Sleep Sack #2: Winter Edition

This girl is growing. She is still petite, and people are never shy to point that out, but she's growing nonetheless.

She's growing because she's sleeping. Quite a bit, this happy mommy might add.

As is recommended by 'experts,' Eddy's been sleeping in a sleep sack since we stopped swaddling her. Now that she's a year old, we can safely change her bedding to a blanket, but her sleeping patterns make that a non-possibility.

This girl cannot sleep still. Every time we look at her in the monitor, she's facing a different way. She has no sense of which direction is up, which results in blankets being pretty much useless.

So it was time to make another sleep sack for our girl who has already grown out of two others.

Sewing time!

I started with fleece I had leftover from her stegosaurus costume. I didn't have a pattern, but I used another sleep sack as a stencil for the pieces.

I also wanted to use all the materials I had on hand, so I had to come up with a design that used velcro instead of a zipper. So I decided that this would be put on like a sweatshirt, over the head. (I know for a fact that there are many babies out there who would not be into the whole sleep sack over the head deal, but I knew Eddy wouldn't mind.)

Step 1: Cut out pieces.

Step2: Sew pieces together.

Step 3: Embellish with fun things like owls that you cut out of other leftover flannel.

Step 4: Decide that your sewing machine skills aren't good enough to finish the arm and neck holes so do them by hand and create a fun cross stitch pattern.

Step 5: Sew in velcro at the bottom.

Step 6: Take pictures of the super totes adorbs model wearing the garment.

This has a good six inches at the bottom so I'm hoping that she'll sleep in this until she's ready for a bigger kid bed with blankets and pillows and stuff. Plus I have the other sleep sack I made for the summer months that is also extra long.

Here's to keeping my crazy little lady warm at night.

Sleepy Sacky

Before I had a baby, I had all these aspirations to do fun sewing projects that would result in cute little clothes and other accessories. Well, it's been slow to start,  but I've been able to create this and that, here and there.

One of my recently completed projects was a sleep sack I made out of unused blankets. Eddy has a few sleep sacks, but they are all made out of fleece, and during the various hot streaks we were having during the summer, they were just too warm for her, but the house would cool off enough that being in just PJ's wasn't enough through the night.

So my sewing machine and I solved that problem.

First, I rummaged through my blanket drawer and pulled two blankets that Eddy had either outgrown or never used.

Both flannel receiving blankets.

Next, I used one of her fleece sleep sacks and outlined it directly onto the blankets, leaving about an inch border for hemming, etc. but also making it a few inches longer. Luckily, both the front and back panels needed to make the sleep sack are the same size and shape. Once I cut out the pieces from the pink blanket, I cut panels that matched the bottom halves of the two panels out of the smaller monkey blanket.

Next, I cut the front panels in half vertically for the zipper.

Construction was pretty simple. Sew the monkey panels onto the pink sheets, then sew the panels together, while reenforcing the neck line and arm holes. After I sewed in the zipper, I added a little velcro tab at the top. I love the little accents.

Turned out pretty cute, I think. Too bad I didn't make this earlier in the summer so it could be used. Oh well.

The. Cutest. Model.

Sustainable fashion: The Infinity Dress

Have you heard of these?  They're usually called infinity dresses or convertible dresses but apparently they're all the rage these days.  They're basically just a simple circle skirt with a thick waistband and SUPER long straps that you tie around your body in any way you like.  The length of the straps makes it so that you can do anything with them, resulting in countless different looks from the same exact dress.  Super cool, huh?

One of the most stressful things about planning my wedding thus far has been choosing the bridesmaids dresses.  I didn't want to be that bride who makes her bridesmaids spend tons of money on ugly-ass dresses they'd never wear again.  I also didn't want my ladies to be uncomfortable or look like they work the street corner, (I've seen enough pictures of this unfortunate result too many times to know that it happens easily,) and wanted them to like their dresses.  Too much to ask?  For a while, I thought so.

Until I found this dress.  There are several people on Etsy who make and sell these especially for bridesmaids so I contacted one of them.  Long story short, they were too expensive, especially for a dress that has such a simple construction and is made out of jersey fabric.

