Stash Bustin' Nappy Covers

Well I guess we need to be honest with ourselves here. There's going to be a whole lot more blog posts about baby clothes round these parts from here on out. I can promise you that this blog will NOT become exclusively about baby clothes. Plus, I can promise you that the baby clothes that do get blogged about will bring a whole heap of cuteness with them. But if you really can't stand babies/kids and baby/kid stuff then I totally understand that you may wish to look away now and un-follow this blog for the next 18 years or so.

Anyone still there? Ah good! I certainly won't stop making my own clothing, umm, ever, but if our recent flat move taught me anything it is that I have A LOT of clothes already. Plus, the time I'll have to devote to sewing is about to be violently curtailed with the arrival of our little Missy so it makes sense to get into making some quicker projects that will still give me the same sense of completion. And damn these nappy cover/pants were quick! They took about 30-45 mins each, plus I have a cold at the moment so wasn't working at full capacity. And not only quick, but cheap! Each pair used up a smallish piece of fabric from my scraps bag and I used elastic from my stash. Free pants!

I have the lovely Catherine to thank for the pattern, the same reader who loaned me the copy of Ottobre magazine that started a new obsession. I've kind of decided that I'd prefer to keep Missy in jersey/knit garments for much of her first year for comfort and ease of movement, but I thought that some soft woven fabric nappy covers like these when paired with a baby vest/onesie might be good for warm days spent at home in the flat. In fact, they might prove particularly useful if I end up following this idea of turning outgrown vests/onesies into t-shirts in the name of longevity. Who can say right now? I've got a BIG learning curve ahead of me, and what to put the baby in is just one tiny fraction of it!

Anyways, I changed the pattern slightly to remove the frilly hem element, making them look more like some fancy, expensive ones I saw for sale in a fancy, expensive maternity and baby shop in Brighton. The casino pair will be perfect for when we host poker games. Those are a size 'Small' which will allegedly fit 3-6 months babies. The other two are a size 'Medium' which apparently spans 6-18 months, which seems quite a tall order for just one size and they do seem mighty big. But I guess there's only one way to find out (= finding a baby's bum to put them on!). I may need to tighten up the waist elastic at some point.

On the back of each pair I've stitched a little label that I had left over from when I used to dabble in making and embellishing baby clothes to sell a squillion years ago. The sizes on the labels don't really correspond with the size of the pants but I thought it would be useful to be able to figure out which way round the pants are meant to be worn at a glance whilst you are trying to wrangle a wriggling baby. See? Always thinking, me...

Maternity Wardrobe: Eight Months. Plus Post-Natal Wardrobe Plans

A couple of months ago I shared the contents of my maternity wardrobe as it stood at six months for those who may be interested in seeing how much/little I've personally found is required to get by. Now that I am really down the 'business end' of this pregnancy (eight months / 36 weeks in) I thought another update might be of interest to those same readers. 

So you see my clothing rail pictured above? See the little chunk of clothes gathered at the far left? That is now what I can fit in. The similarly small chunk of clothes slightly to the right of that is the (all secondhand) knitwear that I can wear with my maternity garments. From the end of my first trimester, as my body started to change, I started to implement a useful piece of advice I'd read about removing the items from your wardrobe that gradually began to feel too tight so that dressing in the mornings doesn't get really difficult (not to mention a bit disheartening). I did that for a long time, but as you can now see, if I still did that my rail would be virtually empty and all my clothing would be stuffed in bags wedged into corners round the rest of our flat! 

Therefore whilst unpacking from our recent move, I decided to rehang any garments I theoretically think I might fit into again during the first few months after the birth, particularly items that I think I may be able to wear whilst breast feeding. That's what the larger chunk of garments on the right of the rail in the photo comprises of. Doing that has also had the beneficial effect of reminding me that colour and variety in dressing will soon be an option once again. I still have one MASSIVE storage bag full of lovely garments that I doubt will either fit for some time (if ever!) or be breast-feeding friendly, but that's fine: the selection to the right of that rail above is a veritable wardrobe feast in comparison with my clothing options right now. Plus, I've discovered during this pregnancy that working with a smaller than my previous selection creates far fewer headaches, especially if the colours of your items mix and match well.  

So back to what my eight month maternity consists of:

Tops:

• Spotty dress-to-maternity T-shirt with gathered sides. This is a little bit too short so I have to keep yanking it down at the back. The neckline is a bit higher than the grey version and feels a bit frumpier.
• Fancy sleeved maternity T-shirt, also with gathered sides. This is my favourite garment to wear right now, the fabric is so soft and it's so comfy to wear generally (it's a bit longer than its spotty predecessor). 
• Striped Peter Pan batwing top, although it's been way too warm to wear this for ages. The mustard version kind of got relegated after the curry-down-the-front incident.  
• Modcloth-inspired maternity smock top. This has been trouper of a garment. 

