Calling all Crafters (and wanna-be crafters)!!! What are you making for you/baby??? - Page 5 « Back to Group Discussions

[jodieanneanton]

cabbitdancer!  I LOVE it!!! :D

[writermama12]

A photo of the the thick wool baby blanket I'm knitting for Rowan. For some reason, when I think of "Rowan" I think of autumn colors and warmth. Maybe because when I looked up the name, a beautiful red leafed tree popped up...Maybe because I began the blanket around peak foliage here...but anyway, I am making two blankets. One thick for an outer cover in his car seat or stroller, and one softer and lighter to snuggle. The softer blanket will have seven different colored stripes and each stripe will be a different texture. For example, yellow is garter stitch, red is basket weave, orange is a shiny seed stitch, green will be kind of furry/fuzzy as I will add in an extra thread of mohair or something, and another color will be ribbed stitch. 

The thick outer layer:

[cabbitdancer]

I love the idea of the different stitches/textures! That's a great idea for a hand-knit baby blanket! :)

[cabbitdancer]

I have been knitting for the holidays--one of my favorite occupations at this time of year! Here, my daughter is modelling the fingerless mitts and earmuff that I knit for her, a few days ago. I managed to knit these up in less than a day. My first time making fingerless mitts and headband. Though, to be fair, I've made plenty of hats, and the headband was pretty much a hat without a top to it. :D

[Melany]

I made some scrappy baby pants and then added squares to onsies as a last minute baby shower gift.

I'm upcycling a sweater from the goodwill to make some pants and hats next. I used the arms for the pant legs and the body (and finished hem) to make a hat for my daughter and one for baby. I need to take photos of that one. 

[jodieanneanton]

Squeal!  I was going to resurrect this thread bc crafts have been on my mind since I, too, am crafting for the holidays.  

Cabbitdancer- great job on those projects.  I love the colors, especially the blue accent color!  If I have time, I am going to make fingerless gloves/wristlets for my girls to match the hats I made them.  I am thinking about sewing in those stretchy thin gloves and having the wristlets act as a lengthener (so it goes down their arms aways) and prettifier.  

Melany-  Such cute pants and onsies!  One thing I LOVE about baby clothes is how quickly you can whip them up!   How did you choose to attach the squares to the onsies?

[cabbitdancer]

Those pants and onesies are adorable! :D

Jodie, I'm currently working on arm warmers for my sister-in-law to-be, that are supposed to go all the way up to the elbow. :D

[Meggsy]

Hi everyone,

I just decided to take a stab at sewing my own diapers. I am not working anymore so times are tight and well, it seemed like a cool way to be creative with our budget. Just wondering if anyone else has done it and how much money in the end it saved you. I am also scouring the web for patterns - surprised by how many people actually do this!

[Melany]

Originally Posted by Meggsy 

Hi everyone,

I just decided to take a stab at sewing my own diapers. I am not working anymore so times are tight and well, it seemed like a cool way to be creative with our budget. Just wondering if anyone else has done it and how much money in the end it saved you. I am also scouring the web for patterns - surprised by how many people actually do this!

I've done this and it's pretty straight forward. I didn't save any money on sewing the actual inserts because it was hard to find material that was affordable compared to buying the prefolds on your own. BUT, I have made some wool covers from recycled sweaters. Pick up a 100% wool sweater from the goodwill ($3?) and felt it. Cut it up and you can make 2 covers. If you use the arms, you can make longies. A snap press is nice, but velcro does the trick without the snap press investment. For the velcro, do a "wash" tag, where you can loop the velcro onto itself when you wash them. This is more of an issue with PUL covers because you tend to run those through the washing machine. But, if you don't hook your velcro onto something when you wash them you end up with the "chain" of diapers coming out of the wash. Amusing the first time, frustrating after that. :)

Wish I'd kept my wool covers. :(

[Melany]

Originally Posted by jodieanneanton 

Melany-  Such cute pants and onsies!  One thing I LOVE about baby clothes is how quickly you can whip them up!   How did you choose to attach the squares to the onsies?

Since it was a gift, I thought it was nicer to make it an outfit. I picked up onsies from the store, so I didn't sew those. :) I used a washable fabric glue to attach the fabric square and then a blanket stitch around the outside. Iron on stabalizer works, too. I like the fabric glue over using pins/stabalizer on the knit material because it does want to move and if you pull it just a bit the knit sometimes stretches and it ends up  crooked. 

