The more I try to get ready for the baby, the more sewing projects get on my list. At first it was just cloth diapers, now my list including nursing pads, nursing covers, burp cloths, bibs, car seat covers, cloth wipes, moby wrap, wet bags, and pail liners. Heber and Midway don't have a fabric store, but Walmart has a little fabric section, so I got a few supplies there. After a full day of sewing, I needed to "go down" (to the big Valley aka Provo or Salt Lake) for my costco run anyways, so I squeezed in some shopping time at Jo-ann. Overwhelmed with the amount of fabric, yet underwhelmed with the amount of actual choices for what I was looking for, I still ended up with enough fabric to work on projects for the next 2 weeks.
Most of my sewing project patterns come from free blogs. The diaper pattern I actually bought, since I wanted to make sure it was a good pattern. So far I've made 18 diapers.
And a bunch of inserts. These inserts are made of 2 layers of microfiber terry (a special super-absorbant material bought from wahmsupply.com), sandwiched between 2 layers of flannel. The microfiber soaks up a ton of liquid, but doesn't retain the liquid when it gets squished, plus it's kind of hard to sew with, because it stretches. The flannel does a good job of keeping the liquid in, and making it easier to sew. Flannel can be found at practically any fabric store.
With my previous babies I always used disposable nursing pads. The downside with disposables is, that being a frugal person, I would often use them for too long. Which resulted in.... well, let's just say it will be nice to change them out as soon as they get wet at all. For the pads I used this free pattern, and plain white flannel. These were so quick, easy, and cheap. Each pair took me maybe 30 minutes to sew, and cost about $0.60.
As I was looking at things babysrus believes are "necessities", and while my sister Wendy was here with her 3 month old baby, bibs came to the top of my needs list. Problem was, when I tried to find bibs online, I just didn't like any of them. I'm not at all a fan of cutsy patterns or animals, and for some reason all these large manufacturers seem to think that just because you have a baby, you now are a child yourself and want to deck your child out in cutsy stuff. Naturally I started searching online for a good pattern, when I kept finding links back to theBapron. What a genius idea! And cute! The baprons I sewed have a cotton or flannel front, with a flannel back. The edges are done with my homemade continuous bias tape. They are totally reversable, but I figure once it's dirty, I wouldn't want to flip it, so most of my backs are plain white flannel.
Not knowing for sure if a bapron will work with a newborn, I've decided to also make somebasic bibs.
Now that I have all the materials, I need to get back behind that sewing machine, and try not to sew my finger this time.
Wow, did that come as a shock. One moment I was happily sewing, the next moment the machine beeped at me to inform me something was wrong. I looked down, and there's my pierced finger, thread and all. What does it say about me, that one of my first thoughts was to get a camera and take a picture??
A stack of fabric is eying me. I'll probably start with a moby wrap, since all it is, is cutting and serging. Then I'll just start working down the list until everything is ready. 3 more weeks to go.
3 comments:
Wow! First off, I have spent years convincing myself that I was just being paranoid and there was no real way to sew your fingers on a sewing machine. So thanks for un-doing years or constructive self-deception.
Second, Wow! That's a lot of sewing! How awesome that your doing all this.
And, third, burp rags happen to be on my list of things to sew this week when I'm at Moms. Hint. Hint. And I hit the Target 60% clearance rack for you. Scored a couple of awesome things for you for like $1.50 each. I'll send all that with Mom.
Just so you know. There is a fabulous fabric store in Midway called Seasons of Home. It's on the corner of 2nd West and Main Street. Everything is just expensive, but it has the cutest selection of fabric. I have a carseat cover that you can borrow for this baby. I made it when I had Blake. I'll show you when I get back. I actually redid my whole carseat - I don't recommend adding that to your list of things to do at the moment. Good luck! We'll have to get together and sew soon.
That needle! ouch!
But I love your sewing. I never did that and right now I am a bit sad about it.
Keep up the good work!
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