I can't believe October is already over. Wow, that went fast. Well I only got half of what I planned sewed this month, but I still got a lot done. Sad thing is every time I finish a project I find 5 more I want to do. This month in our sewing group we focused on Halloween and the cold. Sadly I didn't have time to get any new dipes done for daycare, so despite what our group is sewing in November that's what I HAVE to get done. Part of the reason for not getting as much done this month is I've been having machine issues. The machine I've been using was skipping stitches and sewing funky so we took it in to be serviced. And I just wasn't motivated enough to use my little brother machine because it's pretty worthless, and I REALLY wasn't motivated enough to break out my old pfaff (it is all old gunmetal insides and sews with a knee pedal instead of a foot pedal). They cleaned and timed it and fixed a broken pin and said it was all good to go. Well I got it home and it sewed fine, until I tried to do a diaper. The minute I put 4 layers of microfiber in there it went back to its old self. So last night we went to Joannes to get fabric. While I was in the cut line Justen wandered over to the viking dealer inside. By the time I was done getting my felt cut, he came over to let me know he'd picked out my new machine. It was shiny and I was drooling. So the lady demoed it for me, but any one who knows me knows I can't spend money without a good long "thinking about it" period. So I asked the lady if it would sew through 4 layers of microfiber and she told me it would no problem but since microfiber is one of the hardest things to sew I would probably need a sharp denim needle. So as I was wandering the store contemplating it dawned on me, the Pfaff I'd been sewing on had a Jersey ball point needle in it from sewing the waterproof fabrics. ALL THIS TROUBLE OVER A STUPID NEEDLE! So I called Loraine and she talked me through all the needles and what I needed. I may still end up with the very shiny Viking someday, but not today. So without further ado, here's what I've been up to.
We started our month with mittens. From now on I will be buying these at the store. Sewing them was not worth it.
Then I added some doublers and trimmed up some prefolds to get a better fit and more absorbancy. It turns out I still don't like prefolds as diapers no matter how much I keep wanting to.
Then I made Garrison a trick or treat bag.
Next we did carseat strap covers, so those pesky straps don't bother Garrison's neck.
Then we did Fleece diaper covers. I did two styles, one serged with side snaps, and one sewn with front velcro. They turned out pretty good.
Then came the scary project. Zippered pouches!!! Yikes, zippers scare me. Especially because I don't have a zipper foot. Actually, I may have one but I have no clue what it looks like or how to do it. So after going through five or six online tutorials on how to put in zippers I finally tried it. Not to bad for my first try. I did a wet bag. They are water proof pouches that you can use for swim wear or wet or dirty clothes, but in our case we use lots of them for dirty diapers. We send Garrison's clean diapers to daycare in one and then they send the dirties home in one everyday, and we keep them all over they are so handy. This is the first one I've made by myself.
And finally of course, Garrison's Halloween costume. It has a few major problems, like because I was using a scrap I had to cut it out the wrong direction to fit all the pieces so the stretch went the wrong way. It was also my first time working with ribbing so that is a little special. But all in all it's not to bad.
So there's my projects for the month. I've also been spinning some new yarn this month. While the sewing machine was being serviced, I decided to get back to my wheel. I have 8 oz. of Blue Faced Lester worsted weight yarn almost done. But then the sewing machine came back so it's been sitting on the bobbin again. Mabey that's what I'll work on this afternoon.....
I am really not a big fan of Halloween. It's one of those holidays I really could stand to skip. In fact last year we pretty much did skip it, except for daycare. At daycare they go trick or treating to all the teacher's classrooms. So feeling guilty for being the slacker under-achieving parent that I am, I dressed Garrison in a pair of wranglers, a button up shirt and slapped a hat on him so he could go be a "cowboy". Well, I decided that this year was going to be different. So Wednesday night (they were going trick or treating Thursday) I decided I better hurry myself up and get Garrison a costume sewn. I've had the idea for a while but we threw it together pretty quick. I had a big scrap of fabric from my mom's attic and some felt squares from walmart, and with that we went to work. Justen worked on the hat while I did the applique. Justen fed Garrison dinner while I sewed, and just before bed time his Crayon was done. So we went out and got some cute pictures. The cats were being hilarious and wanted in on the fun. We're still debating if we will actually take him trick or treating ourselves, because I'm just not that into it. Besides, he came home with over 1 and 1/2 gallons of candy from daycare. He certainly doesn't need any more!