So we decided to try to make them ourselves.  I found an awesome green fabric made out of bamboo(!) so I got 4 yards.  I followed a tutorial one of my bridesmaids found online and voila!  Three days later, my sister was in her very own homemade infinity dress.  It looks way better on her than does on me.  (Frown.)

The tutorial I followed was this one, but I found this one later that I think would have been super helpful had I found it earlier.  The fabric is really stretchy which is awesome to wear but can be a pain to sew and cut correctly.  The second site explains all of this in great detail so I like it.

Throughout the process, I also noticed that 4 straps can be cut from the amount of fabric that is required to make the dress which means that by adding another yard and a half, 2 dresses can be made from 5 1/2 yards of fabric instead of just one from 4 yards.  Just an FYI for all you sustainably minded folks out there who might want a second dress for some odd reason.

And the cost savings?  Even after splurging on expensive bamboo fabric, this dress cost half as much as the ones that we were thinking about buying on Etsy.  It pays to be crafty!

Staying dry: Dog edition.

Most of you all know Brutus.  And everyone knows he's cute.

I made him the sweater.  It has a pocket so he can carry his poo bags.

What you may not know is he's a bit of a wuss.  Unlike our last dog Shel, who was by all means a real dog, Brutus is more of a cuddle monster in the form of a dog.  He wears sweaters, has a bunch of toys, and has a special bed designated for him on the couch.  He also doesn't have much fur.  His underside is rather bald, and he easily gets cold.  (Hence, the sweater.)

Being sensitive to coldness is hard in Seattle.  So I decided he needed a rain coat also.

Instead of buying him one (which would be so silly,) I made him one out of an old jacket that I had.  Heavy use in the field of restoration ecology resulted in several holes and torn seams so it was worthless as it's original self.

I looked up some pictures of doggie rain coats that were for sale just to get an idea of what they looked like.  There were all sorts of styles, but given my limited sewing and design capabilities, I really focused on the simple ones.

The best resource I came across was this one.  Though I found this and the link to the Pdf really helpful, I decided to keep it even simpler and not make the straps like the pattern and just make one strap that came around the belly.

Since Brutus is small, I was able to get all the materials from one sleeve of the original jacket.  I cut it down the seam to the armpit and over the shoulder.  I cut off the elastic wrist cuff and laid it out.  I took some basic measurements form Brutus and knew that he's got a big chest so the belt would have to be longer than a usual small dog.  I carefully drew out what I thought would be a good basic coat shape and cut it out.

This is what I ended up with.  I also knew that I wanted a bit of a skirt so that no water splashed up on him so I decided that the edges I cut off would be flipped then sewn back on.

From here I spent hours agonizing about what to sew first, where the extra pieces were going to go, and how the hell I would figure out how to make a hood that worked that didn't cover his eyes.

Then I told myself to just start sewing the damn thing and that I had a lot more materials if I really messed up and had to start over.  So off I went.  Sewing this stuff is hard because of the rubber coating which doesn't like to slide through the machine.  Some of the stitches are really raggety looking but hey, Brutus don't care.  Brutus don't give a shit.

I basically took the same approach with the hood.  I studied the original hood on the jacket for construction ideas and then cut out a piece of material that I thought might work.  I sewed on another piece to help cover his forehead and on it went.  I made sure to leave a small opening for the leash to attach to his collar and added a little cover for that so no rain got in there.  

I added a zipper to the front that I had saved from a pair of jeans I threw away but I did have to buy some velcro for the strap.  The first fitting wasn't so great because the strap was a little high and a little short.  But after I changed the placement of that, Brutus had a bonafide rain jacket.

Sorry this isn't quite a how-to post on making a rain jacket for a pug, but I barely know how I made it myself.  The only advice I can give is try to follow my not-so-good descriptions and think twice before you sew.  Oh, and Nikolai makes a terrible standing model.

And finally, photo shoots are hard when you have a dog ready for a walk and you're the only photographer.  So these are the best I could do: