Tuesday, November 12, 2013

A little one on one time with the sewing machine

Months ago I bought two sewing patterns off etsy, this and this.  I sat down almost immediately and got to work on the skirt.  I had to make it big, so L.Soup hasn't had the chance to wear it yet, but it's so sooooo cute.  Of course at the time I had no idea where my camera was, so I didn't take any pictures of the process.  I do remember it involved the destruction of an old pair of very loved jeans that were unwearable.  It still hurt to cut them up.

Since then I've scored an awesome deal on denim fabric at the store one day and bought a ridiculous amount of it so I will never have to suffer through an experience like that again.

About two weeks ago I decided it was probably time to get to work on the other pattern, a coat.  My intention is for this to be L.Soup's winter coat for this year.  So I've put myself in a slight time crunch.  Lucky for me the pattern is really simple.

I picked a plaid fleece for the outside and a red swirly flannel for the inside...

I got half of the fabric cut out, with "assistance" one day while I was at my mom's.  I decided to wait until said assistant was asleep to try to cut anything else.  Then I had a week of not feeling well and general exhaustion, so nothing got done.  Well last night I decided it was time.

I sat down and cut the rest of the fabric.  On the floor.  I need a second table.   Then I got to work.

Wednesday:
I got the main pieces together for the outside and the lining.  I also finished the ruffled collar and got all of that sewn together.  (ps I didn't take any pictures of this entire process.  I am the worst)

I wanted to see what size the belt would be before I made button holes, so I started on that before I moved to the real next step.  I used the fleece and flannel and followed the instructions for putting the belt together.  But about halfway through I noticed the belt was curling.  First and foremost I want to say that fleece is nearly impossible to sew with (for me at least) because it is so stretchy.  It's also completely impossible to fold under 1/4 inch and sew.  So I think what happened is as I was ATTEMPTING to do that, I stretched the fleece out.  As it got sewn to the flannel, it tried to go back to normal, and that caused the curling.  I'm going to start over with two pieces of the flannel instead and run with that.

After that debacle, I started working on holes for the belt to go through.  I got one made and then realized it was after 10 pm.  And because I'm a 90 year old woman I immediately shut everything off and went to bed.

Thursday:
After putting L.Soup to bed I got right back into the swing of things with the coat.  I finished up the holes for the belt, and got the seam sewn around the bottom of the coat.  And I almost died from the cuteness.  I took two of my KAMSnaps and buttoned up the top.

Then I got to work fixing the disaster from the night before.  Luckily I always buy waaaayyy too much fabric for what I need (mostly because I never think to look at the pattern to see exactly how much I need before I go to the store, so that's always fun).  I cut two new lengths for the belt, both out of the red flannel and sewed them together.  SOO much easier than trying to work with a tiny strip of fleece.  Ugh.

I strung the belt through the holes, and had to talk myself out of waking L.Soup up to put it on her immediately.  Instead I ran into the bedroom and made D.Soup pause the hockey game to experience the ridiculousness.  He loved it.  I loved it.  I did a little happy dance.

I was so hyped up from the victory of the coat, I switched out the thread and threw a pair of Baby Legs together too!  I picked up a super cute pair of socks last month at Target, and just hadn't taken the time to do anything with them.  L.Soup will be wearing them today!

Speaking of wearing... When I went to get L.Soup out of the car this morning I had to fight the new coat on her.  Which isn't anything new...  She.looked.amazing.  I'm worried that it's a little short, but I should be able to fix that without much effort, I hope.  But then, after she got it off, she cried when we tried to put it back on her.  So that was awesome.  I tried the sad face and everything, and she just wasn't having it.  Sigh.

Finally got a picture of my little moving target:

No I will not look at you, mama.


Anyway.  Hooray for productivity!

Friday, November 1, 2013

Finishing touches to the nursery. Part 4: Final Product!

  1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
  2. Build bed frame.
  3. Build matching night stands.
  4. Refinish dining room table.
  5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
  6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
  7. Refinish wing back chair.
  8. Build floating shelves. (almost)
  9. Build outdoor planters.
  10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
  11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
  12. Paint foyer. (almost)
  13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom. 
SO.  I was trying to wait until the last 2 pieces for this room were finished.  But its going to be probably Christmas before they are done and I can't wait that long for two shelves.  This post has been written for months and its killing me just sitting here.  I'll write about the shelves if they are ever finished when they are finished.

While I was pregnant, I dreamed up this nursery idea based around the bedding set I had purchased.  The rainbow of colors and blocks on the wall.  Well it never came to fruition in the old house because of the hobo.  So when we moved to the new house, I knew I wanted to make it happen.

We decided when we moved in that painting her room would wait until it was warmer out, so the windows could be open to air the room out a bit.  Well, I decided that March was warm enough.  I wanted her room to be done before her birthday, and that was that.  D.Soup wasn't very happy with my decision, but he wasn't the one doing the work.  It turns out that it was a fantastic idea, because I got so warm while painting that I appreciated the cool air coming in through the window.

When we first moved in, before anything went into the nursery, I started taping.  Lower parts on the walls, door framing, some of the upper edges.  Then it just sat, and sat, and frustrated me beyond belief.  It was a good day when I got to tape the rest of the walls off and could get started painting.

