Maternity Skirts

This time around, I am going to be pregnant all summer so I will need a lot of hot weather clothes (my last pregnancy was mostly winter).  I have been trending towards slimmer lines on the bottom (otherwise I just look big all over)– like skinny jeans and pencil skirts as opposed to trouser jeans (which I wore all the time last time) and flowy skirts.  I wanted to find more fitted, slim pencil or a-line skirts but didn’t want to shop around or spend too much.  So… I found bottom weight fabric at JoAnns (cotton with 5% spandex) and took an old T shirt of hubbys, and created:

Yes, seriously I made 5.  It’s like I got carried away or something.  In my defense (I’m not that crazy, right??), these each cost less than $5 to make and take less than an hour.  You can’t beat that!  All I did was trace the skirt pattern from a skirt I already have, and added a T shirt waist band cut to the approximate size of my belly.  I made them with a little room to grow, because let’s be honest, I am going to need it.

The one downsize is that it is not wrinkle free…

In action!

I have a pretty good sized maternity wardrobe (including clothes to wear to work) now that I’ve been making a lot of it.  However, sewing for a belly requires a lot of sewing with knits.  I really want a serger!!  Soon I will take pictures of the shirts I made to go along.  I love having variety in my wardrobe, and being able to be cost effective and tailored to fit me, but even more, I love being able to wear an outfit that I have made myself!

Furniture Refashion

I was so inspired by my bedroom set makeover that I wanted to try it for Little Honey.  We had a little white cupboard (actually it was an old kitchen hutch) that we used as a changing table, but were given an old 4 drawer dresser from her Grandma (it used to be her Daddy’s when he was a baby) to use.  So, we got to work.

This (obviously) is the before pics.  Love the drawer pulls!!

Little Honey put on her painting clothes and helped out.

The finished product!!  The colors for her new room are going to be aqua / turquoise, bright pink, with some apple green, so I can’t wait to see it all come together.  First things first: new wall color!!!  We never painted when we moved in and now I wish we had.  It will happen.

The bottom edge is my favorite part of the dresser:

I think it adds the right amount of feminine touch.

I love taking something old and unused (this one had been sitting in the basement for years) and giving it new life with just a coat of paint!  I think it makes such a difference and gives me a sense of accomplishment, not to mention this dresser is now one of a kind.

Out and About clutches

I have had a Vera Bradley clutch for the last several years, and I have carried it everywhere.  I used it as my wallet, and would just toss it in my purse if I needed a bigger bag, or would carry it alone if I were going out for errands.  However, it was a little small– I couldn’t quite fit both my keys and my cellphone in it, and my sunglasses were definitely too big.

I found a couple of tutorials for zippered clutches and became inspired.

The top 2 are the Scrappy Clutch from From an Igloo.  This clutch lives up to it’s name– I got all the fabric from my scrap bin, so these only cost the price of the zipper!  Sweet!  I made the blue one first, and being my first try it didn’t turn out quite right (the side seams didn’t match up), and I wasn’t sure I loved the overall size.  I wanted to try it a little less deep and a little wider, so I made the second one that way.  That one went much smoother and faster!   I also added a pocket for cards inside so I can still use it as a wallet.  I’ve used the blue one for a couple of weeks, and I LOVE it.  I can fit my keys, phone, chapstick, tide to go pen, plus my sunglasses, camera, and / or pager (for work)!

The black one at the bottom is the gathered clutch from Noodlehead.  My friend and I tackled this one together the other afternoon.  It took us a while… partly because we sewed one part on backwards and had to get out our stitch pickers!  The fabric I chose doesn’t show off the gathering too well, but this one is also a really nice size.  Not quite as big as the scrappy clutch– it has more of a wallet feel to it– and so I think it’s a little more formal.  I added a wrist strap to mine.  I carried it with me today and I like it too!

The problem is going to be deciding which clutch to carry which day!  I don’t even have any birthdays to make anything for so for now, I get to make these for myself!!

Home decor

Lately, I have been wanting to update my family room to something more springy and light.  Luckily, pillow covers are one of the easiest things to make!  They basically involve sewing 4 straight lines, and you have a whole new look for your couch!  I got a little carried away and made 6 of them.  4 are covers for our regular couch pillows, and 2 are new.

I’m still on a pillow kick and am envisioning fall pillow covers, Christmas, holidays, etc… it may never end.

2 Year Old Birthday

We had  Minnie Mouse Themed party for Little Honey last weekend for her 2nd birthday.  I can’t believe my baby is 2 years old already!  We went to Disney last month and she just loves Mickey and Minnie.  I did red and white polka dot decorations including balloons, streamers and pom poms.  My sister made Minnie Cupcakes, red frosting with white polka dots.