Bottoms: 

• Blue treggings. For some time now I've had to wear these with the waistband rolled down at the front under my bump, but that is a small price to pay for how useful and how much wear these babies have been through over the last four or so months. 
• Some secondhand Topshop maternity jeans that I've been leant. These really got me out of a wardrobe fix but now are starting to get uncomfortable as my greatly expanded bump pushes them down at the front so they dig in somewhat.

Dresses:

• Nautical batwing jersey dress. This has been soooo useful. It can be worn on its own or as a tunic with bottoms. One day, when I'm done with breast feeding, I'll take it in a bit at the sides (assuming I'll need to!) so that I can get lots of non-maternity use from it. 
• Black batwing jersey dress. This has been the garment that made me feel the nicest and least frumpy! The jersey has slightly less stretch than the nautical version so it is getting really tight now...
• The modern muumuu. To be honest I haven't worn this since getting back from our holiday. A few commenters suggested that belting it would make it look less frumpy, and whilst I agree that the belted dress look often looks great on some pregnant women, I personally can't stand the feeling of a belt around my rib cage.  
• Secondhand Topshop maternity tea dress (not shown because it's somewhere in the laundry process). As I previously stated, I wasn't planning on buying any maternity wear beyond bras, but when I saw a lovely light-weight maternity tea dress in a charity shop just before our holiday I decided to buy it. It's got a low-cut cross-over bust part that I think will also make it useful for breast feeding. 

Other garments:

• My 'loungewear' still consists of two ropey pairs of secondhand jogging bottoms and some large baggy dude-T-shirts.
• My sleepwear still consists of my biggest pyjama bottoms and more baggy dude-T-shirts.
• I'm working with a limited selection of my largest undies, but I think I can get away with continuing to do so if I keep on top of the laundry (making some more in a bigger size would be pretty disheartening at this point). 
• My usual selection of secondhand cardigans are seeing me through very well thanks to the seasonal weather. If I was heavily pregnant in deep Winter I might require some cardigans or warm layers that wrap over/cover the bump instead. 
• One unpredicted maternity purchase that I did end up making was a secondhand maternity 'tankini' bought on eBay to wear on our recent holiday to Spain. I only wore it twice, but it's now been packed in my hospital bag as I'm hoping that water will be involved in my birth at some point and I may feel the need for a bit of coverage at least towards the beginning of labour. 

Sorry But No More Apologies

So here's a thing that has been bothering me for a while: apologies. Specifically the apologies you often see on blogs when the author has been unable to post for a while. They just make me really sad.

Please don't misunderstand me: I totally do understand that if you are unable to post on your blog as often as you'd like or usually do, you may get the feeling that you are disappointing your readers. But let's look at it like this: you will no doubt be missed, but there really is enough other stuff on the internet to keep your readers busy until you have enough time to provide them with another post. So unless your blog forms all or most of your income and you have a commitment to your sponsors to uphold, your only real blogging obligation is to yourself. So if you find that other things are getting in the way, cut yourself some slack. It genuinely upsets me when bloggers apologise for having, you know, a life and stuff that is required of them that takes time out of their day. It's basically apologising for being a person.

So, unless it generates your income as previously mentioned, isn't this whole blogging lark meant to be fun? As sewing bloggers, aren't we using this medium to document and engage with something that brings us enjoyment? Then why are we making ourselves feel bad for not committing more time than we are able to spend on something that is essentially about pleasure? Seems kind of counter-productive to me.

I think what I fear most about this apologising phenomena though is this: that it may be another manifestation of that very female-trait of finding stuff to make ourselves feel inadequate and lacking. Women's magazines and the media in general have used our insecurities against us for their own ends (usually to get us to buy stuff, which is eloquently expressed by comedian David O'Doherty in the below clip where he expresses his beef with Boots the chemist for making women feel shit about themselves) for so long that is has often become second nature to find fault with ourselves and our actions, and to whip ourselves for being 'bad'.



So what are we specifically judging ourselves against here anyway? Sure, there have been heaps of articles written with titles like 'Seven Rules for Successful Blogging' or whatever that may state guidelines or 'ideals' for frequency or length of blog content, but hopefully most grown adults can see that they are entirely arbitrary and in fact irrelevant. Those kinds of articles may contain the odd point here or there that you might find interesting or useful, but generally those articles are more or less just filler. Like my previous rant about articles attempting to prescribe the contents of The Capsule Wardrobe, no one has access to the (non-existent) blueprint on what anyone with a blog should or shouldn't be doing with it.

