Sewing Baby jeans (Capri) from a boys long sleeve shirt tutorial

I am posting this now for a friend to look over my instructions. I know I will need to do some more editing over the next week. I do plan to redo the cuffs and waist so I can get more pictures of how I did them but I will not have a chance to get that done in the next few days. I would like to add a drawstring waist and pocket instructions to go with this pair of pants but I might save that for another tutorial to keep this one simple. I have a tutorial of a similar pair of pants but stretchy ones in the works. I just need to finish writing it up. I will get to that sometime next week.

This tutorial will show you how to turn a boys (size 6/7) shirtsleeves into baby Capri pants (size 9-12 month). If you use an adult shirt you can make pants for an older child.

Picture #1
Picture #2

Picture #3


The pictures above are all of the same pair of pants. Picture #1 is pants made from only shirt sleeves. Picture #2 is pants after I cut off the shirt cuff and added a little fabric for trim at the bottom this would be an easy way to add length if you wanted longer pants. Picture #3 shows pants with added waistband an easy way to make pants roomier in the bum.





Story behind how this project got started...

I was doing some spring cleaning/sorting out clothes for season change. I came across this shirt in my son's dresser.




He wears a size 9 BUT this shirt is a size 6/7. WAY TOO SMALL and it is very worn. It isn't in good enough shape to give away (has holes in it) but I didn't want to toss it out. My first thought was to use the shirt to sew a fitted outfit for one of my little girls (using the button front of shirt). I was running short on sewing time so I decided to just use the sleeves (I will share what I did with the body of the shirt when I get some free time to finish that project up).

This is a project simple enough for someone who doesn't know how to sew to do! All you need is a sewing machine (it's simple enough you could hand sew it), thread, scissors, some elastic, and an old shirt. I have a TON of pictures to help make this as clear as I can. If you don't understand something feel free to comment or email me at schoolnsuch@gmail.com



First cut off the shirt arms.
Once I cut them off I noticed how the sleeves just above the cuff look like the bottom of Capri pants. That is why I decided to make them in to baby Capri pants.


Because I wanted to use the area just above the cuff for the bottom of the jeans I placed them on the table like this.

If I wasn't trying to make Capri pants I would have set them on the table with the double stitched side seam on the out side. If you want the traditional blue jean look just run the seam showing in the center of the above picture on the edge where the button/cuff part is. That will move your seam from the front of the pants to the side.

Take a pair of pants that fit your baby and turn them inside out. Then stick one leg inside the other.


Set pants on top of sleeves. Line up bottom of jeans with how you want the bottom of pants t0 fit. If you don't want to add an extra band for the top of pants make sure you have lots of extra room at the top. For a thin waistband have your sleeves extend 2 inches past waistband on pants you are using for a pattern. Take a pencil, pen, chalk or marking pen and mark the crotch J on sleeves (the way I have it laying it is a backward J shape). This doesn't have to be perfect! Baby clothes are very forgiving! Extend your J shape to the cut off place on your sleeves.


You should have something that looks like this. I ran this red line 1 or 2 inches beyond the top of my pattern pants.


Cut out J's in both sleeves. I have them turned around in this picture. It just shows the red pen mark from above picture cut out in both sleeves.



I am sorry I didn't remember to take a picture of the jeans laying on top showing room for waistband below I drew a line to show the extra fabric needed at top to hold waist elastic if you don't plan to add an extra waistband. If you don't have this extra room it is OK I will show a fix for that later on.

THIS IS IMPORTANT (very simple but you need to follow this step exactly).
Turn ONE sleeve inside out. Stick the other sleeve (one that is RIGHT SIDE OUT) INSIDE the sleeve that is inside out.

When you double check, you should have an arm inside an arm, the outside one will be wrong side facing out. The inside arm will be right side up and a nice big lined up U shape should show (this is shown below in next 3 pictures).

BOTH RIGHT SIDES SHOULD BE TOUCHING EACH OTHER.





Below is another view of what you should have. On the left side of the picture, I have opened up the layers so you can see I have them right sides touching each other.


Sew the large U shape you now have. Start at the top of the left side and follow around to the top of the right. I used my machine foot on the sewing machine as a guide for my seam allowance.
Turn them right side out and you should have two legs of what is looking like a pair of pants. I don't take measurements or use patterns so I like to use my children to make the clothes. If your child is around try them on to check to see how they are going to fit.

