Demi's Dampaways Wool Shorts Pattern

This is a very simple shorts pattern. Although, it will take more yarn than other soaker patterns. It will fit size NB all the way up to 4T. This one is made with all single crochet (SC) so you can do this even if it is your first crochet project. Single crochet should work well for a night cover even on a heavy wetter. People who knit or crochet a lot might be disappointed with this pattern as it isn't quite as nice as many of the beautiful soakers I have seen pictures of. Green, off white, and orange were used because of their neutrality. They are good colors for a boy or girl.

Demi's Dampaways
SC wool shorts.

Using wool yarn and crochet hook (I).
Starting with green Chain 68 stitches

Single crochet 4 more rows (giving you a total of 5 rows).
Change color to off white and single crochet 5 rows.
Change color to orange single crochet 5 rows.
Change color to green and single crochet 5 rows.
Change color to white and single crochet 5 rows.

With orange yarn chain 5. Count in 10 stitches from edge of off white and single crochet 20 stitches. Chain 5 more stitches.
Make 4 more rows of orange. Tie off yarn.

With orange yarn chain 5. Count in 10 stitches (same as other side) from edge of off white and single crochet 20 stitches. Chain 5 more.
Make 4 more rows of orange. Tie off yarn.

Fold the sides to the center. It will begin to look like shorts now. Sew up orange to form leg holes.

With orange once again start 30 stitches in and single crochet the off white stitches in the center. This time stitch 10 rows. It should now look like this.

Sew up crotch from back of leg hole to front on both sides.

Line up front and sew off white to orange.

Using the yarn ends sew together in the center.

Take a long chain in your color choice and weave in and out to form drawstring.

I hope this is easy to understand. You can email me if you have any questions. I will post pictures tomorrow to show how it works as a one size fits all.

koolaid yarn again.

This is how I did the yarn. This is fisherman's wool yarn. It is about 80-100 wraps around thumb and elbow.

Yarn was tied (not tight) then put some warm water in sink with a squirt of Dawn.

I mixed koolaid in a dish of warm water. The wet yarn was put in the dish and stuck in the microwave for 2 minutes. The dish sat for 5-10 minutes and then heated in the microwave for another 2 minutes. 1/4 cup of vinegar and a little salt was added. This was the first time I ever added salt or vinegar. I read it doesn't hurt anything so I did it. The dish sat on the counter for several hours to cool. After a rinse (the rinse water was about the same temp. the water in the dish was) The yarn was hung to dry.

I did the same for lemon lime koolaid(my favorite), Ice blue raspberry lemonade, and grape. The ice blue raspberry lemonade didn't turn out the color I wanted. I put about 10 drops of blue food color in a dish with 1/2 cup vinegar to try to get the color I wanted.
This is how they turned out. The darker blue is the one made with food coloring. I ended up adding some red food coloring into the grape koolaid dish. It was more blue than purple so 2 drops of red gave it more of a purple color. The food coloring was added after the first 2 minutes in the microwave.

I picked out the lemon lime, orange, and some yarn with no color to make my shorts. My first shorts (ones in my first or second post on this blog) I made with the same 3 colors and some cherry koolaid yarn.

Sneaking in time to make soaker shorts.

I am back! My DD is doing OK with her teeth right now. My son is in the school routine. I am going to sneak in some Mommy craft time. I will be using Kool-aid to color my yarn later today or early tomorrow morning. I am using Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool. I will be using this to make my wool soaker shorts. You can use ANY kind of wool yarn you like. This is my opinion on yarn (I know lots of people will not agree)..... I use Fishermen's wool to make clothing for my DD and I did it even when she was a little baby. It isn't as soft as some wools. BUT! I don't find it hard and very scratchy after I add lanolin. I would love to say that I am the kind of Mom who puts only the softest stuff near my babies skin but honestly I can't. I have to admit that LOTS of my DD's clothes are hard and scratchy (fishermen's wool is SOFT next to them). I have several dresses that have that netting to fluff them out. That stuff can scuff up my skin! Yet I still put them on her for holidays or church. My DD likes her dresses and will pick them out to put on and even scream when I take them off! She must not care if her clothes are soft. I don't have a dryer so some of her clothes are a little stiff. We do have a water softener system so her clothes don't get like sandpaper but they still get stiff. I read that Fishermen's wool takes dye well and is easy to find in a store. My DH picks it up for me at Joann's on his way home from work. It isn't expensive. I don't have to take the children out on a long car ride to get it. OH! THE BIG REASON why I use it is because..... I CAN'T KNIT OR CROCHET! I can't read a pattern. I only know a few stitches and I make it up as I go along. If I spent a lot of money on something I would be afraid of making a mistake. I can make several soakers out of it. You can use whatever you like! Like I said I would love to say I only put the softest on my baby but I can't. I will post it all step by step how I dye and make my soaker shorts. I have never wrote down a pattern before so this one might look a little different than the one I have a picture of posted. I don't ever end up with 2 that look exactly the same. I have never taken pictures or wrote down directions as I went along because I was always afraid they wouldn't turn out. They always end up fitting and working OK.... Yes, they always have of room for improvement because I don't know how to crochet very well. Maybe someone who know "how" would like to improve it. I will be making my next post later tonight or tomorrow morning.

