Dye and Cut

Nothing like a good dye job and cut to make a girl feel better. What? Haircut? No, no, a baby wrap of course! I am on a wrap dyeing and cutting kick. It's very fun; I can see why people love wraps turned into mei tai, they are super comfy! :)


Before cut and after dye. This was a silver waves wrap that I dyed avocado. In case you are curious wrap cutting is not for the faint of heart. After I made the first cut I had a minor freak out and felt I needed to lay on the couch! But i did finish the job and ended up with:





It's lovely, soft, lightweight and supportive. Oh and I made a detachable hood! It is sweatshirt style, meaning I used one of my sweatshirts as a pattern!


No action pic with the hood, we tried, we really did, but baby n was not liking the hood at all (i only use them when he is sleeping) The hood attaches to snaps that are hidden in a shallow 'pocket' (it's about 1.5 in deep) so they don't annoy us when the hood isn't in use :)


Okay I have more projects to post but getting the pictures situated is annoying me so I will do a new post!
Love Annmarie

A very special baby wrap

I am so excited to have finished this project! I have been plotting and planning this for months and finally got up the courage to order the items needed to make this project happen.

So silly me, I didn't take a before picture of baby n and me snuggling, ah well, so is life. Anyway, I bought a woven baby wrap to try out wrapping, I did okay with it but ended up tearing the fringe on it, I thought it would be okay, but the tear kept getting worse.


Here's the tear and the coloring of the wrap, it is a very plain khaki/greenish color (the company calls it Aloe) that looks terrible on me (but is snuggly) and has a torn fringe. Bummer. Then on thebabywearer.com, mamas were posting wraps that they had made into mei tais and podegis. An idea formed for me! So I decided to give this poor wrap a bit of a makeover :)


First, I popped it into a dye bath of Carribean Blue (from Dharma Trading Company), absolutely georgous color of greeny aqua blue!


Here's the drying in the sun picture, but that didn't take care of the tear or the fact that I couldn't use it in a back carry (my prefered method of carrying baby n). So I hit the sewing room and...


Emerged a lovely podegi! I added some fabric I love (and I have a matching handbag you might recall) to spruce it up a bit.

No baby carrier sewing session is complete without an 'action' shot! So my special to me wrap is in use once more- yay for sewing! :)

Love Annmarie

Anna Tunic

Been doing a bit of sewing. :) Decided that since I was complaining about not having clothing that fits I should do something about it! This week I sewed up the Anna Tunic pattern by Amy Butler, have used a few of her other patterns and enjoyed the results and I think this pattern is (for the most part) another winner. My only complaint is in the actual paper pieces. I cut pieces left to right, (being left handed has something to do with that I think) and managed to get confused cutting the back body of the tunic as the size lines were not marked close to the edge. I ended up having it about 1/2 an inch too short (I fixed the pattern after, but unfortunately could not fix the cut fabric) and it really affected the fit of the tunic. It sits a little higher on the neck and under the arms. So I guess what I am saying is, double check before cutting!!

I used some lovely fabric from Heather Bailey's Freshcut Line. The belt matches the top and the hem is bias tape made from coordinating fabric from the line.


I have a close up pic of the buttons, but I am not sharing as I have a crooked line of stitching I need to fix! Covered buttons in same material as hem tape :)


Okay I changed my mind, no laughing at the crooked stitches!

On a whole a very easy pattern to sew, I think it definitely needs to be lined as the lining helps the underarm seam lay nicely. If you have never sewed a curve it may prove challenging to turn and top stitch the yoke. :)

And that is basil in the colander, I made pesto last night! YUM!

Just for fun, (yes my eyes are closed my darling husband said this was a great picture and need to take no more, sigh) a pre-walk picture. The new addition is Ginger, we adopted her from the animal shelter, she is a very sweet 5 year old Russel Terrier mix that the boys adore. (and for the babywearers that is Girasol Peacock that baby N is wrapped in. :)

That's it for today, have a super project I am working on and should finish in the next couple of days!

Love Annmarie

Shh...it's a secret

I haven't been able to post my current project-it's super secret. Well, not a secret what I am making, it's a baby carrier, but a secret at to who will receive it. So sorry, no pics, not going to ruin the surprise :). But I will show y'all upcoming projects.

There. Pictorial evidence that I have these craft books. So now I really have to do a review of them! I was thinking at least one project from each and an overview :). Except the business ones, there are no crafts to do in those! At least that is what I've been telling myself I had to do before I could buy anymore craft books!















If you guessed quilt for quilt month you would be correct. It's okay that I start the quilt in Febuary, i don't necessarily have to finish it, right? It's for baby n, so my plan is to finish by his first birthday in April. (One year in April?!?! It can't be a year already!)
















Yup it's another short post-gotta go make sure the boys are eating their snack and not decorating the floor with cereal.
Love
Annmarie