Fold down the top making sure you have enough room to fit your elastic AND are high enough to fit baby. If they are not tall enough in the waist that is OK! You can add on some fabric to make them longer. I will show that step later on. If you can't try them on your child you can use the pants you used before as your pattern for this step.

I like to sit her up to check the fit in the back. To me it seems the room needed in back of pants changes when checked laying down and sitting up so I like to check both ways. I don't think this step is necessary but I feel I get a better fit by doing this step. I use this method when my baby is awake (if she is sleeping I use another pair of pants as a guide).

Either hold the fold or mark it with a pen before you take them off the child. AFTER I took them off her I put a pin to hold the fold down. In the picture below I put the elastic on top of the fold so you can see I have enough folded over to sew the elastic inside. Remember, if you don't have enough room, I will show a solution to that later on. Notice, I made the back higher than the front on the pants. I did that to make room for my baby's cloth diaper bum.

Again, I don't take measurements so to get elastic length I use my baby's tummy! I marked in red the place the end of the elastic touches once it goes around the tummy.

I don't like to fish the elastic inside a long narrow tunnel so I like to take a very long piece of elastic and lay it inside the fold sewing it in as I go. If you do it this way be VERY CAREFUL NOT to sew on the elastic! I use my finger to feel that the elastic is far enough inside as I am sewing. I put a mark in red so you can see how my needle does not touch the elastic. If you are new at sewing you might want to mark all along the elastic line and keep peeking inside the fold to make sure you elastic doesn't slip under the needle. When sewing along you might find places that the fabric doesn't seem to want to follow along the fold at top. It will seem like the inside of the fold (cut edge) is wider than the fold. That is because it is. I just add a couple tiny tucks (2-8) when I am sewing. I couldn't get a good picture of this so I drew a line along my tuck. See the slanted line near my thumb? Just add one in whenever the fabric on the raw cut edge gets loose compared to the fold. The top line shows the hidden elastic and bottom one (slanted line) marks a small tuck. If my finger wasn't holding down that tuck you would see a large open hill. The fabric wouldn't lay flat.



I left about 3 inches open from the start and stop elastic tunnel.

HOLD TIGHT the short end of the elastic. If you haven't done this before or you are in a hurry you might be better off pinning the short end so it doesn't slip inside the pants. Once you have a good hold of the end slide the long end of the elastic (elastic from the place you quit sewing at) scrunching back the fabric to expose the length mark on the elastic.
Sew the elastic together. You should double check to make sure the elastic is not twisted before you sew. In the picture below my pants are in front of me just below my fingers.
You should now have something that looks like this.
Snip the end that is not part of the waist loop.




Close the open space so the elastic doesn't show at all. I used narrow elastic and I didn't want it to twist up so I tacked down the elastic in a couple spots. I sewed my tiny tacks a lot longer than I normally do just to show it better. It is a small spot of stitching just above the large jean seam. Normally I like to hide them in the side seam stitches (ones just below the place I put it) but if I did that you wouldn't be able to see it. Making 2-4 of them around the waist will keep the elastic from getting twisted.

Here are the finished pants

Action shots!
I now wish I would have buttoned up the cuffs and even rolled them up and shared pictures. I knew I was going to cut of the cuffs so I didn't think to do that when I tried them on her.


Here is a close up of a worn spot in the cuff. This is the reason I didn't pass this shirt on to a smaller child and felt good about cutting it up to make baby things.

So to fix the hole in pants problem I cut of the cuff.

I opened up the fabric and added some fabric over the cuff. I didn't take picture of this step. Here is a closeup of the fabric on the bottom.




The fold marks at the bottom cuff you see in this picture will fade or go away once the pants are washed.









The pants fit my baby well but if you don't have enough room in the waist, sewing on some fabric to add height to the waist works well. I used the seam ripper to take out my old elastic tunnel so I could show this part. Just cut a rectangle long enough to go around the entire waist and wide enough to add the amount of room you want to add to the rise of the pants. In the picture below I added two inch of fabric (folded with elastic inside) and attached it all around the top of the pants. This added over one inch to the top of the pants and a bit more color. More could have been added but I didn't want to make the pants so big they wouldn't fit my baby.