Of course I'm not saying that your self-generated or chosen rules for blogging are invalid, indeed I have plenty of my own. For example, all being well, I like to publish a post two to three times a week all of which should contain at least one image. But we all need to recognise that these are our chosen blogging ideals, and to remember that nothing bad is going to happen if we have to go on a work trip/get sick/have a childcare drama/etc. that means our self-set 'blogging rules' get 'broken'. You wouldn't be annoyed with a blogger who you like to follow for not posting for a month because they got swamped with other things would you? So why apply that approach to yourself and make yourself feel bad?

All of which is not to say that by not apologising you have to pretend all is/has been great when you do get round to posting again if that's not your style. Another personal example: a few weeks ago our previous landlord, upon discovering that we were expecting a baby, decided to start proceedings to chuck us out of the flat because he claimed that children weren't allowed to live on the premises (despite there being nothing mentioning this in our tenancy agreement). Although we could have fought our case to stay put, because I was only 7 weeks away from my due date at the time and didn't want to bring our baby back to a flat where we had a horrible relationship with an unpleasant landlord, we decided to ship out quick-smart and find somewhere new to live, the moving equivalent of a shotgun wedding! For that period I didn't get to blog as much as I usually like to and, horror or horrors, one of the posts I did manage to squeeze out didn't have any images in it! I'm mentioning this because A) it illustrates the point I'm trying to make, and B) it is my blogging style to talk about my personal life on here if it's relevant and/or I wish to. I'm not apologising for my 'poor blogging performance' over the last few weeks, just as I certainly will not apologise when I go off the blogging-radar for a while after our daughter is born. But whatever the reason for your blogging sabbatical, be it as dramatic as eviction or as simple as you didn't feel you had much of relevance to write about, PLEASE don't make yourself feel bad for what I hope I've proven is no good reason. Let's put a stop to blogging apologies!!!

Refashion Friday: Interviews Recap

Sometimes I feel that, in the race to blog about all the things we desperately want to voice and document, some seriously awesome content often gets quickly swept underneath the carpet of our blogs. Personally, I feel that some of my blog's most interesting and inspiring content has been the interviews undertaken by some of the seriously talented refashioning bloggers I've contacted as part of my weekly Refashion Friday slot. I am so grateful to these women for the time and brain-space they gave up to respond to my questions that today I'd like to highlight and revisit those posts once more in case there are any that you have missed.

So in order that they were published we have...

A detailed and thought-provoking interview with inventor of The Refashioners, Miss P!

A wonderfully insightful interview with the extraordinarily talented Sally from Charity Shop Chic!

 A fabulously frank interview with one of the funniest women on the internets, Jillian from ReFashionista!

A sweet and lovely interview with super-stylish new-refashioner on the block Miche from Buttons and Birdcages!

If you have any ideas of other bloggers who partake in refashioning that you'd like to read more about, please do let me know. Or if you yourself fancy being interviewed, don't be shy. You can either leave a comment on this post or email me directly to sozoblog (at) gmail (dot) com. What with some seriously major life changes going on with me right now, I don't have even a fraction of the time I'd like for reading and discovering new blogs, so your help in finding interview candidates will be gratefully received. 

A Modern Muumuu: The Least Flattering Garment I'll Ever Make?

Umm, I'm not even sure if this garment can legitimately be described as a muumuu because I think technically a proper muumuu may have to have sleeves (note to self: check( this fact... NEVER). But it certainly feels as frumpy as the image often conjured up by the word 'muumuu'. Plus, unless my washing machine breaks down or a horrendous clothing-based accident occurs over the next five-ish weeks, this is the last maternity garment I'll be making for this pregnancy. Let's end on a low, hehehe! 

Those who have been following my previous pontifications on maternity garment sewing will have seen this Simplicity 3799 pattern (pictured above) crop up in posts a couple of times already. A few weeks ago I became very aware that I was due to go on a little holiday to Southern Spain in full-blown Summer, with bugger-all hot weather clothing to take. I reached for this pattern in somewhat of a panic, thinking its loose fitting nature and sleeveless-ness might provide some assistance in a hot climate. It also looked like a pretty simple make. 

