Drive By

I'm going to keep things short today. It is a beautiful sun-shiny day, the temperature has a nice crisp feeling, all my kiddos are home and healthy, and my Dear Husband is a grump! How is that for irony? (in his defense, his holiday is being spent replacing an alternator for the second week in a row!) I also have to finish an order that is going all the way to Romania! I'm just astounded that I have a customer on the other side of the world. The www is certainly an awesome tool.

Yesterday I mentioned that I would show you how to use wool in your diapers as an extra-super-duper soaker, without having to knit, crochet or buy expensive wool interlock (though it IS a really yummy fabric). You want to start with a heavily felted 100% wool sweater. It doesn't matter what kind of wool, it just needs to not be "superwash" (meaning you can wash it in the regular laundry without expecting it to fit a dolly). My newest sweater is in the dryer as we speak so for the purpose of this, I used an "oops" pair of woolies that are already felted to the point of no more stretch.

Then you want to sketch out your pattern. Be creative, and don't worry about symmetry, it's getting peed on, it doesn't really have to be pretty.

Now take your cutting tools (I couldn't function without my rotary cutter, but scissors work fine), and cut out your pattern pieces.

Now you should have some super felted wool soakers to use as a booster for your diapers! You can choose to lanolize them so they don't have to be washed unless they are "dirty" and only wash them when you do your regular wool laundry routine, or you can leave them un-lanolized and just throw them into the diaper pail to be washed with your diapers. You can sew them together, serge them, or leave them as is. Because they are heavily felted, there is no need to "finish" the edges because they wont fray!!!

Ta-Da!

Bonus: Remember a long time ago? Like yesterday? I showed you my super awesome scrappy wool dryer balls? (lol say THAT fast 10 times) Just so happens I have a picture of the pattern piece I used to sew my ball. I cut 6-8 of them to make the ball, depending on the size, though I found that having more pieces didn't really affect the finished size of the balls (see yesterdays post). The pieces are 4.5" long and 1.5" across. HAVE FUN!

Ch-ch-cha-Changes (you have to sing it with me now!)

You might be noticing that things appear a tad different, then again you might not! Melissa (Ethan's Mom) was very sweet to send me a note that my facebook followers feed was eating into my blog posts. No matter how I tried to tweak the other layout it just wouldn't work. So I set out to find a new template. It was so easy this time! And because I had a dose of good Karma coming my way, the new design required no searching or tweaking, it compliments my new Hyena Cart design so very nicely. That's one change.

I've mentioned the new hyena cart (Grand Opening November 15th!) store, but what I didn't mention is that I got a new logo as well! Heather of Dragonfly Designs did a fantastic job of designing my store front and logo! She does beautiful work.



Second, We are ditching dryer sheets and saving gas! I've been repurposing with a purpose. I love, I mean love with all caps LOVE working with wool. Sadly I can't knit or crochet to save my life (sorry Grandma, I tried) so using thrifted wool sweaters is my means to getting fabulous wool for diaper cover and such. (side note; did you all know you can actually use wool IN your diapers as a soaker? With no special washing routine too boot! Amazing stuff, I'll show you how tomorrow.) Anyways, I found a fantastic, X-Large 100% wool mens sweater and made a cover plus two pairs of longies. There were some scraps and the frugal part of me hated to just throw them away. I took some of the scraps, wadded them into a ball, then wrapped them up tightly with my wool yarn (leftovers from my last attempt at knitting). Then I took more of the scraps, cut leaf shapes out of it, sewed them together and stuffed the yarn ball into my sewn ball. Hand stitched the opening closed, stuffed THAT into a knee high pantyhose and tied a knot. Repeated the process two more times and then washed and dried on hot twice. I now have some nicely felted wool dryer balls. I LOVE them.

Last share of the day because this is becoming a novel. Did you see those two absolutely fabulous animal print diapers?! Those are being submitted to the pattern maker of the Happy Snap One Size (great diaper!) for licensee approval. I had to temporarily give up on drafting my own diaper pattern. I just don't have the time right now and would like to use a widely popular diaper in my stores. One that has a tested fit and I know works (not that mine don't work, they have just only been tested on my kiddos). I'm crossing my fingers, but regardless these will be listed on my hyena cart.

Kuddos and cookies to you if you made it through all my rambling!

A Project a Day

I have lots of big plans for my growing by the day stash of fabric. I plan on making Christmas this year instead of buying it. My kids have too much as it is, and those store bought items seem to be quickly forgotten. I have a total of 9 kids to give gifts to this year, and three of those kids (mine) have birthdays during the two weeks surrounding Chistmas. Needless to say, the holidays are a tough but fun time of year for us.

I have to make:

1 makeup case

1 tote

1 childs apron

1 pot holder

1 childs chef hat

5 eye spy pouches

3 chalk mats

3 art totes

3 chalk/crayon rolls

3 super hero capes

3 soft blocks

3 monster loveys

1 pencil roll

As you can see, my sewing "plate" is full. Added to that, I am in the process of starting an Etsy store selling my cloth diapers, wraps, and childrens clothing. Busy, busy. Thank goodness this isn't a "job" to me but a passion and escape. I'm going to try to post each project as it progresses, or at least as it is completed.

This weekends wrap, bamboo/cotton jersey, hand dyed. Decorative cotton panel for extra support and to make it extra pretty.

Here is todays wrap, bamboo/cotton jersey. Has a decorative cotton panel and cell phone pocket for added support and functionality.

How it all began..

I never thought I would ever be labeled "crunchy" by anyone. Then I decided to stay at home with my oldest son. Well, actually it was decided for me by several doctors. I suffered from severe PPD and going back to a high stress job just wasn't in my (or my patients) best interest. Unfortunately that made a negative impact on our finances. So I tossed around the idea of cloth diapering for a while. And then tossed it around some more. And then discarded it as too much work, and too great of an initial investment.

Fast forward 18 months to the birth of our second son and the loss of even my babysitting income, the inability to breastfeed him for an extended time and we really needed to cut out something, somewhere. Then factor in two babies in diapers, the two bags of trash a day, needing an extra city refuse can, and the overall stench of disposables and we (mainly I, DH defers diaper duty as often as possible, sneaky man) were ready to take the plunge.

So off I went into blog, forum and shopping cart bliss, researching everything there is to know. I spent weeks glued to my computer. Where I quickly discovered that with my diaper budget (about $100 a month) I would only be able to buy about 5 quality diapers each month. WTH?? Hmmm, I thought cd'ing was supposed to save you money? Ummm, yes and no. You see, cloth diapering is in vogue now and it isn't the flats, pins and rubber pants of yonder years. These can be as chic as you want them, or those prefolds and birdseye flats that make most people shudder are still around. I stuck with my budget, bought the diaper service quality prefolds and vowed to find a way to get the good "fluff" without breaking the bank or swayiing from my original goal to save money.

And somewhere along the internet highway I found my calling, to be the crunchy/hip, cd'ing, babywearing, babyfood making momma I was meant to be.