View below is of the pants inside out taken right after I finished sewing on the new waistband The elastic is inside the rainbow colored fabric. The white thread you see in this picture (on the bottom of the rainbow fabric) is because I serged the ends of this fabric. It was a strip of fabric I was using to set up my surger. I like to my scraps when I can so this scrap became a waist.



Here they are, on my baby, with the added fabric to the top. If a piece of fabric from the original shirt body was added to the top instead of this rainbow fabric it would blend in and look exactly like the rest of the pants. If you didn't want to add elastic a draw string would be very simple to attach.
Here is a back view. It is hard to see how roomy the extra waistband made the pants.

If you are new at sewing and this project didn't turn out exactly how you wanted feel free to email me for help. Don't get upset if the fit isn't perfect! The wonderful thing about using old worn out clothes to sew with is making a mistake on something that was going to be trash is no big deal! Look around for some more very worn clothes and try again.
If you try this project I would love to see or hear how it turns out!
I used all white thread on this project because #1 it was already in my machine. #2 I was just playing around. When I play around at creating things with fabric scraps or old clothes I don't always change the thread (often want to kick myself for doing this when my experimenting projects turn out real cute). #3 (the big reason) White thread showed up well in my pictures. I wanted you to be able to see my stitches.

Demi's Favorite Outfit!

OOPS! I just noticed that I never shared Demi's favorite outfit! Sorry about that! This is her pretty, pink, princess outfit!

Here is the reason Demi only wore the blue bandana outfits for a few minutes. I like how it covers her all except for her shoulders but is very light weight and cool.

Once she knew I was done sewing this outfit she insisted wearing it. She LOVES this outfit! If she had her way she would never take it off. She calls it her pretty princess clothes.

I love it myself but I am not sure I love it because it is cute or or if it's because my daughter loves wearing it.
It is a gaucho style pants with a halter style top.

Side view.
With her hair down most of her body is covered in this fun summer outfit.
I have around 50 pictures of her in this outfit. She has worn it 3 times in the last week. I have made her over 10 new outfits but this is the only one she wants to wear. It is in the wash all the time. She squeals with excitement when she sees me folding it. OK, It doesn't get folded because she begs to put it on before I get a chance to fold it.
My hubby thought I was getting a bit carried away with the bandana clothes so I had to take a bandana break. If I can talk him into letting me get a few more bandanas in a few weeks I will make up a tutorial for making this outfit. It took me under 30 minutes to make it. If I don't get more bandanas in the next week or so I will tell my children all Mommy wants for Mother's Day is bandanas. I am sure to get more that way! LOL!!!

Another Demi dress

This dress took me a lot longer to make than it should have. I didn't think out how to make it before starting the project. That caused me to run into a few problems that required a lot of thinking along the way. I hope if I make another 5 or 6 this style I will be able to make them a lot faster. I didn't use a pattern (same story as all the sewing I do) I just made it up as I went along and used Demi to size it. The bottom fabric of the dress is made with some linen fabric my hubby got me last year I had it laying in my fabric box all this time I thought it was time to do something with it. The top part of the dress is made from stretch denim. It is actually fabric from worn out maternity pants I had from when I was pregnant with Demi. The denim stretches and it has some extra room on the top part so she can easily get in and out of it. I added two snaps to attach the shoulder straps. My hubby said it looks very Gymboree-ish and like something he would buy if he saw it in Gymboree. That is a HUGE compliment from him! He loves store bought stuff and he isn't big on handmade clothing so comparing my outfit to a store he likes to shop in makes me feel good. I figure she can wear it with or without a top under it. She LOVES this dress. She doesn't like it as much as her princess pink bandana outfit but she likes it more than everything else she owns. She yelled and fussed every time I had to take it off her to make adjustments. I still haven't turned up the hem because she wouldn't take it off the last time. She wanted to keep it on and twirl around like a princess. I don't know if she likes the style, the fabric, the weight (it is much heavier than the other outfits I made), or if she likes the way the fabric twirls out for her but I do know she really likes to wear it.

I hope to make a matching sister dress in the next few weeks. I had to take a sewing break to finish up some friendship projects I was working on.

Bandana Pillowcase Dress.