Garrison doing "Stick Em Up"
And I forgot to post this pic last week. Here is Garrison riding his new rocking horse. One of the teachers I work with is remodeling her basement and decided now that her grand kids are to old to enjoy this she wanted to pass it along to a little boy who would. Boy did she ever pick the right kid. He LOVES it!
We are just hanging out at home this afternoon, and Garrison picked out all of his favorite things to wear. His Tractor hoody, boots, new sunglasses from Nanny's car, and carrying around his stuffed "Abby". He's a pretty happy kid.
The only thing missing from the above picture is his Vrooom hat. Also known as a green John deer hat that looks alot like one Justen has. Garrison has started insisting they wear matching hats. Garrison was running a temperature the other night and so we wouldn't let him go out to see the pups. He was pretty upset so Dad brought one in the house for him to play with.
Well we are now officially BYU dropouts!! The good news is we also officially have our Biology Endorsements for the State of Utah. I guess it is kinda odd that we do everything together, right down to our degrees, our jobs, and we have the same endorsements on our teaching licenses, but oh well, we just like doing things alike. I no longer have to worry that I'm going to loose my job because I'm not endorsed for all the bio classes they have me teaching. It shouldn't have been a huge concern, but I'm a worrier I can't help it. SO anyway. The state decided to accept our Animal Science classes we had already taken for Animal anatomy in place of the human anatomy class they were asking for. They had told us originally that we had to take human anatomy, so we signed up for a BYU independent study class. Well, since it went in the state CACTUS system today (where they track all licensing for teachers in Utah) we dropped the class. Just in the nick of time too. If we had waited just a few more days we wouldn't have gotten any of our money back. SO it's a double happy thing. No class and we get all but $120 of our $1800 tuition bill back. Now we just need to try and sell our textbooks. Anyone need a totally unused human anatomy text book? I'm so happy I just can't hardly explain it. So much good news in one day. I kept looking up the Cactus page that had the endorsement posted all day just to make sure no body changed their minds and took it away again. They didn't. This has been a long road with a lot of headaches trying to get this thing done. GO AGGIES!!!
Well, I've been trying to take some pictures of Garrison and the puppies for a while now. Today was the day I decided. That was a big mistake. The mistake part was that I tried to do it by myself. Justen had parent teacher conferences so he wasn't home. Six puppies, two very attention starved adult dogs, an 18 month old and a camera are not a good combination. Garrison ended up getting knocked down by all the exuberant dogs that wanted his attention. He started crying and yelling no no no at the dogs. This doesn't normally happen, probably because I'm usually petting puppies too, but since they couldn't get attention from me they all ganged up on him. So I decided we would just take one puppy and go up front and take pictures. Of course we took Brie because she's my favorite. No we didn't name her that, her new owners have already chosen her name she just won't be weaned until next week so she is still here. So I got some cute shots. That's when puppy pandelirium happened. The other pups all heard us out front and turns out they can still get through the fence even though we fixed it last week. So before I could do anything I had six loose puppies, 3 kitties who decided to join the fun, and a boy running around the front yard chasing eachother. Garrison had so much fun, but when the first car came the pups ran after it and Garrison ran after them and I couldn't stop everybody. Luckily it was my neighbor and she had been slowing down to pull in her own driveway. None of the pups were hurt but it made me realize I needed a plan to contain these guys quick. So what do you do when you need help herding an unruly group? You go get a border collie! So I took Garrison and sent Abby after her pups. All I had to do was walk in the back yard and call Abby. Then quickly shut the gate before anyone could escape again. Then eventually got everybody back into the kennel, except one black pup. So we took some more pictures with him. Except for every body running crazy for a little bit it was pretty fun. I'm going to miss the pups when they go, but Tia and Abby will be releaved to be house dogs again.
