Gondor Mei Tai Carrier

This is the Gondor (Inspired by Faramir's Ranger Hauberk) Mei Tai Baby Carrier I made for the Small Human Being Sew Along.

Kuzzles (12 months) is currently the baby enjoying it in the pictures. It is really meant for the new little one, due late August.
I am quite pleased, with how it turned out.

It's inspired by one of my favorite outfits of all time, Faramir's Ranger Hauberk. To make me feel just a bit more awesome in my everyday :)

Really though, seeing trees of Gondor makes me happy. Like I'm pretty sure it fires endorphin pathways in my brain whenever I see it. Thus I print/stencil them onto so many of the kids T-shirts...

[More pictures of finished product, front carry, shallow front carry, back carry]
Here is a helpful website how to wear this thing many different ways.

Time: Not counting time spent researching, I think about 8 hours from cutting the fabric to finishing the stenciling. I did an hour on a Sunday afternoon, Then used breakfast, second breakfast, and multiple snacktimes (when the kids were in their high chairs eating snacks, the sewing machine is set up in view of the kitchen and TV room), and an hours worth of Richard Scarry videos--- adding up all of those sessions, I think that part was about 5-6 hours total, which was the sewing.
Due to some mistakes, the stenciling/stamping took about  1.5 hours, which I did right after the kids went to bed. So all in all I think it took about 8 hours.

Materials:
A little less than 2 yards of light brown canvas, almost all of it dyed to be dark brown with 1 bottle of RIT dye (I mismeasured when I cut the fabric, it should have been 2)
Thread (and a size 18 sewing machine needle!)
Scraps of Fleece for padding

Cost: 
The fabric I got at a fabric remnant store for $4, RIT dye $3, so about $7 (If I do this again I am just buying twill or canvas duck cloth from Hobby Lobby in the colors I already want, which will come out to about $12.)

I am not counting the cost of things I have in bulk on hand, that this project used a portion of.
That is: Fabric paint, hand-cut stencil, and thread.
Fabric paint: I bought a big bottle of it for $6 from Hobby Lobby and use it on T shirts
Stencil: Stencil blanks from Hobby Lobby that I cut out the Tree and Stars with a utility knife by hand, I use this stencil for T shirts, again and again.
Thread: I buy in bulk (the cheap one "surelock") at Joanns for 3000 yds for $1.50 (with coupon) [Note: I am not worried about cheap thread "breaking" and making my baby fall, because I ran at least 8 lines of stitching to secure the straps to the body, not to mention it's tied and looped around multiple times]


Here are my notes, for my own future reference.
I roughly followed this general tutorial on making mei tai carriers, but changed things up a good bit.

First, I wanted a smaller baby carrier, one that was only 16" tall (and with the option of folding the bottom strap under to make it only 13" tall) Mostly because I prefer to carry small babies (under 1 year old), and because my babies really hate not being able to see the world, and hate baby carriers unless they have their head well above the top.


I wanted the shoulder straps to be 4" wide (so I cut 9" wide strips), and the waist straps to be 3" wide (so I cut 7" straps), and the padding was

A Trip to Walmart: The Saga

 I got my license. And as a sign of my newly minted adulthood, I sallied forth to Walmart, with all 3 kids, by myself.
It was the first time I ever took all 3 kids to Walmart by myself.

First hurdle: 3 kids, with 1 cart. Not the nice, 2 seater cart that Sam's Club has. Just one. So I put Kuzzles in the seat, and Jenny in the basket (since she's the only one that can be trusted not to stand up or try to climb out) and in a strategic psychological move, I told Isaiah he was "Mommy's big helper, going to push the cart."

Mommy's Helper.

It worked beautifully. Until we got inside the store.

Isaiah (still faithfully pushing the cart) decided to shout cheerfully "WE'RE GOING TO STEAL SOME FOOD!"
(awkward shocked laugh) "No, Isaiah, we're going to BUY food"
"WE'RE GOING TO STEAL SOME FOOD!"
"Isaiah, stop saying that"
"WE'RE GOING TO STEAL SOME FOOD!" (joyfully)
And the more irate I got, the worse it looked....
So I tried to ignore it.
He continued to shout it....every 5 minutes. For an hour. He must have shouted that at least 20x. And I had foolishly worn my bulky backpack-diaperbag into the store.
It was so, so, so awkward.

And then, after helping me faithfully push the cart for 20 minutes, he decided that helping the janitorial staff by sweeping the floor with his body, would be more productive. I would lose him, and find him in the aisle over, doing just that. I think he may have licked the floor once, even.