This is what I am spinning. I found that I can spin wearing baby on my back and walking in circles around the house. I am able to help my son with his school work all at the same time. I am trying to spin thicker. I spin very thin yarn all the time. I got to see some ladies that knit the other day and they mentioned my yarn was thin. I need to remember that this is for a baby soaker. I need to keep it thicker. I think this is still a little thin but it won't be that bad once I ply it (I hope). I think if I took the time to learn how to knit I would be able to keep the yarn thickness in my head when I spin.

This weekend.

My son went to a party this weekend. It was a Star Wars Party. The Father of the birthday boy made a pinata it was Darth Vader. It was perfect! It looked like it came from a specialty Star Wars shop. I wish I had talent like that! I should have asked to take a picture. It looked like a expensive mask. I never would have guessed that it could be a homemade pinata! I hope to get better at my crafts. I never think I will gain talent like that but I will keep trying. Maybe when my children are older and have children I will be able to make something NICE?

Prefolds!

I got my Unbleached Indian prefolds. I got them from Vicky Forba's CO-OP comfycreations http://groups.yahoo.com/group/comfycreations/ . They are so SOFT! They are so NICE! The picture doesn't show how nice they are. I will wash them a few times and I might run them to the Laundromat to quilt them up (still don't have a dryer). I got them to stuff my pocket diapers with but they look large. I don't know what size they are. I forgot what size I ordered. I might need to use them as prefolds. I might set a few aside to dye later. I think I have enough die to tie-dye a batch. I will have to check and see.

Fiber festival

My DH took me to our local fiber festival yesterday. I wanted to come home with some rabbits, alpacas, and some sheep but DH wasn't ready for that yet. I did get to bring home some fiber.

This is a Romney Lamb in the grease. I guess I could name my bag and call it my pet lamb. I won't have to ever feed it. I am sure my children would be happy to make some animal sounds for me. It came from Pine Ridge Sheep.

I got 2 silk bells. A "real" drop spindle

This is my favorite!!!!! 1lb 3 oz of hand dyed merino wool roving! I could picture my DD in wool shorts, pants, sweater and TONS of other things. I LOVE THIS STUFF!! The silk, spindle and purple merino all came from Brush Creek wool works.

A few people had Angora rabbits. I wish I would have asked DH to go get business cards and info while I looked for wool to spin. Everyone with rabbits had bunches of people talking to them. I did get a card from Aboundingful Farm Fibers. The card says they have english, french & Satin Angora rabbits. I think we will look into this soon as we get some free time. I think a few rabbits would be perfect for us. We have a small farm but not many animals. We have a large dog and 3 chickens. My son has been trying to hug the chickens. LOL! I think it is time to get a new pet. I need to start looking up info on rabbits.

OK, My DH brought me home this wool WEEKS ago! I know I promised I would share my soaker pattern soon as I got some yarn. I should explain WHY I haven't done that. My 1 year old is cutting a TON of teeth! She can't take the pain! I can't do crafts and comfort her at the same time. I can get many things done by walking her in a sling. The sling is a huge help with cleaning, and doing school with my son but it doesn't help with sewing or crochet. She will not let me sit if she is in a sling. On top of her cutting 4 molars and an eye tooth she isn't sleeping. If she doesn't sleep I don't sleep. I think we both have huge bags around our eyes. I started my sons school year 2 weeks ago. That has taken a lot of moving around of our day. I added in school/ play time for DD last week. To top it all off it rains ALL the TIME! I still don't have a dryer. Call me crazy but I still don't think I want one. I like saving money by not using one. I like having time to hang clothes and think, pray, and get some fresh air. Hanging out clothes is the only time I feel able to spend alone with God. If I am in the house my children see me and "NEED" me for something. KWIM? My computer broke a few weeks ago and it took a lot of my time to figure out. I don't know much about computers and my DH was working lots of hours. My computer is still not working right but it is working some so it will to do for now. Now I think you can see why I am behind. I might not get to working out my pattern for another couple weeks but I will get to it. This week I will have to focus on my school routine. I hope to get it all worked out by the end of the week. Over the last 2 weeks we did get full days of school done but some of our classes got done at night. I hope to start and finish earlier this week. I will have to get up earlier to do that. It might be hard if DD doesn't sleep. I will try my best. Thank you for understanding!

