Sew Day

Today was a big Threads of Love day at church. I forgot my camera, so please excuse the camera phone pictures.

C and L had to come with me for the first half. Since C just learned to use my sewing machine, he wanted to help.

He would count out his flannel pieces and sew a line down the middle to keep them nice and snug together.

He sewed all the soakers we used for the day.

L was very sad that she wouldn't sew and one of the lady's at the quilting table had little scissors, so I thought L could cut pretty straight lines. She did great! Almost perfectly straight lines. She cut all the scraps for the soakers.

They were so excited to help and after about an hour, they ended up on the stairs jumping off them, then got board with that after about 5 minutes then ran circles around the stage. Luckily Mr. C got there soon after to take them home.

We finished almost 12 diapers this morning. I say almost, because they were done in assembly line fashion. A few still need velcro and a few need top stitching and velcro.

Cloth Diapers - Haiti

These cloth diapers are made for school age children with special needs. They are for the Threads of Love Project.

Supplies:
Fabric - PLU for outside, flannel or preferably micro fleece for the part that touches the bum and flannel, terry cloth or micro fiber for lining.
Elastic - 1/4 inch
Velcro - 1 inch
Size Tag - small square of fabric makes it easy for the workers to find the appropriate size. Colors are as follows: small-yellow, medium-dark blue, large-red, and extra large-dard green

Take your pattern and cut the PLU and the Micro fleece or flannel.

I had 2 yards and cut enough for 6 diapers.

Then cut the inside piece. I tried a terry cloth to see how it would work, it's really soft, but it's a stretch terry. I didn't like sewing with it. Micro fleece is wicking so the kids won't be sitting in wet and it's soft.

Now cut your scraps up for inserts.

I used 1 terry piece, 3 flannel and 1 hemp scrap that I had. Probably 4 - 6 flannel and 1 terry cloth piece would be good.

Next, I piled up my inserts and sewed them down the middle. I did this incase any are a little smaller the others. I didn't want them to move around inside the diaper.

After you sew the line down the middle of the insert, pin it to the wrong side of the inside piece of the diaper and sew all the way around it.

Then put right sides together of both diaper pieces. **We made a change and use the wrong side of the PLU as the right side. It works the same and a little nicer for the kids in Haiti where it is hot and humid. (Insert the size tag here on the top (back) of the diaper and sew all the way around leaving an opening at the bottom (front) of the diaper.

It's hard to see, but transfer your marks for the elastic to the wrong side of the diaper. Starting at 1 mark, stretching the elastic as you go, zig zag it to the other mark.

Your elastic will go on part that goes around the legs and on the back of the diaper.

Now, flip it right size out and top stitch all the way around closing your opening. I forgot a picture of that.

All you have left is the velcro. Sew the soft side onto the front of the diaper and the rough side to the other part with a little soft piece next to it so you can fold it over during washing.

Like this. This will keep your velcro a lot nicer.

All done!

If you have questions, please let me know! kristen081801(at)yahoo(dot)com

Living Room Facelift

As I've said before, we rent, so there isn't a lot we can do to our house. Well, we have the best landlord and we could do pretty much what we want, but it's hard to put money into a house you don't own. Anyway, my husband has been gracious enough to let me paint. He understands that I want to like what I'm looking at every day besides, he saw the huge need for it also.

So, here is what our living room looked like before painting...

There are just no words for that, it's just EW!

And this, I tried to clean it.

Now, look how clean!

Can you see the old marks from pictures? Then if you look close enough, you can see some marks on the right about 1/2 way down where I tried to clean there too.

So much better!

Oh, this picture is lovely, the top have of the wall, there was a glossy white used and the bottom half didn't get painted. Interesting.

Now look at my little sewing nook. I love it! That lovely piece of art I followed the tutorial from I Am Momma Hear Me Roar. It's super easy, I think I did it in less then an hour.

Here is a picture just for night ambiance. I love the soft green. It goes well with the beautiful ceiling. It's also not bad with the heavy gold drapes. I would take those down if the house didn't face west with the huge wall to wall window. I LOVE the windows, but it really is HOT in here in the summer. I would much rather the window then perfect temps though.

This room is so pleasant now. Now I have to figure out what I want above the couch. I think I have something in mind, I will let you know when I decide for sure.

Serger!

I finally got my very first serger. I am SO excited to start sewing on it. You wanna see it?

I got the Brother 1034D. I chose it because of the awesome reviews, it's seemed to be a good reliable beginner machine. You can click here or on the name of it and order the exact same one if you want.

Look what I get to learn.

This serger is so easy to thread. I was dreading that part because of all the reviews I read on tons of different sergers, but as soon as I got mine, I unthreaded it and rethreaded it no problem. It was super easy. Of course it does help to have the directions and the numbers to follow right there.