Demi didn't wear this for long because she wanted to put back on her princess pink bandana outfit. My pictures are poor because I wasn't thinking about sharing pictures when I took them. She was playing on the porch with her baby sister when I took the pictures. I will try to remember taking better pictures next time she wears this dress.

More sister clothes

After my first sister outfits I stopped by Walmart and picked up a few more bandanas. I remembered the way I made Demi's first halter tops.

Above is a picture of Demi just after her first birthday (almost 2 years ago). She is wearing an outfit I made from USA bandanas.

I decided to try and make a similar outfit and this is how it turned out.She has grown a lot in 2 years! I don't think it is a bad outfit but I don't think it looks as cute as it did when she was 1 year old. I figured it will be fine for play in.

Below you can see something I don't like about it. Her tummy shows. She is only 2 (almost 3) so it isn't a big deal I wore shirts like this until I was 6 or 7 but I prefer the triangle hanging down covered tummy look. If I decide I can't stand the tummy showing I will just sew the top to the pants to make a one piece outfit. She only had this on for 15 minutes so I will have to look at it the next time she has it on.

Demi's outfit I made with 3 bandanas. Two for the pants and one for the top. I had one left so I decided to try to make something for Zee with it. I cut the bandana in half and made this.


I wasn't sure I would like the gathering on a bandana but I gave it a try and I think she looks very cute in it! The jeans she has on with it have embroidered flowers and hearts on them. I think she has a cute 60's-70's look.

Sister outfits

My next project was sister outfits. I took some linen fabric my hubby got for me last year (I was going to make a sling but never got around to it). I wanted to start simple because I haven't made anything in a very long time. I took the same simple halter idea and made one with a square of fabric. I surged the edges of the square and folded it down. I made a simple elastic skirt, and a matching pillowcase dress for baby Zee. I was very disappointed with my sewing. It turned out ugly looking. I later figured out that I had a very dull needle in my machine. My machine is once again running like new. Even with the bad sewing I think they are cute matching play clothes! Zee's dress fits as a top for Demi.


Here is the outfit with the halter tucked inside the skirt.

View of the back.

Picture with top out.Zee in her pillowcase dress.

5 minute outfit

I have been sewing!

Warm weather hit us just over a week ago. I wasn't prepared for such warm weather so early in the year. Demi only had a couple things to wear so I put all my crafting/friendship projects/ and spring cleaning aside to whip up some warm weather things for my girls. To be honest I was racing my hubby. He likes to buy clothes and I wanted an excuse to sew. If he noticed the girls didn't have clothes he would have went shopping and I would miss my chance to fill my girls empty dresser drawers myself.

The first outfit I made I made a week ago Friday. I was meeting a friend for a play date at a local playground. Demi spilled yogurt down the front of her (all over her last clean summer outfit) about an hour before we needed to be at the playground. I needed an outfit quick so in a rush I dug in my box of sewing projects. I thought maybe I would find a started or finished project that would work for a play outfit for the day. I often start sewing things and don't care for the way they are turning out so I toss them in a sewing project box with the thought I can fix them or finish them another day. I didn't find any outfits for her in the box but I did find this.
Another friend had called the day before and mentioned a halter top that I made (I had forgotten about making a bunch of halters a couple years ago). When found this lonely bandana I jumped for joy. I am so thankful a friend said something about halter tops or I would have had to cancel my children's playdate because of a yogurt dribble!

A look in her dresser and I found play pants.
I added a ribbon to the bandana, added a few drops of fray check to the ribbon ends, cut off the pants, a quick little roll up on the cut off shorts and stitched the sides to hold the fold in place. BAM! A 5 minute outfit.
OK, my five minute outfit might have taken fifteen minutes because I did have to keep an eye on my three children and grab the ribbon, scissors, and fraycheck out of my craft bin and I needed to plug in my sewing machine.

I know this wasn't much sewing (more like tacking things in place) but it was enough to make me want to sew more. The 5 minutes I spent with my dusty machine was heaven! I remembered how much I love my sewing machine! I knew that I would have to spend some more time with her soon.

I did to a lot more sewing over the last week and I have lots of pictures and even some tutorials to share but my children are getting a bit hyper so I will have to write more tomorrow.

HAPPY COLORS update.