Jenny meanwhile, decided to unwrap some of the hangers in the cart. Then there was the cry "BROWN POOP!" Which is Isaiah's way of asking to use the restroom. We hurried to the restroom, but he was so overcome by the excitement of the public stalls and the automatic sinks that nothing happened. And we had to urgently rush back later in the trip, when the cry went up again.

At some point, we were in the food aisle, when Keziah decided that sitting in the seat any longer would be unbearable torture. (Isaiah was also making wild breaks for freedom at this point). I was trying to take keziah out, balance her on my hip (because the basket of the cart was full of stuff and Jenny) and wrangle a resisting Isaiah into the the demotion of having to sit in the cart.
Had it not been for two wonderful women who stopped to chase down my escapee and hold Keziah while I put him in the cart, I don't know how we would have done it.
Another woman helped me locate the phantom jar of minced garlic. They were all angels.
As we headed to check out, a Hispanic woman with a bunch of kids (who were being a lot better behaved than mine) smiled encouragingly at me and I felt like I was a new member of a new club, the taking-many-small-children-to-walmart club, and that someday, I would be as good at it as her.
That was nice.
Nevertheless, as we stumbled out to our car, 1.5 hours after we had headed in, I felt like I'd been through a war. But we'd survived. We'd done it.

So, a few weeks later, I felt I was up to the challenge again. This time, I brought a monkey leash to tie my helper to the handle of the cart, so he couldn't mutiny. We were through the doors, when Isaiah starts up with
"ARE WE GOING TO STEAL SOME FOOD?!"
He hadn't said anything like that in ages. He must associate shoplifting groceries with Walmart somehow, I don't know how.
"No. Don't say that. We are going to buy some food."
"ARE WE GOING TO STEAL SOME FOOD?!"
Jenny, helpfully "No, we are going to buy food"

Finally, I ignored him, past shame. He amazingly, finally quit.

15 minutes in, my helper had tried to mutiny a couple times and failed.
There was an incident with Jenny (in the basket) trying to shut the seat part (with Kuzzles in it). But I managed to referee that successfully to.
 I felt so incredibly "with-it" and "together" even writing up a blog post "How to Survive taking 3 kids under 4 to the Store," when right in middle of the laundry basket aisle, Jenny threw up. Several times. All over the ground.
I had only a few wimpy diaper wipes in my purse (having left the huge diaper bag of shoplifting suspicion at home). God was good, and some manager-looking young man was only a couple aisles a way. I called him to the grisly scene, and left him standing guard over the putrid mess, desperately calling for maintenance, and beat a hasty retreat.
Jenny was already singing songs to herself by the time we got to the car.

So maybe the 3rd time is the charm....

Refashioned Maternity Dresses

EDIT: Not all the after pictures are up yet. They will be.

So I tried to refashion some dresses I bought at the thrift store into maternity dresses. The maternity dresses I have were getting quite worn out, and I reasoned that refashioning some already-made dresses should be easier than making a dress from scratch, right?

Hah.

Anyway, they took wayyy longer than I wanted (I worked on them on and off for over a month) but I didn't want them to end up in my UFO bin(s), and so I struggled on.

Overall I am pleased with the results, although if I knew how much time it would take, I don't know if I would have done it in the first place.

Brown Dress: From the thrift store, a beautiful brown eyelet crossover dress, fully lined, with a skirt that flared a little at the ends. Came to just below the knee. I loved the fabric. I don't know why I like wearing brown so much....and the eyelet has a leaf theme.
Problems: It isn't a maternity dress. I needed to wear it with a camisole. I really don't like the look of the fake (non-closable) collar on me, or the look of wrap crossover dresses on me---they require a deep V, but I think the shallow V or the Y neck look a lot better on me. I used to try wrap crossover thinking that it would be easy to nurse in...but its not for me, I need to pin it akwardly in place and unpin it, etc. And if its a wrap I have to loosen the whole thing up (under a nursing cover...in public) which is kinda nerve wracking.

BEFORE

AFTER
 [pictures coming soon]

Purple dress A warm purple high quality woven fabric, made into a crossover dress with a thick empire waist band, with a pleated skirt.
Problems: Again, crossover doesn't work for me, and the neck was too low to wear without a camisole. I loved the pleats in the skirt (although due to bone-headed mistakes while refashioning this, I ended up having to repleat the waist anyway)
AFTER (I didn't take Before Pictures, alas)
[pictures coming soon]

Teal Dress
This one, my MIL bought me years ago, I picked it new from Kohls, intentionally getting an XL to refashion it to my tastes. It's a beautiful soft teal knit with screen printed design on the skirt. (I think that's why I picked it. I love light-colored embellishment on darker fabric)
Sleeveless, though, which after burning the tops of my shoulders so badly that I couldn't shower for a week, I try to avoid. Anyway, I got this dress years ago. Now, I finally found a T-shirt at a thrift store whose color matched enough to supplement the fabric.
I discovered I am not good at fitting knits to a woman's shape. Thankfully, it turned out way better than I feared as I worked on it.

