Laura's nursing cover

This is how I spent my kids’ naptime today.

Then it was such a lovely day outside that I had to go out to take the pictures. Days like today are why “snowbirds” spend the winter months in Florida.

On the day of Laura’s baby shower I drove 30 minutes to get there and then realized that I had left her gift sitting on my kitchen counter.  I apologized and she was very sweet about it. Later, I needed to nurse Cadie, so I pulled my balled-up nursing cover out of my diaper bag. She went crazy over it and so did her mom, so I decided that would make a way better gift than just more baby clothes.

And that’s why I made another one. There are a bunch of patterns out there, but I’ve been using one that I found here.

The only thing I would change about this pattern is the way she tells you to put on the D-rings. She says to sew the shorter strap closed without them, and then use pliers to open the D-rings and put them on. When I made my cover, I had such a hard time getting those D-rings open, I had to ask my husband for help. He got them open and shut again, but they never looked quite right after that. This time I just slipped them on before I sewed the short strap together, and it was easy.

Oh, and I also make triangle pockets instead of square. I just think they’re cute. This time I used nice soft terrycloth. These weigh down the corners a bit, and are also good for wiping messy faces. And the whole thing can be thrown in the washer every so often.

If anyone is wondering about this thing’s practicality, let me tell you this is the best invention since the nursing bra. I don’t use it every day, but when I need it, I am SOOOO glad to have it. There is nothing worse than holding a screaming hungry baby and looking for a private place to nurse when you know you could deal with a semi-private place if you had some kind of cover. Just my opinion…

Cadie's Wrap Around Dress and Top Pattern

Wow! It's finally ready. I owe many thanks to all my testers, and to my very busy photographer. You guys are awesome! Here are some pics, first some that I made:

And here's some by my very dedicated testers:

I love all the tester dresses. I can't describe how thrilling it is to see my design brought to life in all these different ways. Thanks so much everyone!

Twinkle toes

Look at my girls new slippers that I made from 'Precious booties with ribbon ties' by Precious Patterns! This is one that I know I want to make again, but I can't help but want to try new things with it. Like changing the shape and somehow including elastic around the heel so they stay on without ribbon... Chloe's size wasn't even included, actually. Thank goodness for printers that can enlarge stuff. Her ribbon ties don't really match, either, but she picked the ribbon out and that was that.

And here's Chloe's halloween costume. She is a princess fairy. That little dress is actually the bottom half of this tiered maternity dress that I found at a yard sale for 50 cents. I cut off the tiered part, put elastic around the top to hold it up. Then some more elastic half-way down to make it blousy, and then I cut up the dress's belt to make straps.

The wings are made out of some wire hangers and girl’s tights. We kind of half followed a youtube video by Threadbanger about making fairy wings. By that I mean, I watched it once about a month ago and then I just messed around with the hangers and tights until Chloe was happy with the look of them. The paint job is all her own. She didn’t want my help at all.

And that funny little fabric scrap hanging from the doorknob… That’s Chloe’s decorating, of course!

Passing it on...

Is age 4 too early? This was Chloe's first sewing lesson. I remember when my mom taught me to sew on buttons. I think it was my first sewing lesson too.

Chloe was so funny. She wanted to make silly socks for a "funny foot parade" to be held at her preschool last friday. I helped her brainstorm about how we could decorate them, and when I suggested she sew buttons all over a pair of socks her eyes grew wide with amazement. "I can do that?" Then she ran and sat at my sewing machine, all ready.

I then explained that she must learn hand-sewing first, and buttons had to be sewn on by hand anyway. She was okay with that. The pictures tell the rest...

Don't laugh! She will learn more with time. All in all, I am so proud of her. She picked it up pretty easily and didn't injure herself with the needle. And only one button fell off!

Cadie's Dress

This is a little design that I messed around with to make a top for Chloe a few weeks ago. Now it turned out this sweet dress for Cadie. It was fun because the whole dress is just one piece. All I had to do was cut and embellish (if you count sewing on bias trim and tiny lace as embellishing). I even made my own bias trim because that was preferable to another trip to Joann's with 4 kids. I'm thinking of writing down the pattern in all my spare time...

Does anyone have any thoughts on that?