I just noticed that I never showed what I made with my happy color yarn. I didn't have enough to make socks for Demi and share left over yarn so I made tiny socks for Zee.

I did dye and spin some more yarn and I did end up making Demi some socks.
Because she had to wait for me to make hers I made her an extra pair.

Demi isn't thrilled with her socks. She doesn't like to wear socks on her feet so I have taken a break on making her socks for a little bit. I am making Travis up a pair but he wants to color them himself so they are just plain right now. I will take pictures of them when he does the coloring of them.

Taking a long hard look in the mirror.

A couple friends I have did some very kind things for me several months ago. They gave me some beautiful handmade gifts. I still feel so special every time I look at these gifts. Receiving these gifts has made me change who I am. I love to give things but I never really took the time to make things that took any amount of time. I am trying to force myself to make more time consuming things. I feel that by doing this I am getting so much more out of giving. I am trying to use my painting, sewing, knitting, or spinning time I enjoy so much as time praying for, thinking of, and just appreciating the friendships I have with the person I am making something for. In the past I would only make things that I could do quick. When things got hard or didn't turn out like I wanted I would get frustrated and toss it in my need to finish gift giving box. My boxes of unfinished gifts grew into 2 boxes. I even told myself (justified it) with some not so nice thoughts. I have said to myself many times things like...Well, this person can spin, knit, paint, craft, or sew better than I can so I am wasting my time making this junky thing. I also say things like this person should have something nicer than what I can make so I won't make this. I know this is childish! I know this is wrong but that didn't stop me from doing it over and over again.

I am starting to think different about giving now. I am not putting focus on the "gift" part of giving. I know that doesn't make sense. What I am trying to do is 1. Be thankful that I have hobbies I enjoy. 2. Be thankful for friends that I can think about, pray for, and enjoy knowing when I am doing my crafting. 3. Get a happy feeling of finishing something and not tossing it in a box to forget about it. 4. Enjoy the good feeling i get when I get to give the gift. I use to get upset when a person didn't like my gift. I no longer feel that way! I now look at it that I got to have fun making something. When I was making that object I was able to pray for and treasure a good friendship. I then feel good about finishing something that took time to do. Last I am excited and get to enjoy handing something to someone! WOW! Now that I look at gift giving this way I am able to not feel bad if it isn't something a person likes! I would be OK if they tossed it in the trash in front of me. That is a HUGE life change for me! I now view it as I already got so much out of the making the object the way a person responds to the gift when they receive it doesn't matter so much. I am making things because I like to make things. I am doing it for someone because they matter to me. I am not making something because I want them to do this or that with the gift. I made it because I like them and was thinking about them. So they can toss it and that would be OK. I think they will know someone was thinking about them and to me that is the point of giving to friends.

I still feel sick over all the times I have said to myself that someone can make something so much nicer than this and because of that I won't waste my time finishing this project. I now think that sure that is often true that many of my crafty friends and family can make nicer things than I can but why should that give me an excuse to quit? I think they should still get a gift just so they know someone was thinking about them and know I treasure the friendship I have with them. Often as moms we all spend so much time doing for our husbands, caring for children, teaching children, cleaning the house, cooking, doing laundry, changing diapers, and wearing ourselves out with no thanks or pay for our hard work. I know when someone gives me a gift I feel special. I often feel like a dirty old dishrag doing all the yuck work I have to do in my day. When I receive a gift or a call from someone I loose that dirty dish rag feeling. I want all my friends and family to be able to have days not feeling like a dirty dish rag and feel more like someone who is a treasured friend. I am making a lot of progress with my new way of looking at things. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me. I hope writing this all down I will look back and not go back to my ugly ways.

This has changed some of my relationships already. A person I know told me at Christmas how happy she was that she received sock yarn from someone as a gift. I decided that spinning her sock yarn would be a good gift for her. Once I started the project she told me that she doesn't like sock yarn. It is to thin, hard for her to see, and difficult for her to work with. She didn't know I was making her yarn she was just saying how she felt about something. I once again went back to my old way of thinking and started getting frustrated that she wasn't going to like what I was making for her. This time that feeling didn't last long. The next day I got the thought that I could knit her up the socks with the sock yarn I was making AND make her a thicker yarn she can enjoy. I now feel good having a reason to do more crafting!

