Baby Swimsuit

I'm no stranger to sewing swimwear.  In the past I've drafted my own pattern from store bought suits.  Recently I came across Patsy Aiken Designs and fell in love with this adorable swim set.  I have a little baby niece and let's face it, sewing for babies is so much fun! 

 Though I've sewn quite a few suits for my daughter you can see HERE and HERE, I can never leave well enough alone.  I feel pretty comfortable using my coverstitch machine for most things, but have not had success with swimwear. 

 So like the crazy lady I am, I spent all weekend conquering my machine and all this spandex.  After much trial and error, I finally got it to work, though I'm not positive I could do it again.  The striped suit came out great, but my first one was a bit of a disaster.

 This flower print fabric is heavier than the stripes, and I used a thicker elastic.  Not sure if that was the problem, but my machine did not like it.  I kept getting skipped and uneven stitches.  It looks cute if you don't look too close.

 Ultimately I put in new stretch needles, went with a thinner clear elastic, a lighter fabric and it worked much better.

This pattern is very cute, but be forewarned, the instructions are all words, hardly any pictures.  If you've never sewn swimwear before, you'll need to have your computer closeby for help.

Can't wait to see this suit on my little baby niece!

EASY Rounded Zip Pouch TUTORIAL

 With the holidays kind of right around the corner, I started sewing up some little zip pouches with extra fabric in my stash.  These pouches come together really quick, are great for using up larger fabric scraps AND make a great gift.  Who doesn't love a zip pouch?

Here's what I did.  First, get the pattern HERE.

You'll need 2 exterior pieces, 2 interior pieces and a 9 inch zipper.  I added a fusible interfacing to my exterior fabric, but this is totally optional.

 Clip or pin your zipper to one exterior piece, right sides together, with zipper pull hanging off one end (zipper tape lined up to the other end).  

Pin the INTERIOR fabric on top of the zipper, right side facing down (not sure how I missed this picture, sorry!).  Sew through all 3 layers with a zipper foot and a 3/8 inch seam allowance. 
When you fold back the layers, it should look like this.  You can see the pink INTERIOR fabric in back, with wrong side of interior and exterior together.

Repeat with the other exterior and interior pieces.  

So, you'll pin the exterior piece to the zipper with right sides together (as shown).  Then place the INTERIOR piece on the other side of the zipper, right side facing the wrong side of the zipper.  Sew across the top with a zipper foot and 3/8 inch seam allowance.

 Here's what is looks like when all the pieces are sewn to the zipper and pressed down.  You can topstitch next to the zipper if you like.

 With the zipper opened all the way, match the lining and exterior pieces.  Starting at the lining piece, sew all the way around, leaving about a 3 inch opening in the bottom of the lining.  Cut off the zipper end and turn right side out.

Either by hand or by machine, stitch the opening in the lining closed.

Done!  I sew fairly quickly and each one took me about 20 minutes start to finish!  How great is that?

The Little Boy Learns to Sew

This is kind of stating the obvious, but sewing is a huge part of my life.  My daughter has been at my feet in my sewing room since she was an infant.  When she started getting interested in sewing, we happen to win a copy of Sewing School 2 and for her birthday, I got her a Janome Sew Mini sewing machine.  It served it purpose, but it's quality matched it's price; cheap.  All of a sudden, the little boy turned 7 and instantly decided he wanted to learn to sew too.

 We turned to our Sewing School 2 book again and just like that, he made a few projects and caught the sewing bug.

 Our little Sew Mini was on it's last leg and after a few projects, it finally bit the dust.  I went searching for a replacement machine with only 1 feature in mind, speed control.  My sewing machine has a little dial where you can reduce the machine speed regardless of how hard you press on the foot.  I think for kids, this is really helpful.  But, I wanted something affordable as well.  I finally decided on the Brother CS-6000i.

 I can't say enough good things about this machine.  Keep in mind, I am not being compensated for any of this, so these opinions are totally not influenced.  The machine costs less than $150, comes with a billion little accessories, has a great LED light, and it super easy to thread and use.  We had it out of the box and the kids sewing with it in a flash.  I'm so happy with our purchase and it's feels so wonderful to have taught both my kids the love of sewing.

This little gem is going straight to the keepsake box!