Side note:  L.Soup's name is all over these pictures.  But I'm going to continue to call her L.Soup because I like it.  So there.

Before I finished taping though, we put up this super cute fan we found at Lowe's.  It can be white, or multicolored like we have here:
Finished expert taping job.


I had D.Soup help me measure height of the wall where the squares were going, and then match that distance on the wall width wise so that the squares would be... square!  He then left me to my own devices to take Little Miss somewhere and distract her.  She had not been very happy locked in the nursery with us while we were trying to get the lines taped up.

"Perfect" Square
It took me 2 (maybe 3, I can't remember) coats to get the walls covered.  All in all I'd say it took 2 hours to get the 3 walls done.  I was pretty happy with that.  Especially considering that included times where I had to take a break because L.Soup was banging on the door trying to figure out what I was doing and why I wasn't entertaining her.  Rude.


I let that dry a few days, and headed back in to do some more taping.  Because I'm impatient, in that interim some of the decorative pieces went up on the yellow walls.

Light switch matches the bed set.
Got these beauties at a huge craft show in the area
Mom and I took the coat rack, and turned it into a bow holder!  Obviously she needed it.  She's got too many even for this! The other little guy is hanging on the outside of the door on the handle.

Ridiculous
I again needed D.Soup's assistance for taping.  This time there was a little anger on both our parts, because he didn't understand what I was doing, and I didn't understand why he wouldn't just do what I asked him to.  But we got it figured out, and I got the squares all taped up.  We basically taped a straight line across the wall, then about every 2 feet I would have to tear the tape and start over, so that the corners connected.  It was never one continuous line.  I also had to incorporate vertical lines into this wall.  It sounds fairly confusing (it was) and its hard to describe.  Below are some pictures that should make more sense.  Luckily for me, I left every other square white, so I didn't have to worry about re-taping in order to paint the other squares.


This is how I figured out which color would go where.  I had a general idea in my head, but decided I didn't like it once I set the canisters that way the first time.  So I just moved them all around until I liked the way the colors looked in that order.  The space I was painting wasn't even 3 feet square, and these paint samples hold enough to do about a 4 square foot section, so I had a ton left over.  I used these same samples to paint the boxes so the colors match perfectly.


I've always had a hard time with paint seeping underneath the tape, but I think it did a fairly good job this time around.  I wanted to try using this method, but I didn't have the original color of the wall so I couldn't do it.

I worked as carefully as I could to not drip, and I did a pretty good job.  I had a few mistakes, but I also had a few places where the tape ripped the wall! That was pretty frustrating.  But those are just some minor issues that you really can't see because they are behind the crib and overall I'm so happy with how it turned out.  And like I said before, I'm not the best painter... So I was expecting some of this.
Rude.
Paint drip
Paint drip AND its source
Speckling
Drying
Once the paint was dry and the furniture was moved back, I took some animal vinyl stickers that match the bedroom set and placed them around the room.  The boxes were in here at the time, but didn't match and it was starting to annoy me.  So I fixed it.

Wall with the inspiration for all this
Purple and Gray just barely visible at the bottom


Months ago I made pennant banners, but had yet to do anything with them.  I recruited D.Soup one more time, and he begrudgingly helped me hang two of them in the corner of her room over the dresser.  I made MANY more triangles, intending to hang these all over her room.  But 1. they were too much work and I had a very small very needy infant at the time and 2. I think the two are PERFECT:

The new shelves we are making will give me space to put up a few things that I've been holding onto.  I intend to move the name blocks that I got off Etsy to one shelf, opening the dresser up for some more decorations. 

When I was still pregnant, I spotted these on Etsy.  I immediately decided I wanted to make them myself.  I used my Cricut (since then I've invested in a Silhouette Cameo, and I love it so much more than the Cricut) to cut the letters and graphics out, and glued them to a piece of 8.5x11 card stock paper.  Each page has 4 different shades of each color.

I put them in frames with just glass, so you can see the wall behind the paper.  They are the perfect piece of art to hang above L.Soup's crib.


I also saw this before she was born, and so as soon as she was here I ordered one... it looks like the "Audra" one.  It will go on the second shelf if it ever gets done which is currently in the works.  That shelf was also supposed to hold the iPod and speaker that played L.Soup's music at night time. But that ended up not happening...
I LOVED this little speaker.  I ordered it off Amazon, and wasn't really expecting much from it.  But it was awesome!  And then... It died!  I was so sad.  I didn't order another one to replace it.  Only because she doesn't seem to be dependent on the music to stay asleep anymore.  On my recommendation my sister ordered two of them, but she said her's didn't last long at all.  So I'm not quite sure what the deal is with them.  Ours lasted almost a year.
One last picture of the fan, now that you've seen the whole room finished.

I would love to paint the inside of the closet too, but at the moment I don't have the time or energy to take all of her stuff out of there and paint it, let it dry and then put it all back.  I do have some ideas for better storage in there.  But every time I'm in her room, so is she.  She's a fantastic helper.  For unpacking things.  So I never get anything accomplished.



Hope you enjoyed the tour!