Well Garrison went to bed before I got any good puppy pictures. I thought I would post these instead. I've been meaning to get the first one off Justen's phone for a while now. The first one is at our Fremont homecoming parade. Our FFA float was a pony wagon. Our FFA president shows Shetland ponies and brought one of her teams and a hay wagon. Garrison was in heaven! He got to ride the ponies, then while our president drove in the parade she let Garrison hold onto the reins the whole way. He did everything she did, he yelled "get up" when she did, and told Rusty to get moving. He would tell them woa and pull back when ever he saw her do it. It was so cute. The second picture is from today at home depot. What can I say other than my boys love to go shopping for tools and lumber! Daddy was grinning just as big behind him pushing the lumber cart as Garrison was riding on it. Justen got a new circular saw since our old one died. Now he can put the roof on the shed. I got some lumber to rebuild a picnic table for our back yard. And we got enough stain to finish the fence, stain the picnic table, and hopefully seal the sheep chute.
I've joined an online beginners sewing group. It's been really fun, and I've learned a lot. Each week we have different projects we all work on. It's also part of a cloth diapering forum so many of our projects are related to cloth diapers. So here's what I've been working on. It's really fun to help each other through problems we have and then we post pictures and share how we are doing. I also have Garrison's Halloween costume half done but no pictures of it yet.
We started out making cloth wipes. I've made lots of these, so I challenged myself. I made mine out of Organic Bamboo Velour. Its really soft but super hard to sew with. I dyed it myself. It's not suppose to look like FFA colors that was an accident. I have green dyed too but didn't get it sewn.
Then we moved onto embellishing prefold diapers. Since I don't use prefolds as diapers I made it into a pretty clean up rag that I would enjoy looking at. I'm tired of all the boyish stuff.
The next week the group did bibs. But since I made those a few weeks ago I skipped those and did some diapers instead. I did a couple of all in one diapers and some pocket diapers. I really like the side snapping ones. I've been testing a pattern for a lady so she can perfect her directions for a one size side snap diaper (fits from 8-35 lbs). I'm a good one to test because I'm not very good at sewing so the directions have to be really specific for me. I have also been playing with embroidering the diapers. And I made a fitted diaper (from my tester pattern-fitteds are not waterproof and require a cover) out of the Bamboo velour (super soft next to the skin), hemp fleece (very absorbent) and a cotton knit print (just for cuteness). It was a bugger to sew with all those stretchy fabrics.
And I am also playing with a new pattern for daycare diapers. For them they have to be all in ones, and velcro closing so they are no harder than disposables. We've used cloth at daycare for almost a year now (longer at home), and we are so glad that they are willing to use them. But sadly Garrison is out growing his entire daycare stash of diapers, so I'm sewing new. Here's my first from a new pattern I just bought- one using fold over elastic to bind, and the other the traditional turned and top stitched method.
Then last week our pattern was kids pants. My mom helped me sew wool shorts this summer, but I've never done a waist band by myself. So this was my first try at a waist band. Wool is an awesome diaper cover to use when you use a fitted or prefold (as the water proof layer). Fleece also works but not as well as wool. So I started by making a pair of fleece longies (what pants are called when used for waterproofing cloth diapering purposes.) They turned out pretty good. So I moved onto wool. My mom gave Justen this sweater years ago, but Justen just isn't a sweater person. What I did to this poor sweater about killed me. Now that it's all done I love the pants. I had to machine wash it on hot and dry it in the dryer to felt it up so it would work for covering diapers. I almost cried when I had to put it into the dryer. It was a really nice Pendelton wool sweater. Lucky for me the result is awesome. Once the pants were sewn I decided I needed a matching shirt so I embellished one with felt. Not to bad for my first t-shirt embellishment either. Now if only I could find a cute sheep print knit fabric to make a matching diaper...... Just a thought. Oh, and then I embroidered another shirt to match too. No I didn't sew the shirts, I'm not that good yet.
Thanks for letting me share what I've been working on. Hopefully I will find time this weekend to get some pictures of Garrison and his super cute puppies. We have been using fall break (we've been off work the last two days) to get some big projects done around here. Since our tractor is still at the mechanics (meaning the landscape is still on hold) we decided to paint this weekend. The new lambing shed is all painted and now just needs roofing. We are almost done resealing the fence, but we ran out of sealer. So as soon as I finish this and Garrison wakes up from his nap we are off to Home Depot so we can get more sealer and finish our outside projects before the snow comes.
