Friday, July 20, 2012

What You can Do With an Old Towel and Receiving Blankie

Since I got my sewing machine in March, I have been going on baby craft binges where everyday I have the urge to sew something baby. My most recent binge has included a newborn hat, prefold diaper, and today I made a QSFW (quick snap flat wrap) diaper! I got the idea Sweet and Sassy Girls blog, though she didn't have an actual tutorial she did have the pattern to print out. It seemed pretty straight forward so I attempted it just using my common sense :) My goal is to take pictures as I go next time and post a detailed tutorial because as it turns out, it would have been nice to have, especially if you are a second-guesser like me.

Anyway, here was the outcome of my first attempt at a QSFW:

 This is the diaper unfolded.
 As you can tell by the picture, I opted not to add snaps or velcro and will be using my snappi instead. This way I can customize the fit better (and eliminate a step in the sewing process!)
Elastic for the legs to contain poopy. I wasn't super happy with how my elastic casings turned out, but hey, I'm still new to this :)

The only materials used to make these diapers were an old bath towel, an old receiving blankie, and some thread. It literally cost me nothing to make (well unless you calculate the cost of thread used and the cost of the towel I bought like 6 years ago, the blankie was a gift...but I didn't because that seems silly). 

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Lovin' The Free Time :)

Now that I am down to one class that meets Mon. - Fri. for 2 hours a day, I actually have some free time! Which means that last Tuesday and Wednesday I took a nap, Thursday I CLEANED the house & tried my hand at making a prefold diaper, and Friday I whipped up my first ever newborn hat and spent time with my cousin and her new hubby! I feel very productive and it feels good :) 

I've been having this insane urge to organize and clean the past few weeks...it could be pregnancy but I'm sure part of it was that I finally joined Pinterest. That place is horrible if you have homework to do, by the way. Anyway, two of the things I found while perusing Pinterest was a tutorial on how to make a cute baby girl hat and one on making prefold diapers.

 Please excuse the not-so-straight (curved?) line of the hat...I'm just not good with straight lines in general...sewing, cutting, drawing they all stump me. 
I am very happy with the overall outcome though, especially that flower!!! The thought occurred to me later that we could be having another boy, in that case some lucky Goodwill mama is going to get a cute handmade hat for very cheap! lol (tutorial found here).

The other project was this prefold that I whipped up in 45 minutes. Next time I think I'm going to take the extra time and effort to make it look neater, but this is still a perfectly functional diaper and now I know that I can make them :) The wonderful tutorial for these diapers can be found here



Well I should probably go study for my quiz tomorrow. My next project for later this week is to organize the linen closet!

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

....and I Survived!

I recently finished 4 of my 5 classes for this summer. If you remember from a previous post, this has probably been the most stressful semester of my life! Uncertain of my ability to pass the courses, I was praying and hoping like crazy to at least get C's so that they would count towards my graduation. Well, I am happy to announce that I passed! And with two B's, one C, and an A-!!! Yes, it's a bit lower than my average A's and B's, but much better than I was expecting. Ahh, it feels so good to be down to one class this summer. The teacher is an egotistical British man with a superiority complex, so I'm a bit nervous about his class (plus, I've never taken a class over this period of British history so...) but feel confident now in my ability to at least pass it. Now my goal is to get a B or higher :)