What I plan to do next.

I want to get pictures up of all the things I have made out of old jeans in the next week. I hope to get some more wool yarn and make another koolaid soaker. I want to make another one like the one from my first post Kool-aid and making shorts. I will write down my pattern and take pictures of it as I go so I can share it.
This is a picture of the one I made several months ago. I made up the pattern as I went along I hope to be able to make another like it. I should have jotted down some notes as I went along. If I get some yarn in the next few days I will start it next week.

FOE

This is some of my Koolaid FOE. I love to use Koolaid on FOE and Wool Yarn. For this batch of FOE I put some water in a small pot cooked to a boil. I turned of stove and added a pack of Kool-aid. I gave it a stir until it all dissolved. I then tossed in about 5 yards or so of FOE. I let it sit for about 5 minutes then I pulled it out and gave it a rinse. After the rinse I put it in some cold water with vinegar. When it was soaking in vinegar I tossed in another 5 yards or so of FOE into the pot that still had the Koolaid water. I let it sit for a few minutes and rinsed and vinegar soaked it. When I was done with all 4 sets (2 orange and 2 pink) I put them in sweater bags and tossed them in the wash all together orange and pink. I didn't have any problem with the colors bleeding. I have diapers with this FOE and it hasn't ran at all.

It is hard to see in the picture but the Orange Koolaid gave a BRIGHT Orange the first set. The FOE I put in the pot second turned out a fall orange. Kind of like the fall trees. Both are NICE colors.

This is the pink. I think I used flavoraid watermelon. The one on the right was first batch. The left was the second. I like this method. I can get 2 colors from the same pack this way. I now let my children have koolaid just so I can have some around to use with my FOE and Wool.

My next try will be rainbow FOE. I am going to try to do about 10 yards off all different colors. I will post pictures and let you know if it worked for me. OH! Anyone who wants to color FOE and hasn't yet might want to look up the right way to do it. This way worked great for me but I never took the time to read up on "how" to do it. I like to try and see how things work. I know lots of people would rather take the time and read and do it right. I would love to do things the right way but I never have the time to find out the right way.

UPDATE- From the time I posted this I did get a few minutes to look up info on using koolaid and it looks like koolaid is a good choice to color FOE with. No need to add salt. I read you don't need to add any vinegar because koolaid has enough acid in it already. I will keep using vinegar on my reds. For me it seems to help the color set with red- pink colors.

FOE diapers.

This pocket diaper was made from the fabric I got from http://www.this-end-up.com It doesn't look as nice in pictures.
This is another denim pocket diaper. I cut up my husband's old jeans, add a hidden layer of Procare and Alova for the inner. This is bound with some of the FOE I colored with Koolaid.

Frog diaper.

I used fabric paint for this one. I like the look of fabric markers on thin fabric better than this way. This is fabric paint on pul. I think the diapers with fabric markers might fade this paint looks like it will hold up. I will have to see how they look after 50 washes or so.

Bee Diaper

Another try at a side snap pocket diaper.

My first side snap diaper.

This is my first try at a side snap pocket diaper. I painted the front and back using fabric markers.

Cool Diapers

OK, I think they are cool. They are much nicer than the solid pul or procare ones I make. They are more fun looking than the ones with the lace trim. I used some thin fabric I had and fabric markers. I think I used procare under the fabric layer. This is my DOT diaper.

Bandana outfit

OK, I know that I said I was going to put this up online a long time ago. I am having some problems getting computer time. When I find some free time my blog locks up with the pictures. I didn't know that bandana pants existed until a few months ago. My sister told my Mom about them. After my Mom told me about them a few times I decided to do a google search. What I found looked easy to make. The only thing with them is mine look more like gauchos than pants. I think they are called gauchos that is what we called them when I was in elementary school. I guess that gives away my age.

This is a picture of one of the outfits on a doll front and back. I think it is cute coming from someone who is still learning how to sew and without a pattern. If you want to see how to do it you can see directions on making a pattern and sewing. http://tinyurl.com/lod7o They look much nicer on my DD than they do on a doll!

Getting back to sewing and the blog.

I am very sorry that I have been gone so long. I have been going weeks without using the computer. The few times I did have a chance to sit down at it I found my email had hundreds of messages. I still have a ton of email to clear out I hope to find time to get to it all this week. I haven't been sewing much. I have tried to do some much needed spring cleaning, yard work, fun play time with the children and such. Birthdays, Fathers day, and the big one BABY TEETHING. Our baby spent 2 weeks or so out of the last month CRANKY! Putting her on my back and walking outside in the sling is the only thing she did like. She is now back to the happy, fun and full of smiles baby we enjoy so much. Anyway... I am very happy to be back I have an outfit to share with you all. I will post pictures of it in a few minutes. The children are calling me!