One of the blogs I read on a regular basis, Homemaking Organized (which happens to be written by a friend of mine), posted about a pretty cool e-book that’s available for free right now. I downloaded and read through it (it’s only 21 pages with lots of photographs), and knew that I wanted to share it with you guys. If you sew at all, even just a little bit, you’ll be able to benefit from this book.
What is it? [Read more…]
I mentioned back in the summertime that I’d made a quiet book for Small Fry’s second birthday. It wasn’t that awesome, but it was okay for my first time out. Well, for our nephew’s second birthday in September, I poked around online (as well as exploring my fabric and notions stash) and found some ideas for quiet book pages for him. Would you believe that there are whole blogs dedicated just to making quiet books? I was shocked. And amazed at the incredible talent of some of those ladies.
So, while my second book still wasn’t quite as awesome as some of the others you’ll find online, it was much better than my first, and I’m very pleased with the way it turned out. Here are the pages I made. [Read more…]
I mentioned on Tuesday that we celebrated Small Fry’s birthday recently. I, of course, made him a gift instead of buying him one, and I wanted to share here all about it. I’d seen around the web recently the idea of fabric books for little ones, and some of them are specifically designed for toddlers to work on their fine motor skills. I wanted to make one of those. (This one is much better than the one I made, but I’m pretty pleased with mine nonetheless.) [Read more…]
I haven’t done a crafting post in a while, so the time seems ripe. Actually, it’s because I hadn’t done much crafting, but now I have. A little bit, anyway. And since I’ve been really bad at taking pictures this week, I don’t have a Picture of the Week, either… So today’s all about quilts!
The older boys were both drastically outgrowing their quilts. Because they don’t have standard size beds, I make their quilts more to fit them than to fit the beds. (They have Ikea beds that are essentially extra-long toddler beds. They’ve had them for two years, and we love them!)
When I went to JoAnn’s a couple of weeks ago, I had a bit of money but no idea what to make or who to make it for. I found these flannel rolls for really cheap
so I got three of them. When I got home, Munchkin loved the fabric prints, and since I’d been noticing that his quilts were much smaller than Seahawk’s (he is three years younger, after all), he got a quilt first. I didn’t give him any choices in the fabric (since I bought it with no one in mind) or the design (as soon as I decided to make a quilt from these prints, I had the design in my head). But he loves it all the same.
After Munchkin’s quilt was done, I started noticing that Seahawk was way too big for his blankets too! I thought his blanket that I’d made him a couple of years ago (actually, it’s been about 4 now that I think about it… where does the time go?!) was still okay, but seeing him trying to huddle underneath it while Munchkin was stretched out nice and warm under his flannel quilt made me see the old quilt for what it was… So the kids and I all went to the fabric store and Seahawk got to choose his own fabrics. And his own design. It might be a little unfair to Munchkin that Seahawk got to have his way with his new quilt, but Munchkin got his first, so it all evens out.
The day we went to get Seahawk’s fabric, the flannel was on sale for 60% off, so that was a huge win. It took him a long time to find exactly what he wanted, but as soon as he spotted these dinosaurs, he knew that they were it. I talked him into getting a plain color for the contrast so as not to take away from the dinosaurs, and he agreed. The brown was just perfect. (Have I ever mentioned that brown is one of my favorite colors? It is.) He had a blue picked out for the back that would have been awesome; it matched the blue dinosaurs perfectly, but there didn’t end up being enough of it, so we picked a grassy green instead. It worked out great.
I got the quilt all done and quilted, ready for binding, and then horror of horrors, realized that it was too narrow. I should’ve figured it out before I quilted it – adding borders to make it bigger then would’ve been a snap – but I didn’t. So I had to do some intense research to figure out how to add quilted borders to a quilted-but-not-bound quilt. I found a YouTube video tutorial for a Quilt-As-You-Go quilt that turned out to be just perfect. Using her technique, I was able to make the quilt several inches wider before I put the binding on, and now the quilt is actually a good size for my son.
