Fleece Carseat Poncho

Winter is here again! Nothing like negative daytime highs to say "Welcome to the Midwest!" Not so pleasant for school drop off and pick up or running errands.

I originally made this poncho for D who is 18 months, but he wasn't too fond of it and his sister was happy to adopt it!

The poncho is perfect to cover up while the car warms up...

 and doesn't interfere with the seatbelt like a puffy winter coat would.

Here's how I went about it. I started with my fabric, I think I had about 1.5 or 2 yards. Basically just measure your child from their shoulders to where you want it reach on them.

I used my measuring stick to draw the circle. I used a pen to hold it in the center, then held a sharpie at the measurement I wanted and drew around in a circle. Kinda like a giant compass. (I now realize, after the fact of course, that if you were to fold your fabric in quarters, you could do the same thing in less time.)

yay, an almost perfect circle!

Then I folded the circle in quarters to determine the neck hole.

I laid a shirt on top to give a better estimate. I didn't match it up exactly, I pulled it up a bit and it worked out great. You could also measure the largest part of your kid's head to determine the size of the whole as well.

testing it out...he looks so happy, but that didn't last long.

I made my poncho double layered, because, well...negative temperatures exist in this crazy new place we live!!!! lol I had some fleece that needed to be used up so I sewed those two pieces together to make the bottom layer. I just used the stars fabric as a pattern and cut it out.

For the hood, I again used something that already fit, traced around it giving plenty of room for seams and general room to grow, because boy do these little humans grow fast!

Did the same with the outer fabric. So you have two hood pieces, one in the inner fabric, one in the outer. Then with right sides together, I put the inner fabric inside the outer and sewed around the face part of the hood.

Flip it right sides out.

Then you're ready to attach it to the body of the poncho. I tucked the hood fabric in between the two layers of the poncho.

At first I sewed it like this, with the hood only coming to the halfway point on each side of the poncho. But it looked super awkward and isn't how real hoods are so I removed it and reworked it.

My daughter loves the poncho and always asks for it. It is so nice not to have to put on and take off jackets when we're running errands or taking brothers to school! She also really really loves to twirl in it! :D  AND her big brothers both asked for ponchos for Christmas and I went about it a different way, so stay tuned for that!

Repost: Mom Heart Shirt

Reposting this shirt from a couple years ago with an updated picture with #3 in the shirt too!

Today I'll share one of my favorite crafts from the past. The 'Mom' shirt I made for my oldest is perfect for my little Valentine. 

I'm sorry I don't have a tutorial for it, but basically I just cut out the felt and hand stitched it on. You can print out the shapes off from Microsoft Word and cut them out to use as a pattern on the felt. Then just sew in layers; the heart first, the banner, and then the letters.

 It's so cute to see pictures of them at the same age side by side.

             

DIY Nursing Cami

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it feels like I have 3 different wardrobes; normal, pregnancy, and nursing. Nursing seems to be the hardest for me to find functional tops. This time with two little boys running around, I like to have my back/belly covered because I never know when I’m going to have to get up and help or chase a little boy. So I’ve found I really love wearing a cami under shirts so I’m always covered but the one I’ve been using has gotten stretched out pulling it down to access the goods.

I looked at getting a nursing tank, but they were pricey, like $30! What?! Plus I like my tank tops to come up a little higher than the ones I was seeing. My favorite ones are from DownEast Basics and Shade. Over the summer Shade was going out of business so I snapped up a couple camis. So here’s what I did to make it accessible for baby.

Cut the straps about a 1/4” from the neckline

Then grab some snaps

With a needle and thread, simply sew the snaps on. The ‘female’ side goes on the front of the neckline hem, and the ‘male’ side goes on the backside of the strap.

I love how it turned out and it works so well! I’m able to wear it under V-neck tees and dresses and can easily access everything without stretching out a shirt or having to lift the cami up. I’ve made a couple of these so I’ve always got one to wear. The great thing is I can still wear this when I’m not nursing.

What are your favorite nursing essentials?

