I've been toying with the idea of a getting a serger on and off for some time now. Mostly, I'd dismissed it as an unnecessary luxury since I couldn't bring myself to spend the money on a decent one. Also, I've always been intimidated by how often I've heard they're not that easy to use. But as luck would have it, a cheap used one sort of fell into my lap, and after getting over my initial reticence (and some technical difficulties), I think I may be in love! I'm still playing around with it and getting used to how it works, but I decided to start simple with some diapers and wipes. I must say, this is MUCH faster than turning and top-stitching, although I do still think that Tn'T looks more finished. But assuming I can figure out how to make a rolled hem, this will be super handy for doing a quick finish on the bottom of dresses, and I'm hoping to also figure out how to gather with it so I can make some twirly skirts for E. She loves to spin around in circles lately!I suspect this will end up being a love/hate relationship as it looks like a bitch to thread (I'm hoping to never have to thread it from scratch EVER), and I'm also highly intimidated by the fact that blades are involved.Anyways, here are the first few things I've made with it! The diapers still look a little rough, but I'm happy enough with them.
I am on a hot sewing streak this weekend! It must be because I decided that I was going to have a bunch of crochet done by Monday and I'm such a terrible procrastinator, haha.
In any case, yesterday, I finally tried sewing my own cloth diaper. I've been wanting to do it for a while and even cut the pieces earlier in the week out of some scrap flannel someone gave me, but I only got it all assembled yesterday. It was actually not nearly as hard as I thought. In fact, I was kind of shocked when I finished it and it actually looked like a diaper!
I was so excited that I immediately put it on the munchkin - over her regular diaper. Not only did it fit, but with room to spare, so I'm thinking it's probably a wee bit big. I'm going to have to go back and tweak the pattern a bit. Still, I did take off her regular diaper and have her wear this to dinner (with a cover since it's not waterproof), and it worked great! Homemade diapers, here I come!I also finished a project for a bi-weekly Project Runway Challenge my friend Tracee came up with. The assignment was pretty straightforward: take a piece of clothing from your closet and turn it into something else. I really wanted to take one of T's Hawaiian shirts and turn it into a button-back dress for E, but I couldn't quite convince him to part with one. It was probably for the best though as I suspect that may have been too difficult a project for me. Instead I took one of his old t-shirts and turned into a little tank dress. And just for kicks I added a little appliqué robot. It's my first recon project, and it's also my first time doing any time of gathering for the skirt. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.
I have to confess though, I made a pretty big mistake last night when I put it together. I sewed the right side of the skirt to the wrong side of the top, so all the seams are showing now on the top. I about cried when I realized it because it was kind of a bitch to sew with all the gathers and whatnot. But T said it wasn't that noticeable, so rather than spend all night ripping it out, I decided to do as Tim Gunn would say and carry on and make it work.Here's the before:
And the after:
And here's E wearing it with a smile (she kept pointing to it and saying "bobut"):