Both boys are in love with their new quilts. And because both are made of flannel, they’re crazy warm – which is good since my children are anti-pajamas.
I’ll have another quilt to show you guys in a couple of weeks. I’m having some trouble getting it just perfect, but once I do, it’s going to be gorgeous. I can’t wait to have it done and ready to show off!
When I was pregnant with Small Fry, at first I never even thought of doing anything besides disposable diapers; that’s what I’d done with the other two kids, and it was easy. But then a few things happened nearly simultaneously.
First, hubby had to take some things to the “dump.” We were living near the actual landfill at the time, not near a “transfer center” like we do now, so the landfill is where he went. He was appalled. It is a huge mountain that you drive your car up and then, once you’re atop the heap, you literally just toss your stuff onto what’s already there. Eventually, they come through with the proper equipment and do what they need to do to make it “safe,” although I’ve come to learn that there’s really no such thing as a safe landfill. A few days later, he took the rest of us to see what we have since dubbed “Junk Mountain.” In the beginning, hubby had given it a less savory name, but we quickly changed it to a more kid-friendly version ;).
The other thing that happened was that there was an ad in my email box (not the actual box, but off to the side – if you have gmail, you know what I mean) for a company called gDiapers. The ad boasted “flushable diapers.” After our trip to the landfill, I was all over this. If I could prevent my baby from sending over 2,000 diapers to the landfill over the course of his diaper-wearing days, I was all over that! I clicked through the ad and read everything I could on their site. I was in love with the concept. Cloth on the outside, flushable on the inside, and nothing to send to the landfill. Brilliant! The only drawback was the price; gDiapers are quite expensive.
We bought a starter set anyway. That came with 2 cloth outers, 2 waterproof liners, and 40 flushable inserts. They were definitely more work than disposable diapers (we didn’t get the g’s until Small Fry was about 6 weeks old), but I didn’t care. It was worth it to me to do just a small part to “save the Earth.”
Something else happened a few weeks into our gDiapering experience (I’m not going to go into the details) that made me want to explore full-on cloth diapering. I spent hours trying to figure out all the different terms (pocket diapers, all-in-ones, the list goes on…), materials, etc involved in cloth diapering, and, like with my initial sticker shock at gDiapers, was dismayed at the cost. Some of the diapers are upwards of $20 apiece! And you need at least 15, but preferably in the neighborhood of 30 or more to cloth diaper full time. One of the best deals I found at the time was a six-pack of reusable diapers for $100. You can do the math, I’m sure. That would mean $300-$500 dollars for diapers! That’s way too much, even if you are using them over and over again.
So I went back to the drawing board.
I was browsing Amazon, drooling over the cloth diapers and gDiapers (don’t mock me), when it suggested that I might like this book: How to Make All-in-One, One-Size-Fits-Most Cloth Diapers. I got the Kindle sample, and was instantly intrigued. So I talked to hubby to make sure there was enough money on our pre-paid card (we never use our real bank card for online purchases…) and bought the Kindle version. For $4.99 I didn’t think I could really go wrong.
I was right!
That was the very best money I spent in my desire to cloth diaper. I spent about a week with the book, going over her suggestions for the materials, and pricing everything through online retailers and JoAnn. I planned my trip carefully to maximize the JoAnn coupons (I didn’t want to wait for online shipping!), and was able to get enough PUL (the outer, waterproof fabric), Alova Suede (the interior, wicking fabric), Velcro, elastic, and thread to make 15 diapers for $32. For another $10 at WalMart, I got a package of 15 microfiber cloths to use as the absorbent layer inside the diapers.
So, for less than $50 and about 20 hours of my time, I was able to make 15 cloth diapers. In case you don’t have your calculator handy, that comes out to just about $3 a diaper. Compared to $20. I call that a win. And the best part is that we don’t have the same “oh, no, we’re out of diapers and it’s the middle of the night” panic attacks that other people go through. Double win.
So. That covers my journey to getting the diapers. What about how they’ve worked since we implemented them?
