Sunday, November 29, 2009

Tutorial: Making Baby Leggings (Babylegs)

I have been asked by quite a few people if I would share how I make baby leggings for Jeanine so I thought I'd share on the blog. I was shown by my best friend Lauren, who also told me that there are myriad other online tutorials on how to make them, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. This project takes about 15 minutes start to finish, using a pair of knee high adult socks.
Start with these:I buy this kind, but any knee high socks will do:Hey look! It's about 3:05pm!Take your socks, individually or one on top of the other, and cut off the foot, just above the heel and straight across. You can use a rotary or scissors, doesn't matter.You will be using these, don't toss them!Take the foot of the sock, one on top of the other or individually, and cut off the toe, straight across, as close as you can to the toe but before any sort of flaring or tapering of the end of the sock begins.Turn them over now and cut off the heel side, straight across, and again before any sort tapering off or flaring out of the material. You want the middle part of the foot of the sock to be as straight as possible.Here's what's left, not too much waste from one pair of socks if you ask me! Go ahead and toss these parts, you won't be needing them.Here's the foot part of the sock, soon to be a cuff. Mine does flare out a bit, but because my socks were so stretchy and soft, it didn't really matter. With a structured sock you don't want this to happen.Grab the middle of the cuff and fold one side in, so that the "right" side is still out and the edges match up cleanly.Insert your leg portion into the cuff and match up the edges as perfectly as you can. You probably want to work gently and quickly as the edges of some socks ravel terribly and need to be finished off soon!Pin the 3 layers (2 from the cuff and 1 from the leg part) together as shown, all the way around.Sew all the way around using a straight stitch or zigzag (if you really need to prevent a lot of ravelling, use a zigzag). Trim your threads and flip the cuff outward!Here's your finished product! A cute new pair of baby leggings for your favorite little model ;-P Generally they work best with the original cuff at the top, but if they fit your child better the other way, go for it! For pre/early crawlers with chubby thighs, if you sew your cuff on with a zig-zag stitch, they'll stretch further and you could use them longer.

She's wearing them opposite ways, so you could see they work either side up:

My handmade cuff side is down on this one, and I like it best that way on her:

And look, it only took me less than 15 minutes!

Friday, November 20, 2009

More Woolies!

These are from a repurposed purple cashmere sweater that I got from the thrift store for $3.49. So soft and snuggly! And waterproof ;)

Thursday, November 19, 2009

It Must Be Cold...

even the kitties need some extra warmth. Found Ike curled up on the rest of the wool sweater from the longies. It had only been sitting there for about a minute before he found it :)

3 Little Boys, All in a Row...


Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Wool Longies

I just repurposed a sweater that I rarely wore into wool longies for Jeanine. For those of you who don't cloth diaper, it's a diaper cover and pants rolled into one. All I have to do is lanolize it and she can wear it all day as a cover over prefolds, flats, and fitted diapers. I have some other wool things I want to make as well, and one professional wool cover I've ordered, so I guess it's just fun dabbling in a new diapering style. We'll see if I love or hate it! This one is made from the sleeves of the sweater...I'm making another from the body of the sweater tonight if I can get to it!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Solitude


I hate to post yet another post with no pictures of Johnny but she's doing fun stuff lately and he's doing...the same. Don't worry, he's not locked in a closet somewhere while we do fun things with Jeanine ;) haha. Found her this morning sitting under the kiddie table eating Cheerios by herself. So cute! She thought it was pretty fun too.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Sporks are Cool

Jeanine wanted a fork at dinner so I gave her a weird little toddler spork. She ate more than John and cleared her plate! I can't believe at 15 months she can get food into her mouth, especially couscous, black beans, and broccoli, what a genius ;)

Friday, November 13, 2009

Nothing Like a Fluffy Bum!

OK, I know you've all been on the edge of your seats to see my newborn fluff stash (wink, wink) but I just can't help but be excited about it! It's finally all here, in my hands, and the only thing I'm deathly afraid of are those freaky Snappis! I can't figure out for the life of me how to work them, but maybe I need a real baby for it to work? I know I'll like them once I figure it out, no pins here! Here it is, in all its' glory!

^^^Entire stash: prefolds, fitteds, all in ones, and covers^^^

^^^Covers^^^

^^^Just diapers^^^

All in all, it's:
16 GreenMountainDiaper NB prefolds
2 Snappis
6 ESBaby NB/SM fitteds, front snapping
6 GrahamBearWear NB fitteds, side snapping
2 TurnaNewLeafInc SM hemp fitteds and 1 hemp contour
3 NB AIOs, snapped by me (hated the velcro she used!)
3 ESBaby NB/SM bright covers, snapping
2 NB Proraps (1 aplix, 1 snap)
2 SM Proraps
1 XS BSWW
1 SM BSWW

I think this stash should last me from about birth-15lbs, though I'll probably need a dozen yellow edge PFs by about 12lbs or so. SO SO excited to have it all here, off to throw it all (sans covers) in a hot prep wash...again!
Other than this, can you CDing moms think of anything I am just really really missing for a NB? I already have wipes, wetbags, etc. since we CD Jeanine. I can't wait to get our little one in this stuff! Now we don't have to buy ANY disposable diapers at all for the new baby, that's quite a feat!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Busy Much?

I don't feel like I've been very busy, but...see for yourself ;0)




Monday, November 2, 2009