Summer Shoes

The weather is finally warming, and we have hardwoods. So my 'winter' house shoes have been a bit too much lately. So I whipped these out the other day.

Knit Whit

As it turns out, I didnt really sew a whole lot while I was pregnant. I did however sit on my butt a lot. And while I did that, I tried to be the most constructive I could be, while still sitting on my butt.
This is the product of my butt sitting:

I re-made Mara's special blankey. My sister in law had made her this gorgeous eyelet knit blanket for her when she was born, and we all loved it. Mara loved it to death. By the time Mara was a year and a half the blanket was in ruins, so when she was about to turn 2 I started this one. And I knit about as fast as my grandmother can do jumping jacks... So even with working on it everyday, it still took me a good 3+ months.
here is a close up of the 'pattern' (found on the site kidscanknit.com - cuz you know I've got mad skills)

and this is no bed-blanket by an stretch of the inagination, its just a snuggly thing, about a foot and a half wide by about 2 1/2 feet long, Mara sized.

to end I will show you the remains of the fist 'special' as it is called 'round here, poor thing. Death by piddeling.

(if you look closely, you can see that I ran it under my machine with a zig zag stich more then once)

I am also working on a knitted blanket for Ingrid's children....

Storing

StoreHouseDryGoods is still plugging along. Not a billion-dollar business by any means, but we get the occasional order.
Towards the end of last year I mostly made i-pad covers out of quarter inch felt. Some Mac Air covers and a Kindle cover where in there too.

I'm wanting to start up some more projects (I have a good friend who I promised a bag to almost a year ago now..) but there seems to always be a hang up.... or a show on that my co-owner would rather watch at night then varnish leather for me.
So we just keep skipping along. Wouldn't it is awesome if SH could put our girls through college someday though?
So I dream...

Sister's wedding

My sister in law got married this last summer and I was enlisted to make a few things.
I also made a few things for gifts for the new couple, but in my maternity stupor, I didnt take pictures of any of it. In all, I made pot-holders, place mats, a garland, and something else I cant remember at the moment... Below are the place mats...

As for what I made for the wedding itself, I was in charge of the flower girls. I made their tutus, the bells that they rang, little flower wands, and something else I dont remember...
but here's some photo evidence:
oh yeah, and I made one of the flower girls ;)

and if you look closely, you can see my youngest lil girl being made ;)

Repairing a hole

Some time last summer, M said he got attacked by a screen door, resulting in a rip in his shirt. He asked if I could fix it -

I stared out with fusible interfacing - the no sew kind
I ironed one side of the interfacing to a piece of scrap fabric that was in the same color range as the shirt I was repairing.
Then I cut out a section of the interfacing with pinking sheers - thus making my own patch.
Then I ironed the patch to the inside of the hole and put a bit of fray-check on the outside. results below:
Here is the 'before' for reference.
Hope some one will find this helpful.

6

As of this week, it has been six months since I last posted on this blog. And really, I have no excuse. Yeah, I moved my family (while my husband was working 80hr weeks) and I kinda carried and gave birth to a beautiful little girl - but I have been crating the whole time. So I say it again, I have no excuse for not keeping you in the know with my projects.
But I have a felling you'll forgive me.
I even have a tutorial in my next post to make up for it ;)
Much love,
Mother of my two

Prego Pants

Going way back - To put it simply, I convinced my husband to get pregnant for the first time by letting him buy things. Along with the beautiful stroller and crib and car seat and so on, M also bought me two very nice pairs of maternity jeans.
I wore them happily for as long as I could (being my biggest with Mara in the summer, they were put aside before I swelled up in the heat)
but this time around I will be needing to cover my lower half the whole way through. So I knew some sewing was in order.

The first pair I tackled were one of the pairs M bought me. And they werent cheap (nothing ever is with him, something a treasure and despise) But the problem was that I carry my kids quite low, and this pair was not going to get worn if I had to cut off blood flow to said kid's brain every time I put them on. So I put faith in my own abilities and started to cut into my expensive maternity jeans.

then I moved on to a pair that I had set aside a few months ago, thinking "I dont love these, but I could make them into prego pants some day"

then with both pairs I had to figure out the band. I had some swim suit material that I had bought for my birthday thinking I was going to craft a suit for myself, only to find out a month or so later that my focus for the summer would be on growing and not sewing. but the material was given new life! I made my measurements and reduced them to allow the band to stretch. I made the band quite large in length, because I prefer a band that can be folded over.
then I attached them to the jeans (stretching the band as I went) and finished the seams.
here is a bad shot of them on, followed by some more bad shots. but they are uber comfortable and allow me and my babe to move freely.


Some things to be noted - If you are starting out with regular non-prego pants, try and find ones that are not cut low to began with. You will be cutting a good deal of them off, so the more you have to work with the better. That being said, no maternity pants stay up for any good length of time, but the more of the original structure of the pants you can keep, while still allowing room for your belly, the better their hold will be.

I have a few more prego-projects in the works, some completed, some I will have to come to terms with never completing. but i will keep you posted!

Much Love
Mother to my Two