Crafting and Sewing and Pinning

Working with my hands, and just making something is my destresser, and boy have I needed that lately.  Baby has recently hit my least favorite faze of child development:  Teething those molars and mobile but not fully independent but not wanting help from you, but also super clingy, oh, and irritable!  Fast forward me a few months PLEASE!  Oh and sleeping through the night and taking normal naps during the day aren't happening.  So believe me when I say "I was losing my sanity!"

So striving to gain back some of my identity and Sanity and happiness, I've been trying to find, no, MAKE time for working with my hands.

This is what I've been up to lately...

I've been scoring Pinterest World to help me materialize my ideas.  Pinterest is the perfect place to go if you have an idea but want to see other people's trial and errors before attempting yourself.  I knew I wanted to make a onesie dress for years now, but first I needed a sewing machine, and second, I needed good ideas and bad ideas to compare.

Here's a Pinterest Idea:

Click on the picture to find this dress on Etsy, the lady has a cute shop of handmade stuff.

So after medling and comparing, and tediousness, this is what I made last night.  It took me about an hour, I didn't measure or really have a whole picture when I started, this just kind of fell together :-)

And it actually fits!  I was worried about a few stitches :-o

Next up were some more onsies to make cute...

This one blogger shared how to make fake collars, and even though I didn't follow her tutorial, I knew i needed one...

Click on the picture for the full tutorial over at driven by design.

Initially, I made the collar pieces for the dress, but wasn't loving it, so I put them aside.  After adding a bib to this shirt, I thought the collar would be the perfect touch.  I still want to add some cute buttons down the front, but baby was screaming at me so I'll just save that for another day!...Also, sewing on buttons is the devil.  I hate it.  I hate them.  Why do they have to look so cute??

Yes, this bib is totally crooked! That's what happens when you sew inside of a teeny onesie and have the speed on high...I am not proud of this. But I think the crookedness adds to the 'je ne sais quoi' that is handmade ;)

Now we come to the layered ruffle onesie.  I found this one while I was searching for ideas on something to make for my friend who was having a baby.  I found this and loved it, so I copied it.  When her daughter passed it along to another friend, and she shared a picture with her adorable little squishy wearing it, I kept thinking, "Why haven't I made one for Emy yet?!!" 

Click on the picture to visit this sellers ebay shop.

Adorable Squishy Evy rocking the one I made back in October 2012.  I could eat her up!  And I'm jealy of her orange sweater!

The one I made for Emy last night, for the ruffles, I used a sleeve scrap from an old tshirt of mine.  I have another sleeve and might use it to make a matching shirt for KennaKat.

Stinker would not pose for me!

Another project I totally stole from pinterest was this really great tutorial on how to make felt bows.  So I copied and I love!  I tried to trace back to the original post, but couldn't find it.  Here's the link to the tutorial that I used.

These are so fun to make and I completely copy catted it!

I also knitted a hair bow for her.  I had this idea a while ago and a few months ago, I knitted a ring for my Sister in law who loves rings!  So Friday I sat down and knit this one right up :)

I must admit that I feel like I just walked out of a day spa, working with my hands is that fulfilling and refreshing!  I have a feeling I"m going to be making a lot more stuff in the near future. Ahhhh :)