I could not be happier with them. They are just as easy to use as disposables (I made all-in-one diapers, which means no pockets to stuff or pieces to separate before laundering), and I know we’ve saved so much money going this route. Even if you count all my experiments (with gDiapering, mostly), we’re way ahead in the money-saving department. And there are about a thousand fewer diapers in the landfill than there would be otherwise.
That said, there are a couple of things I wish I could change. First, I wish I’d just embraced that fact that I had a third baby boy; as it is, I chose yellow for the diaper covers because it was a “gender neutral” color, and in case we have a baby girl someday, I wanted to be able to use the same diapers. A year in, I suspect that these diapers won’t hold up for another baby. Don’t get me wrong – these are wonderful diapers, and I recommend them to anyone, but since I made only 15 instead of 30 or 45, they’re taking a bit of a beating. Several of them need to have the Velcro replaced soon (still peanuts compared to Pampers), and one of them needs new elastic, which will involve taking the whole diaper apart and reassembling it. I haven’t tackled that project yet. Plus, after reading a post on The Minimalist Mom, I was convicted by the notion that “saving” clothes from one child to another, outside of those that you really love, isn’t necessarily as frugal as you think. Her main arguments against it were a) you have to have the space to store them, and if you’re living a minimalist lifestyle in a small house, that may not be something you have, and b) clothes still wear out, even if you’re not actively using them. Cotton fibers wear with age, not necessarily use. Elastic gets old and brittle in storage. So it’s better to pass your cloth diapers along to someone who needs them when your baby is done with them than to put them in storage for the elusive “next baby.” If I’d read that post before I made the diapers, I would’ve chosen a cute, very boyish fabric for the outside (monsters or robots, probably) rather than plain yellow.
The second thing is that sometimes I wish I had two or three pocket diapers for nighttime. Going the pocket route allows you to add more of the absorbent layers when baby needs them most – at night. So we do sometimes buy the throwaways for overnight. Right now, we’re using our trusty yellow diapers, but depending on how much liquid the baby’s had before bed, they don’t always last all night. So that is a definite con. Even when we do use disposables at night, hubby reminds me that we’re still doing a good thing, both for our pocketbook and our planet. A package of Pampers lasts an entire month when you only use one a day, rather than half a week if you use them exclusively. And sending one diaper a day to the landfill, while not perfect, is loads better than sending eight diapers a day there. That has to count for something, right?
So there you go. My personal experience with cloth diapering.
I didn’t write this to try to guilt anyone into using cloth, by the way. I just wanted to share my experience and how it’s worked so well for our family. If I inspire you to try, great! If not, that’s okay too.
–Wendy
I’ve read several blogs lately about making your own cloth napkins. They all have similar techniques for doing so (cut the fabric, fold over the edges, and sew) and reasons for using cloth instead of disposable (more environmentally friendly, save money). While I agree 100% with the reasons behind using cloth over paper, I prefer a much simpler procedure for the making of the napkin. Here’s my version.
Cut out your fabric. I’ve found that flannel is the best for this particular project. It holds water better (for wiping down tables and babies) and is softer on the skin than the regular cotton quilting fabric. I made mine 12×12, but you can make them any size you like. Some people like them bigger, like 20×20. In the 12×12 size, I was able to get 18 napkins out of 2 yards of fabric.
Once you have all the squares cut out, do yourself a favor and round the corners. That’ll make the sewing of the edges much easier.
Finally, set your sewing machine to a zigzag stitch. You want it as wide as it’ll go (5 millimeters on my machine) and a very short length – my machine has settings from 0 to 4, and I go about halfway between 0 and 1 for this project. Using a complimentary or contrasting thread (depending on the look you’re going for), zigzag stitch all the way around your napkins. This will keep the fabric from fraying, which flannel is especially prone to do.
That’s it! Beautiful, reusable cloth napkins with bothering with the fussiness of folding and pressing edges or stressing about super straight lines.
Enjoy!
–Wendy
P.S. The procedure for cloth baby wipes is exactly the same, just with 8×8 squares of flannel.