[jodieanneanton]

Melany-  Yeah... I asked bc I have such a hard time attaching wovens to knits!  I have only used washable fabric glue once when I was attaching ribbon to DDs' Christmas dresses last year and the ribbon was falling off the dresses by the end of Christmas day!  :(  I didn't sew it on after, though.... I was dealing with sewing on the bias and that is stretchy and hard work!  

Not the greatest pictures, but you can see the ribbon I glued on!

Also, dealing with fraying of the woven material after a wash or two (when attaching wovens to knits) is disappointing as well. Do you have any tricks on dealing with that?  

[Melany]

Originally Posted by jodieanneanton 

Melany-  Yeah... I asked bc I have such a hard time attaching wovens to knits!  I have only used washable fabric glue once when I was attaching ribbon to DDs' Christmas dresses last year and the ribbon was falling off the dresses by the end of Christmas day!  :(  I didn't sew it on after, though.... I was dealing with sewing on the bias and that is stretchy and hard work!  

Also, dealing with fraying of the woven material after a wash or two (when attaching wovens to knits) is disappointing as well. Do you have any tricks on dealing with that?  

Those dresses are ADORABLE! You're very talented!

I tend to use a quilting technique on the non-square appliques. Have you every tried freezer paper? If you use interfacing, you iron it on before cutting out the applque. You can iron the waxy side of the freezer paper to the front of the fabric with your image on the other and cut it out. Use a pin to peel up the freezer paper, never from the edges and the interfacing also holds in the edges. I haven't noticed fraying on the quilts I've done with that technique. As far as the fabric glue, this also seems to help, but mostly the decorative stitch around the outside edge seems to keep it from fraying.

I made a set for my nephew using the fabric glue and it never came up on the edges, I don't know if the glue is "less" washable than it says it is or what. :)

[jodieanneanton]

Why, thank you, Melany.  Secret... Those sleeves were supposed to be long, but I measured wrong (Forgot to add seam allowances to the arm length measurement) and they ended up too short.  So, I had to cut them to 3/4 length! lol.  It was a stressful morning.  (I had finished the dresses the night before I needed them for a grandkid photo shoot and when the kids tried the dresses on in the morning, I was devastated!!!  Had to do a quick fixer-ooo that doesn't go so fast when you have a 1 year old and a 4 year old!  lol.)

[ancoda]

I just got done with a knitted blanket, and am working on a baby hat. If I can get this pattern right I am going to try to make a few, but I don't like how the pattern came out so I am tweaking it and trying again.  I also have planned to make some receiving blankets with some flannel I have. 

[Melany]

I finished a quilt over Christmas break for my new niece and mailed it off on Friday. 

My daughter decorated the package with a little love note.

[scruffy too]

Melany - BEAUTIFUL quilt!!!  And I'm a firm believer of decorating the outside of packages to be mailed, ALWAYS a nice touch (plus, I imagine it makes the mail workers smile...)

I'm half done a little newborn sweater.  I'm not sure why I'm not making more stuff (normally I knit all the time!)  Maybe because I haven't met the LO...  I made a pair of wool socks for my dad, and purple wool leg warmers for my SIL, and a pair of thrummed mittens (probably for my mom).  Now I'm committed to only making baby things.

[withlittlelungs]

Just finished a dress for baby girl 

[scruffy too]

This is the baby sweater I made.  I'm not happy with the pattern (nor my ability to follow it), but it still turned out to be a sweater!  I've since made a couple toques.

[cocoanib]

You all are so talented! Love everything and that quilt is amazing.

I've been planning on making a quilt since preggo last time around and stll haven't done it.

I have all of my Moms old novelty t's and really need to put it together at some point....maybe I can do some now and

some while on mat leave.

[Melany]

Love the sweaters! :)

I've started the Helena sweater in 12 month size. It's actually coming along fast simply because of the kid's ski lessons the last two Saturdays where I had 4 hours of time to kill. I'd likely have it finished if I didn't nap for most of that. I have 1.5 repeats of the lace left on the skirt and then the sleeves. It's a really peachy pink, not my first choice, but I'm trying to use up my stash yarn. I somehow managed to pick up this pink on a clearance sale a few years ago and I think one of the main reasons I bought it was there were 10 skeins in the same dye lot. This is the 2nd baby sweater I've made from it, so perhaps I have too much of it. :)

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEsummer08/PATThelena.html

I really need to make one of the breastfeeding hats out of it because it is SO close to my skin tone. It's just screaming, make me into a boob for nursing, I match your skin!! :) Here's the ravelry pattern for the hat. 

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/boobie-hat