babies in a basket

Makes me smile every time I see it.

wrap dress (vogue 8379)

It's another wrap dress, this time in wearable-outside-the-house bamboo/cotton jersey instead of nightmarish blue polyester. I am so proud of myself for making an actual garment that isn't an elastic waist skirt or a potato sack tunic. It's comfortable, flattering, and nursing-friendly.  Since it's a wrap, it can be adjusted as I lose weight; since it's made of comfy jersey, it's about as cozy as a bathrobe.   There's the unfortunate fact that I tend to forget to readjust the neckline after feeding the babies, so I often have a boob or two semi-exposed, but that happens regardless of what I'm wearing.  I should probably make five more dresses just like this, but since it's a miracle I managed to finish this dress at all, I'll probably just wear this one multiple times a week. Yay.

For the record, I deviated from the pattern in a few ways:
1) I left off the sleeves
2) I bound the armholes and neckline using cross grain strips of fabric (instead of making facings)
3) I gathered the shoulders in little pleats to maximize the drapeyness of the bodice

Good grief I look pale in this picture. I think it's the lighting. Or anemia.

side pocket pants

This is my favorite kind of pocket for kids' pants:  a wide U-shape that I make a bit bigger than the child's hand, placed directly over the side seam.  The size and placement make it easy for toddler hands to find.

I made these navy linen trousers last summer and they've endured a year in heavy rotation.  Right now they need to be worn with the cuff rolled up a few times to disguise the fact that they're too short.

He's my little urchin.

file under dumb stuff people say to me

If you really want to piss off a mother of twins, suggest that she wear both babies at once. Explain that you saw it on the internet. Use a word like "ergonomic" to make it clear you're an expert. For extra added rage, recommend that she learn to nurse both babies at the same time while wearing them. Point out that if she could master these skills (as you undoubtedly would were you blessed with twins) twins would be no more challenging than a single baby.

This week the babies got their first teeth so tandem babywearing was the only way to keep the screaming at a minimum while leaving me with a free hand to help the toddler use the bathroom (which probably deserves a separate blog post, as well as several poems celebrating this triumph). To be fair, Harry was only moderately fussy, but Violet (who is moderately fussy on the best of days) was a terror. Job satisfaction has been at a low this week, you know?

Totally unrelated: so apparently most Americans pronounce "Harry" and "hairy" the same? Really? My mind is blown. They're different in my (northeastern) accent, as are Mary, marry, and merry. Do you all pronounce them the same? Can I just say how grateful I am that Harry's real name is Henry?

giveaway winner

The winner is comment number 39.  Sara, I just sent you an email asking for your address.

Thanks to everybody for stopping by and offering to give my sad fabric a new home.  This was fun, kind of like trick or treating.  

I can't wait to fill up the empty space in my drawer with some new stuff...

give away day

If you like blue and beige, today's your lucky day.  I have a boatload of blue and beige fabric that I will never use, and which you can volunteer to take off my hands by leaving a comment on this post.  Most of it's quilting weight cotton but there's some home dec weight as well as some mysteries.   

Every time I try to organize my fabric I encounter this pile of blue and beige and think to myself:  "gee, I should probably make something blue and beige" but then I lose interest halfway through the project (or sooner) because I have no interest in owning anything in those colors.  Therefore, I'm also giving away the makings of several projects in various stages of completion, all featuring said blue and beige fabric:

There's a big stack of two or three inch squares which I had intended to make into another bathmat before coming to terms with the fact that I don't want a blue and beige bathmat.  There are also some large squares which were probably going to be cocktail napkins.  And lastly there are some pieced half square triangles which were going to be coasters much like these (from a long ago giveaway day).  And there's one sad solitary coaster that only needs to be stuffed with a square of batting and topstitched.

I also have a stack of truly disreputable prints.  Marvel at the ugliness.

In order to become the proud owner of:

1. the big stack of blue and beige fabric,
2. various half-completed projects AND
3. random prints

just leave a comment including whatever information I need to get in touch with you.  I'll pick a random winner on Friday, 5/21.  I'm not going to ship internationally, so if you're not in the US, sorry.  

red dress with peter pan collar

I started out with a simple enough plan:  remaking an old skirt into a dress for the baby.  But the next thing I knew I was drafting collars and inserting pleats and what have you.  And three days later I had a dress.

I did the collar the same way I did last time except
1) I topstitched the finished collar to make it a bit sturdier and less likely to need a heavy ironing, and
2) I attached the collar to the front of the dress and then bound the neckline edges with bias tape.

I also topstitched the pleats for the same reason.

I haven't hemmed it yet because I'd like this to fit her for a while, so I need to figure out how to do a very deep hem without it looking bulky.  This probably means a blind hem.  Stupid missing blind hem foot.

apple pocket dress

apple pocket dress, originally uploaded by thebigcozy.

Well, it started out as a pocket and then I absentmindedly sewed all the way around it, so now it's just an applique. The linen leaves aren't sewed down around the edges (they're just attached with the button) so little hands can amuse themselves by grabbing them.

The blue fabric is a sateen sheet that I've used in other projects. Since sheets are huge and kids' clothing is tiny, one twin sheet set is an infinite resource. I have sheets I've been mining for literally years and there's still enough yardage left to bore me senseless.

Also: linen bias tape, I love you so much. You make my old sheet look so much better.

bloomers

Linen bloomers and tiny baby feet. I'm reeling from the sweetness.

They stared out as the bloomer pattern from Weekend Sewing in the 6-12 months size, but I had to make them smaller in every dimension to fit my tiny girl, even with her puffy cloth diaper.

The blouse/smock/dress she's wearing is from last summer's sewing bonanza.

Here's what I have lined up for the Kids Clothes Week Challenge:

• a few pairs of summer-weight clamdiggers for Joseph. My little man is strangely prim and modest (when he's not running around in the nude, that is); he's been refusing to wear shorts (also: must wear socks) so light weight calf length pants are our compromise.
• a few dresses for Violet
• more bloomers
• some diapers, which really ought to count as clothing since they're all my kids wear for half the day

Poor baby Harry gets nothing new since we have boatloads of Joseph's old clothing and it's not like he cares one way or the other.

curtain fail

These curtains are every bit as lurid in real life as they are in the photo. My dining room now looks like a place where people go to get murdered and dismembered. The fabric is gorgeous but it looks terrifying with the light shining through it. Are all colored curtains this gruesome? And yet I've see them in magazines and the Anthropologie catalog, so it can't be that insane an idea (but I also see rompers and toeless boots in the Anthro catalog, so perhaps they are not to be trusted). Perhaps I need to line the curtains?

flags, bunting, whatever you call it

I think I am the last person in the world to make one of these. My attention to detail has reached a new low: I just cut out the triangles freehand and sewed them to a piece of packaged bias tape. I didn't finish any edges or even pink them. I'm a rebel, what can I say.