Jul 17, 2011

getting my creative groove on

Anyone who knows me 'in real life' will know that I am NOT the most creative person in the world - hell, I'm not even the 5,000,000,000th most creative person in the world, but it seems that I am starting to become a little of a wannabe homemaker, because I have started SEWING...  Sewing is something that's never interested me until now - at high school I failed our little sewing module terribly... possibly because my best friend and I were paired up and were more interested in breaking our machine.............

Moving on... A couple of weeks ago [or was it last week??] I completed my VERY first sewing project EVER..... a pretty pink fleece soaker for Emersyn.  I think I have mentioned it on my blog, but keep forgetting to put photos up - because I've been concentrating so much on the night time issues we were having.  But now that's all resolved, I've had time to actually do some of the bloggy things I've been meaning to do, including posting these photos of my very first soaker.

front view of the soaker - not too bad if I say so myself 

and the back...
 THEN yesterday I decided "hey, why not try to make a proper diaper", so got my thinking cap on, and decided that I could probably trace around a diaper I already have - and use that for my initial shape, then surely I could just use some fabric for the outside, the inside - and the absorbent pads inside the diaper, which I decided had to be a fitted that pins up [because I lack elastic and velcro or snaps, and waterproof material]....  what follows are the photos of the diaper that I saw in my mind - and it's actually turned out to be pretttttty much exactly what I had imagined in my mind...

diaper in its pre-use state
my little Emmy-Boo modelling it
action shot number 1
action shot number 2
What none of the above photos tell you, is that BOTH of my creations were made using recycled fabrics that I already had at home...  The fleece soaker was once upon a time a big fleece blanket, that had gotten a bit ratty over time, and the fitted I made?  The outer material is from a baby blanket that is no longer in use, the inner fabric is from a long sleeve t-shirt that I no longer wear - and the absorbent pad inside the diaper is made from the sleeves of the long sleeve t-shirt. 

I believe the term for all of this is 'upcycling' - and I quite like the concept too.  I now find myself looking at clothing and manchester in a whole new way, particularly fleece that has embroidery on it.... infact the soaker I'm working on now has a butterfly on the back - that was once on the fleece blanket.  I always feel like I"m wasting things when I throw them away, or shove them in the wardrobe knowing they'll never be used again, but now it's kind of like these items get a new lease on life.....

2 comments:

  1. Omg I can't believe you made those on your own!! They look so good! Lucky baby and good job mummy :) wish I could sew too haha...

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  2. Haha thank you - but trust me, if I can make something like that - ANYONE can.... believe me.. I'm the least experienced sewer in the world

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