I love the fact that there are no bobbins to wind. I have bobbins with 3 different colors of thread wound around them. But now that I figured out how to work the machine and what it does, I'm serging!

There is a little learning curve and a little getting used to things like pulling the work out and you don't have to back stitch. But that's not bad and look how beautiful the edges are.

I was so excited, I made a hobo sac right away with it before a birthday party that same day and then after the birthday party I made my sister-in-law the little jersey knit cardigan thing I made for myself in green. Her's looks so much better. I will show you that stuff soon. :-)

Surfboard Paint Job

Remember this?

Well, now Mr. C is so excited for me to share the paint job on it. He worked really hard so there are a lot of pictures...

This was done in stages. Mr. C made a stencil for the skulls and air brushed the board.

He had to take off the paper, but leave the tape on for a line in-between and put new paper on to cover the skulls.

The top is almost finished.

My husband loves to surf, but his biggest fear is sharks. Yes, really! Every time he is out there, he is thinking about sharks, worried about sharks. He plans out his boards so that they are not the colors that attract them. I guess more people have been attached on a yellow board then other colors. He also decided to put a little comfort on his board... Psalm 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Now, the bottom was also planned out thinking of sharks. He thought if there was contrast of the colors, he wouldn't look like a giant seal in the water. So, he made this stencil also and airbrushed it. Pretty cool, I thought.

And this is what my garage looks like. I haven't been able to park in it for about 4 days now. Hopefully soon!

I will have one more picture of it all glassed and him out on it on the water. Hopefully it surfs, right? :-)

Shirt from scraps

Remember that orange knit I made one of the Haiti dresses from? Well, I had a thin strip left and I have been wanting to make Lacey a specific top that needed just that amount of fabric. I cut 20 inches of that strip and smocked the top and bottom, added straps and ta-da...

I just love this print! The hair isn't bad either. Now that it's short, I don't have to detangle it every morning.

Such a perfect summer top. Very girly too.

Kristen

Haiti Dresses

Look at all this wonderful knit!

All this lovely fabric is for that project I was working on this week. My church has this thing call, "Threads of Love," it's an outreach for people that can sew, knit or crochet. I was so excited when there was an e-mail that went out about it an a meeting, I so wanted to do something. I went to the meeting and found out they needed people to sew clothes and diapers. Perfect! They also needed quilts sewed, but that's not really my thing. Anyway, one of the things they needed were dresses for Kenya and Haiti. An orphanage in Haiti was the most immediate need. There are girls that are in some way disabled and they can't dress themselves very well. So, the girl from our church that works there requested tub type dresses! Perfect! I could do that. She wanted strapless, but I thought that wouldn't be good if they were too loose and falling down. Especially as these girls go through puberty. Anyway, I made some dresses this week and they are all a tad different. I will put the whole story of Threads of Love and what it is all about on a Threads of Love page soon, but for now this is just the basic.

I had so much fun creating these dresses this week. L sat with me many times at the sewing machine helping.

It was so cute, both C and L wanted to know so much about the girls, L had these specific questions, "Why don't kids have moms?" "What were their names?" "Can we see the girls?" "How old are they?" "Where are they?" "Can we see them when we give them the dresses?" and "So, the dresses aren't for me, I don't get to keep any?" Yes, she is only 3.

Now onto the dresses.

I am told that many of the children are very thin because of malnutrition. I was given no sizes really so I used C as my model and made them long for him. There are a lot of girls in a lot of different heights. These dresses will stretch and are long so hopefully they will work.

This orange one is one of my favorites. I made it tie so a child can put it on with the straps down and a worker can come and tie it for her later. If she wants she can wear it with the straps tucked in. (Lovely picture with the fabric and paper air planes all over!)

I made some smaller dresses too. This is when L was a little disappointed that she doesn't get to keep any dresses. On this dress, I sewed the straps on, but it's a good knit that stretches both ways, so the straps stretch. I thought this would be easier to get their hands in.

This one is my favorite. I loved the feel of this knit! It was SO soft. I did it without straps because I ran out of time this morning before I had to drop them off. But, I thought she can try one strapless. If it works, I can do more, if not she can send it back and I can add straps. I love the way it turned out with the lettuce hem at the top and bottom.

Here are all the dresses. I know, it's a bad picture, but I couldn't find either camera with all the mess so it's taken with my phone.

This project is on-going, so there will be many more to come. Diapers, shorts and shirts too. If you are interested in the project, I will have the Threads of Love page where I will post everything and have a tally of how many dresses, etc are made for all the kids by all the sewers. It should be fun!