PJ Pants for Girls camp:
I have not been posting any new projects recently because most of my spare time has been used for girls camp! These are the PJ pants we have been working on. Last night the girls got to sew their pants together. It was a great activity and it seemed like everyone had a fun time, no one got too frustrated and I think all the girls but one finished their pants!

I began this PJ pant journey last month when I was told that it is a tradition in our ward to have matching PJ pants at camp. So I looked at fabric on line, pulled an old pattern out of my pattern box and it took off from there.

I did the math and according to the pattern, we needed to have 47 yards of fabric! So I knew I couldn't just go down to walmart and buy it. I went online and found Joann fabrics to have the best prices. I showed the girls about 8 different fabric choices and everyone had a different favorite. but this striped fabric seemed to be something that everyone at least said that they liked, even if it wasn't their favorite. By the time I ordered the fabric it wasn't on sale anymore, I used a coupon, but it was about $1 more a yard than it would have been if I had got it during the sale.

After I ordered the fabric, I was reviewing the receipt so I could turn it in to be reimbursed. And then I noticed that they were only going to send me 27 yards! that's a little more than 1/2 of what I needed. I decided that I would just take a trip out of town to some JoAnn Fabric stores in the area to get the amount I needed.

We had planed for the activity to be last Thursday, but Thursday came and I didn't have any fabric on my doorstep. So I called and they said that someone else ordered the fabric the same time I did and it turned out that they were only going to be able to send me 25 yards of fabric. And that is what delayed the order. So I had to make some quick phone calls and inform everyone that the activity would be switched to next week. Just in case there was another shipping problem, I went out of town that weekend to get the extra fabric I needed.

I washed it and began cutting out the pieces for each girl to have a pair to sew at the activity. Even though I had gotten some extra fabric, I was still 7 yards short. So I came up with a creative cutting idea. Instead of following the pattern, I cut the fabric from salvage to salvage. This made the stripes go vertical instead of horizontal and used less fabric per piece. The only problem was that it was a few inches too short. So I made some pattern directions to sew a decorative trim for the hem instead of just folding the bottoms in and stitching them in place. Another benefit of having the salvages at the waistband and at the hem was that the girls didn't need to worry about double folding them when they sewed to keep them from unraveling (saving fabric and time.) I also made little name tags for them to sew into the pants so they don't get their pants mixed up at camp. The fabric I ordered arrived a few days before the activity. So I washed a bolt of it and we used it at the activity.
Things went VERY smoothly at the activity. I couldn't believe how UNstreesed out I was. I was sure I would be going crazy the whole time. But we had 1 adult to each girl, and a few adults who were non-sewers. So I spent most my time supervising. our Non-sewers brought refreshments, fans, power strips, extension cords, and basically set up the room for me. We used the long banquet tables at the church and had 2 machines at each table. We had 8 girls in total making their pants.

I have 2 1/2 bolts of the fabric left. I still have to make pants for the girls who were not at the activity, for the leaders, and something for the priesthood that will be at camp. But I think I will still have about 1 bolt left. I am trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the fabric. Should I not turn in 1 of my receipts and keep the fabric and if so, what should I make with it? Or should I turn in all the fabric receipts and save it for next year so they can make pants for just the new girls and the girls who went this year can bring the ones they made this year?

What would you do with a bolt of cute stripe fabric like this?

All Boy:

My Sister asked me to make a nursing cover for a friend's baby shower. after looking on her registry this is the design I came up with. I like it a lot, but decided that the dog is too much work to be done unless it is specifically requested.

I tried to applique the dog out of some cotton fabric I got at walmart and it was not going so good. so I went back to look for fleece or felt because I knew they wouldn't frey. But the selection at our store was so small I couldn't find anything close to what I was looking for. So I ended up going to the thrift store and buying a fleece holiday sweater and a little boy's fleece vest to use as my fabric.

For each nursing cover that I make I always make a bag to store it in. It is large enough to store the nursing cover and a baggie with a handful of breast pads.

Also, I now have directions on how to store the nursing cover. I had Gwen be my model. I was trying to get her to hold it in a particular way and she was having a hard time. Forgetting that she is just 3 years old I got frustrated and she began to cry. I felt horrible and had to take a break to tell her she was doing a great job. If anyone who already has a cover wants the storage directions just let me know.