BEFORE: I look like an idiot in this picture, but that's kind of the point, right? Refashioning this dress not only looks better but added 20 points to my IQ! Or something....

Things I learned, the hard way....

1. VERY FIRST STEP, cut off the sleeves, cut open the side seams, usually cut the underbust-to-skirt seam as well. Make it flat.  Don't try to "save seams" anywhere on the bodice. Cut away, make things flat, and trace your base patterns onto them. You will save time in the long run than pinching things just so and hoping it works. My creative solutions look bad.
2.  Do "checking measurements" while working (before sewing it all up). Will the armhole measure at least 16" + Seam Alloweances? Does the center bust come up at least 6"? Does the underbust measure 31"? Does the bust have atleast 36"? This saves a lot of trying it on, refitting,etc. (If the Armholes are huge, but you still need the bust width and can't afford to cut new armholes, then armhole darts are your friend)
3. ONLY EVER BUY XL OR maybe L sizes, that come AT LEAST to calf length. That way I KNOW I will have enough fabric not to desperately piece things and hope it looks alright. It's just so much more relaxing. Which the whole point of refashioning is, to save time (and $, of course...)
4.  Only buy woven dresses to refashion (unless the bust already fits perfectly). Knit dresses + Fitting a woman = Pain for me. (Save the knits for the kids, that's just fun) 
5. Always do a lapped zipper for front nursing access. ALWAYS. Do not try to sew in standard zipper style and "hope for the best", it will pull open and look bad. Yes, lapped zippers take more fabric, but piecing is your friend here. Just piece in the front, and extra seams still look better than a zipper popping out.

And here is a knit teal dress I refashioned from a woman's shirt, for Jenny. Little people are sooo much easier to sew knits for. I think I shall generally only sew knit dresses for little people from now on.

Baby Elven Cloak "muslin" in preparation for the Small Human Being Sewalong...

So, one of my first sewing projects for the SHBsewalong was a baby elven cloak. I want to get some cotton jersey knit, or maybe fleece (but, given the weather in dear Phoenix, I should probably go with the knit, so it can be worn more than 2x a year...)
The real one will be for the new baby, but I used Kuzzles (not yet 1) as my model here.

But I did have on hand a scrap of wool felt (I think it was 34" x 23"?), so the cloak length had to be 17"), and some of a brown sheet...sooo...

Here was my piece of felt. I cut out a simple half circle, and then cut a half circle neck out of that. The radius for the big half circle was 17", and the radius for the neck was maybe 2-3 inches, so 4 to 5 inches in diameter? (this ended up giving a neck that was too tight, around 13" long...next time the neck is going to have to be bigger)

Here is the piece of felt, folded in half, cut up. The semicircle is the cloak part. The hood is the rectangle.

My hood was just 2 rectangles (the piece is doubled over, so every piece in the image is actually double), it's in the upper right hand corner.
I sewed the rectangles together and tried it on the the baby for size....

She resisted.
Even with Grandma's assistance, this was all we got.

So I went off to find Jenny, who put up with being a test subject for me.

As I suspected, the simple rectangle method came out a bit too pointy for my taste.
So I just trimmed a tad off of the top.

Like in the illustration. And I cut 2 darts in the cloak shoulders (to get it to hang better)

Cutting out the shoulder dart.

 On a knit or woven cotton cloak, I'd just put a pleat in the shoulder, but since this was felt and on a baby, I cut the shoulder dart out.

Then I bag lined the hood with sheet scraps, and tried to bind the inside of the neck with a strip of sheet, so there wouldn't be scratchy bits poking there...

She didn't want to wear the cloak. Maybe it was because it was 96 degrees outside....

A miserable hobbit.

She cheered up a bit. I assured her it would be over soon...

She picked up a rock...shot be a doubtful glance....

 And tried to eat it.

Aaand then...

She was done.

Things I'll do differently next time (in April, for the sewalong)

1. Make it out of Jersey Knit, it will be less stiff and less warm
2. cut the neck hole bigger

Anyways, it was fun.

SHB Sewalong: the Lord of the Rings Edition

So, I'm joining my first-ever sewalong!!

From Cationdesigns the "Small Human Being Sewalong"

SHBsewalong

I'm planning...

