sewing


So once again, I’ve decided to be super ambitious (the pregnancy hormones do it to me) and make another nursery set for Sprocket like I did for Marion. This time around though, since the girls are sharing a room, I actually am making two sets of everything. Yeah, because one wasn’t enough.

If you’ll remember last time, there was this little thing called Hurricane Ike and two weeks without power that hindered my finishing efforts. That, and the fact my sewing machine went nutso on me until I (a year after she was born) literally, literally, fixed it by smacking it with a hammer.

This time, I’m determined to get the project done before Baby Sister is born and another hurricane hits and my sewing machine is unfixable with a hammer.

With seven(ish) weeks left to go, I’m proud to say I’m halfway done! That’s a pretty big accomplishment for me. Marion’s bed is completely done and really, the only must do projects that are left are Sister’s crib rails and bed skirt. There are a few other little things I’d like to do, but those are just icing on the proverbial cupcake.

(Apologies in advance, but this room is really hard to photograph and often the best pictures are with my camera phone, so there will be a mix of good and not so great photos.)

Before we even moved, we picked out fabrics for the new nursery and picked this mix of fabrics from Michael Miller

And this is what we started with after we moved (at least on Marion’s side of the room)

And this is what we have now! (That thing in the bottom left corner is my ironing board)

One of the first things we had to do was to get a new blind for the room! The girls’ room faces due east and so the sun comes up bright and early.

So we bought this dark gray blackout shade from Ikea, and it was wonderful, but in the end, it didn’t work with the drapery rod we chose.

Which meant, not only did I have to make curtains for the first time, I had to make curtains lined with blackout material.

I think they turned out pretty good! (I promise there are two of them, it’s just really, really, really hard to get a picture of them both straight on.)

This is my favorite little spot in the room, Marion’s little reading nook

It’s constantly in use! (And yes, it’s meant to hold books, but she usually just has them scattered on the floor.)

A rare moment of cleanliness

And even though she’s pretty well past teething (we’re just waiting on the two year molars), I still did her a set of teething rails just because I like the way they look

She’s been sleeping with a pillow for a while, so I made her a pillowcase to match

Well, she got two actually. I think Mr Brown Dog likes the bird better than the polka dots

Along with two new changing pad covers and a bow board. However, I realized with TWO girls, I’m going to have to make a much larger bow board!

One little storage basket (we need a few more of these, but that’s a scrap project for when I have nothing else to do, hahahaha!)

It’s only taken me three and half months since we moved in to get this stuff done, we’ll see what else I can knock out in the next seven(ish) weeks!

The nursery is done! Just in time to be converted to a playroom :) But hey, it was done before she turns one year old and better late than never, right?

(Warning, very picture heavy post)

This is what we started out with

Lou Bear demonstrates where the crib is going (also note the beginning stages of our hurricane supplies in the form of bottles of water.)

Crib goes here

Josh hard at work

All done! (If only….)

The nursery fabric

The bedskirt all done

Another shot of the crib skirt. I used a quilted material to form the base since I wanted something thick enough that the springs wouldn’t stand a chance of poking a hole through it.

Dot dot dot

This project would have been a thousand times harder without a quilting board and a rotary cutter

Of course the springs are adjustable, so I when I made the skirt, I made it just long enough to hang below the edge of the base of the crib. That way, when it’s on it’s lowest setting, it just brushes the ground.

The lamp is probably one of our favorite nursery pieces. It was a discontinued item from Pottery Barn and they were out of the shade for it.

So I made my own! One self adhesive lamp shade + fabric =

One darn cool lamp

It works – bonus!

In progress.

More progress (and more bottles of water)

Empty shelves mean progress, right?

And now, all done!

Such a big girl room

Bird’s eye view

Instead of making bumpers for the crib, I opted to do teething guards.

Sweet Mr Brown Dog and her blankie

Our reading/rocking nook

Shared space between the nursery and the office/craft containment unit

Her night-night light

The dresser/changing table

Lamp and basket (I freehanded the pattern for the basket liner and I’m so proud it actually fits!)

For my cloth diapering friends, drawer number one. Fuzzi Bunz, Happy Heinys, BumGenius 3.0s, Gro Babies and our wipes

Drawer number two, prefolds, covers and all-in-ones

Her outrageously large for a 11.75 month old stuffed animal collection

Our favorite corner of the house

I finished the back teething rail this weekend after fixing my sewing machine with a hammer (oh yes, a hammer fixed it) and took some pictures before we start making more changes to the nursery. Since Mar is such a big girl now and she loves to play (how this kid loves to play!) we’re going to get rid of the office area and make it a little playroom area for her. Hopefully that will be done before she’s five!

This is a really late weekends post, I know, but things have been pretty quiet around here. Which is nice!

Josh got a new bike

Which is pretty exciting

He’d had his old Trek since before we started dating so it was time for a new bike.

I got a new carrier

It’s a Beco Butterfly 2

And we love it!

It’s so cute!

And so is this. Even though that’s the face of concentration she makes when she’s doing this

So I just wear my hair really high now. After all, the higher the hair, the closer to heaven.

We also went to a new eatery Saturday night for family date night. Little Bigs and it was fantastic. We walked there, which made the milkshakes totally justifiable!

And in news of something I haven’t managed to do in quite a while, I got some sewing done!

Long story short, or as short as I can make it. Marion has developed a fascination for tags of late. Which this company has capitalized on.

She won’t take a paci anymore and we’ve been really struggling with helping her learn to self soothe at night so that we all sleep better.

So momma and the handy-dandy sewing machine stepped in and made Marion the best security soothing blanket money can’t buy

And nights have gotten considerably better around here lately! We’ve stopped swaddling her and most nights, she rubs the blanket on her face or sucks on the tags and puts herself to sleep. She’s only be waking up to eat (full meals, not just snacks) so if she is waking up at night, she’s putting herself back down. Yay for progress (we hope!) Maybe it’s been so quiet around here because we’ve been catching up on sleep …

Look what I did this weekend

Something that’s not knitting!

I bought two sewing patterns this week and I tried this one out today. It’s so cute and so simple. When I showed mom the pattern, guess what she did? Cried. Imagine that! But she said she made me countless dresses just like that one.

The pattern is so easy, the next time I break out the machine, I think I’ll cut three or four at a time. The cutting really is the hardest part of it.

I made a 6-9 month size. It’s been harder than I thought to buy seasonally appropriate clothes – Houston really doesn’t have much of a winter, so I’ve been doing mostly lightweight, summer things. The only winter (and it’s not even really heavy winter) things I’ve been buying at 3-6 months. Assuming a fairly normal growth pattern for Poppy, she’ll be in that size December through February. I’m trying not to make too many things though – I fear I’ve misjudged her size and the seasons and I’ll end up with a wardrobe full of handmade clothes she’ll never wear!

It was a long weekend, so of course I did do some knitting.

Poppy’s pants are finished and I’m so pleased with them!

They’re so cute and it was so much fun to knit – I’m sure she’ll have several pairs.

Plus, how can you resist the little bell bottoms? I’m already planning on ruffles for the next pair.

Look, a weekend knitting post without a single pair of socks!

Full details of knitting on my Ravelry page

Click here for my sewing album