Sophisticated Momma:

I was going for a dressier look on this nursing cover, The main fabric is a sage green with a swirly floral design woven into the fabric. The neutral colors make it sort of gender neutral and more like a Mom accessory than a baby accessory.

Homemade Fruit Roll ups

My friend Rachel, the domestic diva, told me how to make fruit roll ups this week and we have made them several times. It's so easy!

1.) Clean and core some fruit. (We did Cherries the first time and Apricots the second so we had to pull off the stems and take out the pits.)

2.) put the fruit in the blender and puree it. (The cherries were easy, but the apricots were so big and thick that we needed to add a few tablespoons of juice from the fridge before the fruit would start blending. We used cranberry-pomegranate juice and it was yummy!)

3.) tape some plastic wrap to a table outside in the sun on a hot day. (If it's not a nice day you can put it in the oven at 200 degrees.) Let the fruit cook in the sun all day. (it's hot enough here that if I put it out before noon the fruit is done before the sun goes down.)

4.) Once the fruit is dry and leather like all over you get some scissors and cut the fruit with the plastic wrap still attached into squares to be stored in a gallon sized zip lock bag. the fruit is good for up to 5 years!!! Gwen and I LOVE it!!!

I have a lack of boy nursing covers, but I just made this dessert camouflage nursing cover. It is made of the same fabric used for Sam's uniform. I got a TON of the fabric so I could make some covers to sell/give as gifts, make a diaper bag and maybe even have some left over for anything Sam might want me to make.

It has some dark brown material for the neckline and some khaki webbing for the trim. I think the next one I do I will add the brown material under the khaki webbing to help it stand out a little more and make it more visually appealing. Also, if the covers are for a military family, I will go to the uniform center on base and get some patches to sew on. I think I will get a Sea Bee patch to put on one and save it for some day when we have a boy.
Because it is made out of uniform fabric it is strong without being too heavy.

Here's another nursing cover:

I made 2 of these and sold them at our Girls Camp garage sale for the price it cost me to make them. I know that I sold at least 1 of them.

The neckline is yellow, the top is a soft pink, the bottom stripe is white eyelet and there is a cute little flower I made out of the flower pattern from the rainbow quilt I made a few months ago. I enlarged the flower, but if I do this one again I think I will keep the flower the same size and make a cluster of 3 flowers instead of 1 big one.

Summer night gown:

I made a summer night gown for Gwen out of some princess fabric we found in walmart's clearance fabric section. (for those of you who checked out the sale I hope you found as much good stuff as I did. I hit the sale 3 different days and got a lot of stuff for quite a good deal!!!) I hope they leave enough stuff so that we don't have to leave town every time we want to do a project.

The gown came out pretty much like I had envisioned it. I had wanted to use some ribbon, string it through the neck line (one in the front and one in the back.) But decided that it wouldn't work right. Looking at the finished product I think I should had stuck to my original plan. It would have been faster and less frustrating.
I began the project letting Gwen help me, but by the end I was yelling at her that she needed to leave me alone so I didn't get mad at her. (oops, it was too late for that. Better luck staying calm next time I suppose.) Here are the steps we took, I've changed them a little so go with my original plan so next time it's done the way I want it.

1. I held the fabric up to Gwen and cut it off to the appropriate length, remembering that I needed to leave extra fabric to turn under on the top and bottom.
2. I took that fabric and folded it in half, touching the sides together, not the top and bottom.
3. Then I put the pieces on top of one another and folded them in half side to side again. I cut off part of the top corner to make arm holes.
4. I sewed bias tape along the right side of the fabric on each arm hole, folded it over and stitched in the ditch on the other side.
5. I folded down the top to make a casing for the ribbon on both the front and back. I pressed the casing and sewed it.
6. Sew the side seems together. The seem should start on the top with a larger seem allowance and taper out to a normal 5/8ths of and inch about 1/2 way through the garment.
7. Now string the ribbons through the front and back of the neck line and tie them together at the shoulders.
8. Try the gown on and choose a length. Press in a hem and then sew it with the machine.

The dress I made Gwen is a 3T size, but if the ribbons are used, the dress will stretch to fit several sizes as long as it is not too short.