And I made a birthday banner out of fabric scraps!  It was pretty easy, although somewhat labor intensive, but I love it.  And I can use it every year.

And of course the Birthday Girl had a Minnie Dress to wear.

There was also a hairbow; it just didn’t last too long in her hair.

Happy Birthday my Little Honey Minnie!

A different kind of refashion

A couple of months ago, we were snowed in for the weekend.  Again, I know.  Anyways, I had been suffering from first trimester fatigue / last of motivation / laying on the couch all the time, and my bedroom was a complete, overwhelming mess.  I could not even see the top of my dresser.  So, I mustered up some strength and cleaned it up.   It looked okay.

I said it was clean but not immaculate!  We got this bedroom set when we were married 7 1/2 years ago.  The trunk at the foot of the bed came separate (it was a birthday gift from my husband one year).

Not sure why the drawers aren’t shut.

Anyways, we took a look at our bedroom set and realized we really didn’t like it.  Mainly, the stain of the wood really isn’t our style, so, we decided to refashion our bedroom set.  We set up shop in the garage.

Complete with lamps and space heaters (it was February, after all– actually we started on Valentine’s Day!  how romantic).  We sanded and primed and painted 2 coats, and…

Nice, huh?!?  We love how it turned out.

We also got new knobs.  Our old ones were wood, but I wanted something different and found glass (acrylic) knobs for about $1.20 apiece online from a hardware store in Indiana.  They arrived within just a couple of days.

We painted the mirror, but I didn’t really like it, so we found a new one at Kirkland’s Home for only $30!  I love how the paint makes the furniture look somewhat modern, yet the glass knobs and the mirror give it a vintage / antique vibe.

The last thing we did was paint the trunk.  I wanted to paint it a lighter color because I thought otherwise it would be too much dark in a not-very-large space (we have a rather small bedroom).  I decided on a very light blueish gray, and it of course took a couple of tries of different paint colors to get the right shade.  The trunk paint color is called “Abracadabra”, I assume because of the magical transformation it contributed to in our bedroom.  The furniture paint is called “fired earth” and is a very dark brown / black color with a hint of gray.

The bed linens we got at Ikea last summer, so our bedroom has had a total transformation since then!  I switched out a couple of other things (like the eucalyptus on the dresser and the lamp on the nightstand) with things I already had elsewhere in the house.  And, best of all, it was basically a whole new bedroom set for the cost of paint and supplies, plus the mirror and knobs.  There may be a little transformation yet to come as I am trying to decide what would look best above the bed.  I haven’t decided yet.

Spring Wardrobe

My “theme” for this year’s spring wardrobe is going to be:

Early Maternity / Post Partum

I am expecting again and am due in August, and let me just say, for the second pregnancy it’s true that you “show” sooner, however, it’s not exactly showing– it’s more like that awkward phase when your regular clothes are too tight but maternity clothes are too tent like lasts FOREVER.  In the meantime, I wanted some clothes that would fit for now, and that I would potentially be able to wear in those first few weeks / months after the baby when again, nothing fits.

I started easy, with a bag of T shirts a size or 2 larger than I normally wear that my sister had handed down to me last year.  To make them maternity friendly and less baggy, I did this:

Yes, that is just elastic shirring under the bust.  See, I started off simple.  Then, I moved on to this:

On this one, I added elastic shirring along the sides.  This T shirt was rather long (almost tunic like) so this made it a little more normal-length-ed.

Here is one other new piece from my Maternity Line.  I am going to call this one, “room to grow” because I made the bodice too big (I figured I did need some room to grow, although I probably overestimated, haha).

This was my Easter Sunday Dress for 21 weeks.  The only thing I would have done different on this would be to rather than make the whole skirt big enough for the belly, just make the front panel bigger– otherwise, it bunches kind of funny around the butt and I had to take it in a little in the back.  But otherwise, I used a regular cotton with a hint of spandex for the top, and a silky lightweight material for the skirt (I have found that the kind of material used makes a great difference when sewing for a belly!!).  I used elastic under the bust also.  I really do have some room to grow so hopefully it will last me for the summer, and after baby I can take it in where needed and have a cute dress to wear!

Look at my little honey in her Easter Dress!!

I made a few other things– the shirt I had posted about a couple weeks ago, plus some skirts and another shirt, which I will take pictures of and post soon.  I have a few ideas up my sleeve too.