Happy Monday, everyone :). I hope your weekend was lovely.
It rained quite a bit around these parts. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t good anyway.
So, I don’t have pictures from all of our weekend activities, but let me tell you, it was busy!
I’ve mentioned before that we go to a bilingual church – about 1/3 of us are “white” and the other 2/3 are Hispanic. About half of the Hispanics speak both English and Spanish (which is why we’re making Spanish our foreign language in our homeschool this year – we want to be able to communicate more easily with some of our brothers and sisters [hermanos y hermanas :)] in Christ). My husband is the youth leader in our church; there is one “white” teen and a dozen or so Hispanics. One of the girls turned 15 earlier this summer, and that means a Quinceañera! This one was on Saturday. It was the first time I’d ever been to one, and it was quite an experience. If you ever have an opportunity to attend one (without crashing, lol), I definitely recommend it. It was interesting to see their culture outside of our regular church service – which to be honest, includes the Spanish language, but not much of the culture. They did the “whole shebang” from the dress to all the gifts to the fancy reception afterward. I said afterward that it was like a wedding with no groom! That’s how fancy it was.
On Sunday after church, we had a wedding reception (with both bride and groom this time!). My husband’s cousin got married. The happy couple won an all-expenses-paid wedding cruise in Portland, so they had limited space for the ceremony, which meant we only got to go to the reception. It was nice to see some of the extended family again.
I also spent a little bit of time with my sewing machine. Remember that I only have a few outfits? Well, the spaghetti straps on my dresses broke, so I had to fix that. It’s not the first time I’ve had to do so with these particular dresses, but it’s an easy task so I don’t mind doing it too much. Unfortunately this time, though, one of the straps completely detached in the laundry a few weeks ago. I remember setting it aside so that I could reattach it, but do you think I could find that strap when it was actually time to make the repair? Of course not! So I cut two inches off the bottom of the dress and made new, thicker straps and then rehemmed the bottom. It was a little terrifying to cut up my dress – I love it! – but as my hubby said, I couldn’t have made it worse. It was already unwearable. In the end, it turned out perfectly though. I’ll do a full post on how I did it later this week :).
What did you do this weekend?
–Wendy
I actually finished this last week, just haven’t posted about it yet.
In case you missed it, you can see close-ups of the blocks here, here, and here.
I just love the gray with pink flowers. It was on sale for half price a few weeks ago, so I bought a whole bunch of it. (You might recognize it from my purse.) I think it was just perfect for the lattice between the blocks. I also used it for the quilt’s binding (the small strip around the edge that hides all the raw edges).
The plain gray for the border and the gray with purple flowers was also super cheap, so I bought tons of those two fabrics also. I haven’t used them for anything else yet, but they’ll make great elements in other projects later.
–Wendy
Some friends of ours have a baby just one week older than Small Fry, and his birthday party was on Saturday. I didn’t think I’d be able to go to the party because hubby had to sell books that day, but Friday night, our neighbor (who was also invited – these friends are also the previous tenants of our house, so they were friends with the neighbor too) said she’d drive us over. I didn’t think through until Saturday morning that this meant we should bring a gift. So I spent the bulk of Saturday making a quilt.
Thank goodness for fabric scraps! The party was at 5:30 and I finished the quilt around 4:00. everyone was super impressed that I’d made it in one day. Which wasn’t why I did it, but still nice all the same :).
I hope you had a wonderful weekend as well.
–Wendy
I haven’t bought a purse in years. Whenever I feel like I want a new one, I just make one. I’ve tried several patterns over the years, but always come back to the Lindie bag. It was the first one I ever made, and to this day is the one best suited for me.
It’s small enough that my family doesn’t feel the need to put all of their stuff in it but big enough to hold my stuff along with a single diaper for short trips out when I don’t need the full-on diaper bag I made.
So if you have even a little sewing experience (the tutorial is very well-photographed and clearly explained) and need a new purse, I highly recommend the Lindie!
–Wendy