Baby Sleep and Sleeping Bags

Dear readers,

I'm back! Finally, after having my second baby, dealing with some sleep and feeding issues, almost eight months later I'm back to post something. Been itching to sew for months, but my little Hippo (that's the Little Wyld One #2) has kept me busy! We call him the little Hungry Hippo because when he was born he ate and grew a lot. Now he's the Hefty Hippo. He's almost as big and heavy as the Little Wyld One, whom I'm gonna call Monkey from now on. Well, Monkey is almost 2-next week in fact. Sigh, have to get busy planning something. 

I haven't been able to sew for a few months. But when Hippo wasn't sleeping well without being wrapped, I made some baby sleeping bags on the fly. I liked the ones where the bags don't have armholes in them, but they are very expensive to buy, and I'd need several. Hippo does not sleep well with his arms free, but he was getting too big to be wrapped anymore. So being quite desperate I drafted my own pattern and made 4 sleeping bags at once. 

Sorry, I don't have a tutorial-I was in a rush and just wanted to get one done. I used soft cotton knits from my stash, and long vintage zips from opshops. 

One of these days, I'll make a PDF pattern and post it here if anybody is interested. 

Speaking of PDF patterns, a friend asked that I make a PDF of my maternity skirt pattern to sell. I never thought of doing it before, and I wonder if there would be a market for it. I have no idea where to start or what sizes to offer or how much to sell it for. But if anybody has any thoughts about it, please leave a comment!

I'll leave you with a pic of my Little Wyld Men.

Yellow Nursing Top

A few months ago I bought some yellow jersey material from an op shop. It was a very pretty yellow, just my colour. I make it a policy to snap up knit fabrics if I see them in opshops as knits are quite pricey compared to wovens. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it then, but a few days ago I thought that I should start drafting patterns for knits. And I've been wanting a top for nursing-ones that have discreet access for breastfeeding. I came up with this design.


It was to have an empire waistline, a wrap front with bust gathers, and a modesty panel behind with cutouts for nursing (see dotted line and gray shaded area). At first I wanted to make puffed cap sleeves  as in the picture, but when I made my pattern, I forgot and just make short set in sleeves.

I drafted the pattern from scratch using Winifred Aldrich's close fitting jersey bodice block.




I chose the option with greater ease (Aldrich gives you instructions for close fitting with maximum stretch, and another with more ease for less flexible material).



I took some pictures of the drafting and pattern manipulating processes- but stopped halfway because the pictures weren't that good. Here are some of them.

The back and the modesty panel for the front


This is the wrap front-I'm correcting the gape by slashing the neckline and pivoting it

That's all I have of the drafting. I WILL take more organised pictures in the future...

Anyways,  that was a few days ago and I didn't get to put the whole thing together till today. This is how it looks like.

Front View



Back View


That's an awful lot of wrinkles. Methinks I have to do a narrow back adjustment, a swayback adjustment, and a forward shoulder adjustment. Or maybe it's the way I'm standing.

Closeup


Below you'll see how it functions as a nursing top.

Discreet nursing access

Instead of pulling the top up for feeding, this top provides full coverage.

I'm really happy with the way this top turned out-it looks completely store bought. It's not my first time sewing a knit top, but it was the most successful. This was because I used  tricot knit interfacing strips to stabilise the necklines and armholes to keep them from stretching out of shape.

If anybody is interested, I can draft a custom nursing top pattern based on this or make you one. Just email me.

Sewing Lessons and Gestational Diabetes.

Had my sewing student over today.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="639" caption="My diligent student hard at work. Isn't she sweet?"][/caption]

This is her third lesson and we've been making an apron. I helped her draft an apron that she saw online and wanted to make.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="516" caption="Funky Apron Top"][/caption]

I thought it was rather similar to mine in the front.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="545" caption="My apron from leftover curtain material."][/caption]

Anyways, we've been cutting and marking the pattern for the apron the last lesson, and only got to sewing today. However, the straps were a nuisance to make and iron, so that ate a lot of time and she was only able to sew the bra top this morning.  But I'm hopeful that she can finish the apron in the next lesson. This is what my dining room table looked like after we finished cutting and marking the apron fabric.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="639" caption="Necessary sewing messes."][/caption]

I still have the baloons up from the baby shower.

Anyways,  I noticed that for the past 2 days  including today, I've been feeling excessively thirsty. Carol was concerned that it was gestational diabetes, especially since she remembered that my feet were swollen a few days ago, and still does a little now. And I was complaining of feeling drained and fatigued all day yesterday.So I called up the Women's and Childrens midwife and they told me to come in for some tests.  I got Grandma and Grandpa to drive me there. Good thing I went of that hospital tour on Monday, because I knew exactly where to go today.

They checked my vital signs and my glucose and blood pressure tests came back normal. They got me hooked up to a monitor for fetal heartbeats and uterine contractions for 45 minutes and that came back normal as well. However they couldn't figure out why I had this unquenching thirst no matter how much I drank, so I'm to go back tomorrow morning at 730am for a fasting glucose test. Darn. No food from midnight tonight till then. I'm gonna starve! Hopefully though, my test will come back normal (fingers crossed.)

There was an Anglicare opshop right across the hospital, so Grandma said we'd stop by there and see if they were open. I went in and came out with a pink dressing gown-I already have one, but it's a really heavy fleece one for winter. This one would be suitable to summer-and I'm planning to bring it to the hospital for the birth. It was Aud 12 though, which I thought was rather pricey for an op shop. But I tried it on and really liked it. So.

By the way, Wyld Man wore the white checked men's shirt in Size 40 which I got at Salvos 2 days ago to work today. He looked really good in it, despite it being one size larger than what he normally wears. I'm happy that my purchases are being put to good use.