I selected the size M (14-16) and adapted the front panel a bit by adding more fullness to accommodate my now-substantial bump. The size M's neck band ended up being a bit too wide than would be ideal, but considering how little I plan to wear this garment, I wasn't that fussed. It did, as predicted, stitch together really quickly. It's basically the same construction method as the sleeves version of my long lost pattern-crush, Simplicity 4589. If the fabric is looking eerily familiar, it is because it is yet more of the synthetic slinky stuff (damn, I'm being so technically accurate today, this has virtually turned into a science blog!) that I made my Lady-like pussy bow blouse from. I may salvage the fabric from this garment and make something else from it one day. 

Annoyingly (or thankfully) I didn't get any pictures of me wearing this whilst on holiday. But I can report that, despite feeling like Queen Frump of Frumpsville whilst wearing it, this dress did see quite a bit of use during the four days, especially worn over my maternity tankini going to and from the pool and to quickly cover up for my frequent night-time visits to the loo. Sisters who've experienced third-trimester pregnancy will what I'm talking' 'bout with that second point. 

Refashion Friday Tutorial/How-To: Bow Front Tank Top

Here's a refashion/remake that I made towards the tail end of last Summer that I thought I'd wait to share with you this (Northern Hemisphere) Summer. Seeing as August is galloping along, I just remembered in the nick of time then! It was inspired by a rash of bow bandeau type bikinis that kept appearing on Pinterest (like the one pictured below found on the We Heart It site, apologies I couldn't find the original image or garment source). I thought they were a really cute idea, but decided to try and reinterpret the look for someone who never has cause to wear a bikini (like me). 

I started my creation with an unwanted mens T-shirt (pictured below) that I remade so it had a more feminine fit. I harvested strips of white jersey from another secondhand T-shirt to use as binding for the recut armholes. Of course you needn't go to the trouble of remaking a garment before you stick a bow on it (is that as catchy as 'stick a bird on it' I wonder?), this idea could be used to spruce up any plain garment. 

So once you've found what garment will be the basis for this project, it's time to make a bow. There are probably lots of bow-making tutorials out there, but hey, I'm going to throw my hat into the ring and add another as I really like the chunky bows my method produces.

Step 1:

Use a tape measure to gauge how wide and deep you'd like your final bow to be. This process might work better if you put the top on (if you are making it for yourself) to get the proportions right. 

Step 2:

Measure a piece of contrast fabric twice the width of your desired final bow width plus 2 X seam allowance, and twice the height of your desired final bow height plus 2 X seam allowance. Please note: the gathering step of the bow construction usually makes the final bow a little less wide than the initial measurements, so you might want to add a few cms to the width of the fabric before you cut it out. 

Step 3:

Fold the fabric lengthways, right sides together if your fabric has a wrong and right side, and stitch along the edge with your chosen seam allowance.

Step 4:

Press your seam allowance open. Turn the tube of fabric through so that your seam allowance is hidden inside but positioned along the middle of the tube. Press the tube of fabric flat so that is now a strip rather than a tube.

Step 5:

Fold the strip of fabric in half, right sides together, and stitch the remaining raw edges together. Press this seam allowance open, then turn this loop of fabric the other way so this shorter seam allowance is inside positioned in the middle of what will become the back of your bow. Apologies, the picture below isn't very clear because my white stitching is almost invisible against the white stripe of the fabric. 

Step 6:

Decide how wide you want the 'knot' of the bow to be, then put the main bow piece to one side for a moment. Cut a strip of your fabric twice the width you'd like the knot to be, then fold the edges of this strip in to the centre and press as pictured below. 

Step 7:

Put the knot strip aside for a moment and thread a hand sewing needle with a double thickness thread. Take hold of the main bow piece again and pinch in the centre to create a nice gathered bow effect. 

Step 8:

This it is a bit fiddly, one of those 'I could use another hand' moments! Keeping hold of the gathered bow with one hand, and with the other fold over the raw edge of the end of the knot strip and place it in the centre of the back of the main bow piece. With the pre-prepared hand sewing needle, stitch the end of the knot strip to the centre back of the bow main piece. 

Step 9:

Wrap the rest of the knot strip firmly round the centre of the bow so it controls the gathers that you have previously been pinching in place. Cut the knot strip to the correct length leaving enough excess to fold under the raw edge of the end. Hand-stitch this second knot strip end on top of the first.  

Step 10:

With your bow complete, position it evenly in the centre of your top and hand-stitch in place. Alternatively, stitch poppers/press studs onto the four corners of the bow and one in the centre so the bow is removable for washing. This will help retain the nice structure of the bow you have created. 

So there you have it. A humorous and cheeky little top that retains a touch more modesty than the bikini version! 

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