1. A baby Lord of the Rings themed dress (since this baby could be a girl)
2. A maternity/nursing (yayy multipurposing!) Lord of the Rings themed coordinating dress for myself.
3. A baby Lord of the Rings themed boy outfit (since this baby could be a boy)
4. Baby Elven cloaks!
5. And if I'm REALLY up to it...I'm going to make a Tree-of-Gondor Mei Tai baby carrier...

I think the rules are to sew during the month of April and share at the end.
Its going to be a Lord-of-the-Rings month, as I'm also sewing some Lord-of-the-Rings inspired elven sleeves for the wedding of a very good friend.

Here's to a fun Lord-of-the-Rings inspired April!

And Happy destruction-of-the-ring day. As well as Happy Medieval-the-first-Good-Friday date...March 25th is about the downfall of evil.

:)

Doing the Dishes: Part 1 of Recognizing Patterns of Failure and Setting Myself up for Success

I am far too spontaneous, doing things in the moment, having trouble sticking to plans and goals....
While discipline and character are clearly what I need, recognizing my "patterns of failure" really help.

Example, I struggled with doing the dishes, pretty much all my married life. They would seemingly grow, just sprouting out of the sink, onto the counter. And stare at me, an hours job at least (we didn't have a dishwasher in our first appartment). And grow things. And it would take me so much emotional effort to face them...I would finally face them when we ran out of things to eat off of, which before the kids, was about 2-3 times a week. That mountain grew things. And I was always embarrassed, when people just dropped by (the kitchen area was the main area, there was no where to hide them).

After we moved in with my in-laws, things improved a lot. (One thing, because we take turns with the nightly dishes depending on the weekday, so that obviously helps)
But also, I learned tips they did which vastly cut down on the amount of emotional energy it took to face the dishes in the first place, which will last me after we move out.

  

•  1. Right after being doing with something, scrape the food off, and rinse it out, before  putting it in the "dirty dishes" bin. 

This made a HUGE difference for me. The dishes didn't grow things. The sink didn't have a slimy layer of sludge on the bottom. By throwing away/rinsing initially, there wasn't all this extra food for the bacteria to prey on in the first place. Also it made things so much easier to clean--food wasn't dried onto it.

•  2. Fill the dishes bin with REALLY HOT water and a little squirt of soap. Let sit for 2 minutes. Then scrub/wipe them all and put them into the "rinsing bin", and then rinse them all at once. 

This was is SO MUCH FASTER. The initial soak of hot water made things so much easier to wipe down/scrub, vastly cutting down on the washing time. Doing the washing and rinsing one sinkload at a time made things much more efficient than hand washing and rinsing each individual piece.

• 3. Do as much of the dishes as possible BEFORE dinner. After dinner I will be exhausted and have the least amount of emotional energy left.

This was my biggest problem. I would let the dishes compile all day, expecting to do them "after dinner"---the time, when I would be most exhausted, most wanting to go lie down or finally do something relaxing or fun. And with the kids in the mix, there's the whole bedtime routine as well, giving me about an hour of free time after dinner is done and the kids are down, before its time to go to bed so I won't be a grumpy mom in the morning.
This is literally now, the difference between me being able to craft/sew and not being able to at all.
I find, what this means, is trying to get dishes done while the kids are eating one of their 4 meals before dinner. Every little bit helps. Often I fail at this...
AND, the prime dishwashing time, is when I am MAKING DINNER. Often you have to wait for water to boil, or stir something every now and then, or wait 15 minutes before pulling the tin foil off of something in the oven---or letting the pizza cool for 5 minutes after taking it out --- all those little 5 minute chunks of time, this is the time to stand near the oven/stove---which is the sink---and get as much of those dishes out of the way as possible. This has helped me so many nights when I wouldn't have had the energy to face ALL the dishes after dinner.

In all of this, my biggest problem is character. In doing things I don't want to, instead of putting them off till there's a crisis.
However, while this is the heart of the matter, I've found my lowering the "emotional energy threshold" of these tasks, I make it that much easier for myself to do. It's recognizing my patterns of failure, and replacing them with patterns of success.

Here

Pattern of Failure:
 letting dishes go till after dinner--->being too tired to face them-->they grow things in the sink--->being too grossed out to face them--->CRISIS--->mustering up vast amounts of emotional energy and doing very stinky dishes for 2 hours--->feeling tired after dinner, putting dishes off--->repeat

Patterns of Success:
--->rinsing most of the food off BEFORE it can get really gross, and thus take more out of me.
--->doing little bursts of dishes while have energy
--->doing dishes in a more efficient manner (sinkload wash, sinkload rinse, etc)

Yet Another Trip to the Zoo

We went to the zoo again.