hungry Zombie-black terry

New Look 6086-misses tunic tops- planning

The pattern

Reviews:

Pattern Review (2 reviews) 

Simplicity 4111- built by wendy misses top- planning

The Pattern 

here are some reviews and tips on sewing this pattern:

Pattern Review (21 reviews)

Blog Post on earthchickknits

Blog post on Stop staring and start sewing!-shows errors in directions and tips on sewing

Blog post on SewChic-more modest version, raised neckline

finished tops:

Supa MB-altered for maternity  and another  and a sleeveless dress version

knottygnome-striped version

julieree flannel version

redsilva-brown flowers

Helpful Notions

Easy Circle Cut-EZ Quilting

A room of my own!

We moved to a new home about a month ago and I now have a room for all of my crafts, sewing, and other miscellaneous stuff!  Oh yeah- my computer is in there as well.  A few weekends ago my wonderful hubby built me some shelves to utilize a little area between the door and the far wall.  I would show you some pictures….but it is still a mess!  Things are put away, but not in any organized way yet.  But-it is my own room and I can shut the door and not have to worry about little boy fingers or little cat paws getting into things!  Ahhh, now what to sew first?

Simplicity 4589- 6 made easy misses tops

First, double check the sizing on the pattern-I tend to just grab one without checking what sizes are in the packet.  This is the second time I’ve done it this month!  And I was planning on sewing this one tonight….oh well. 

 The Pattern-6 Made Easy Misses Tops

Pattern reviews and examples-

Reviews at Pattern Review (PR)

Review with trick for making nice facings (PR)

Tank Version (sew? i knit!)

Square Neck Version (Wardrobe Refashion)

Embroidery on Linen Version (Berlin’s Whimsy)

Redrafted adding underbust band (journey to couture)

Flickr Group

Mine!

 

Machine Quilting Tips

I really want to learn how to do free motion quilting and I am planning on getting this book soon: Learn to machine quilt with Pat Sloan  She also guides you through the process in her blog.  (start there, then go through to the next posts to continue)

more info on machine quilting-all types

10 Tips to improve your machine quilting (McCall’s Quilting)

Machine quilting basics (Quiltbug)

Free Motion Quilting Tips (Quilter’s Review)

Free Motion Quilting -with video (crazy mom quilts)

Camille’s Stippling Tutorial (Jolly Jabber)

Free Motion Quilting Tutorial (sew inspired)

Free Motion Quilt using Freezer Paper (pink chalk studio)

Basting Tips:

One way to baste a quilt (crazy mom quilts)

Quilt Basting Tutorial (sew inspired)