Grey and Yellow Bunting

A really good friend of mine is having a baby soon too and I wanted to make something special for her. So naturally I stalked her Pinterest board to see what colors she was going with and what kind of things she might like. thank you Pinterest!

I hope this is something she’ll like, cuz I love how it turned out and am dying to make another for my baby’s nursery.

It was simple. First I just made a template from some cardstock. I probably could have done it a little more exact, but I wasn’t being picky.

Then I traced it onto the fabric I picked out.

After cutting out the triangles with my rotary cutter – much faster- I pinned two pieces with right sides together and sewed down both sides. I found that it was easiest to sew down and off the point instead of trying to turn and go back down the other side. Maybe that’s just me though. My sewing machine and I were fighting at the time. Not really on speaking terms, well I did a lot of speaking, just not nice things :)

Once I sewed all the triangles together, I flipped them right side out and ironed them flat. I got some 1” single fold bias tape and ironed that in half. Stick the triangles in the bias tape and pin, pin, pin.

I finally negotiated a truce with my sewing machine and got her working nicely to sew the triangles to the bias tape.

Repost: Tie Onesie and Name Bunting

It’s been a busy week around here and I’m definitely not getting as many projects done as this pregnancy progresses, so I’m reposting this craft from several years ago that I’m sure many of you haven’t seen. Enjoy!

My mother in law is an amazing quilter and she made a beautiful quilt for Andrew when he was born. I asked if I could have the left over fabric from the quilt. I used some to make another tie shirt for the cub (he out grew the first one).

I was also able to do another project I've been wanting to do. I found the idea at Happy Together for rag quilted letters. I decided to take the idea and instead of doing the whole alphabet I just did Andrew's name to make a banner for his room.

To hang the letters, I took some of the extra binding my mother in law had made and sewed it into the cord. Then to hang it on the wall I drilled a hole through one side of a wooden clothes pin and put a nail through it to nail it to the wall. I need to get better at taking step by step tutorial like pictures, but here is the end product.

The Always Tucked Little Boy Dress Shirt

I was at the park with some other moms last week and one of the ladies brought up how much she loved this idea, but once you hit potty training stage, it kinda gets in the way. So I’m going to really be thinking how I can translate this concept to a potty-friendly version for the little bit older boys. Another mom – who has teenagers- said that this shirt should be mandatory for all boys until they’re 18+. haha. Totally, nothing more annoying than tucking in or asking your kid to tuck in their shirt 20 times in one church day. 

Anyway, I’ve posted this project in the past, I just figured I’d give you some better pictures and better instructions with this one.

Ben recently out grew all the shirts like this I had made for Andrew, not too surprised. So I had to make a new one.

I laid the shirt out on my cutting mat and with my yardstick, lined up the bottom of each side and cut across. I learned from the last ones not to take too much off, my boys grow so much faster in length than they do in width so I need all the length I can get.

Then with my onesie, I did the same thing. I think I measured 5” from the top of the leg hole. It was just a guess. I wanted it to be long.

Unsnap the onesie bottom and with right sides together fold it up over the dress shirt and line up the bottom edges.

I didn’t have anyone to help with pinning so I had to improvise…haha. Anyway, pull the onesie to match widths with the dress shirt and start pinning. First on one side, then the other. Then in the middle front, then middle back, etc.

 

All pinned.

Then sew with a zig zag stitch to give it a little stretch. This will make it easier to get on and off your kid. You’ll also probably have to stretch the knit to match the dress shirt if your onesie was slimmer than the shirt, like mine.

Once it’s all sewn, get your model and try it on him.

Ignore the mess – I’m keeping it real. This is what happens when I try to sew and the boys are awake, especially this little cutie. Model pose! hahaha

“Oooh, camera! Gimme!”

Ok, couldn’t get him to look at the camera, so this is as close as I get. Anyway, there’s several inches of room for him to grow into and it fits well over his cloth diapers, which is another thing I didn’t plan for when making the others so he grew out of them extra quick.

It was so much better not fighting untucked tails all day. I didn’t get a picture though because it was straight to nap for this kid. Church sure wears him out!