Once I started thinking this way our relationship changed a lot for the better. This person is someone who I haven't had the best relationship with. I suppose everyone has that one difficult relationship they struggle with. You know that family member, in law, neighbor, or friend that you don't see eye to eye with. In the past it has always been easy for me to say she did this or that to me and it hurts! My hubby and friends are always on my side and able to see how this or that hurts me. I always felt that if others agree with me I must be right. Funny thing about this is I have always said that right and wrong doesn't apply to relationships. I am always trying to tell my husband and children how misunderstandings (wrongs) in our house go both ways that 2 people BOTH played a part in it. I have always had an easy time seeing the other side and explaining it to the other person. It hurts for me to now look in the mirror and see that it took 2 people to have that strained relationship I have struggled with! I should have been doing more and trying harder to support, pray, and love this person. I was NOT doing that. SHAME ON ME!!! I am happy to say that wounds are healing and we are working on a relationship now. I am happy to take the call when she calls and I look forward to seeing her soon. I am planning several get togethers with her next month. We have a lot in common I am going to focus on that and enjoy being with her. I hope to keep looking at my own ugly side (my wrongs) when the next problem pops up between us and find ways to keep a good relationship with her. .

This thinking has made me take a look at ALL my relationships. I am now thinking that I must have upset, hurt, or made mad everyone I know. Every time I toss something in a box and don't finish it I am not being a good person. Whenever I don't take the time to think about how lucky I am to know someone I am not being a good friend. When I fall behind on email, don't call, am cranky from not enough sleep, not trying to help someone, not asking friends what they need, not asking what they need me to pray for, and so on I am not being a good friend. The list of how I am not nice to people, not being a good friend, have hurt or wronged a person goes on and on. When I think about it I know I could spend a full day writing that list! I feel so sick to my stomach thinking about it all! I am working hard on changing this! I will never have this all together but I know I can make a huge difference if I keep trying. Just the thought of how every time in my life I felt hurt by something someone did to me and knowing that I somehow played a part in hurting that person. I have either caused this hurt and wronged my friends by 1. doing something that made that person want to hurt me back. 2. Frustrated a person with my ignorance and caused hurt. 3. Not responded to them in a kind loving way because I was feeling hurt. 4. Stepping away from a relationship when I feel hurt. 5. Hurting back because I was so hurt I reacted instead of loving. or some other way that I haven't thought about yet. I am sure that I have played a HUGE part in all my hurt feelings. After doing some thinking about this I now know that I have in some way at one time hurt everyone I know. That is a hard thing to think about! I am trying to improve and become a better person but this is something I have a TON of work to do to make all the changes I need to make. I have started to give apologies to everyone I know. I have a long list of people I have to say I am sorry to and thank them for being a friend. I think it is going to take me a lot longer than I thought to get to everyone on my list.

Time is another thing I never gave enough thought about with gift giving. For some crazy reason I have always thought SPEED and TIMELY giving are a focus of my giving. I am now trying to look at it that speed and time have nothing to do with giving. Sure I think a gift holiday or party gift should be done on time but most of the things I have been making are not for a party they are just little thank you for being a friend kind of no holiday gift. I know if someone was making something for me I would not want them to feel like they needed to rush. I would never want them to feel anxious, get short with children, miss out on time with a husband, skip housework, view making something as a chore, or any other stupid things I have done in the past when I am making something! I have no idea why I often get into some kind of get it done race the clock kind of thinking. Now that I am taking my time and thinking about the person I am making something for I feel it is OK to put it down and take care of what I need to do. Making something in 1 hour or 1 month doesn't matter. I have never had anyone say I heard you are making me something can you finish it now! Most of the time the person has no idea I am making something for them. Why did I rush along or turn something fun to do into a chore that needed to get done so many times? This is such a wonderful way for me to look at things. I am able to take care of all I need to do, make my gift, have fun crafting, and enjoy every minute of it.

I am still struggling with gifts that need to be mailed out! I know I must be missing the simple solution with how to mail things. It shouldn't be that hard to walk into the Post office and ask to mail my boxes. It has always been a simple task until I had 2 children. Now with 3 children it seems impossible to do. Trying to get school work done, housework done, baby feed, boxes in car, and get coats and shoes on everyone feel like it takes a lot of time. Then by the time I drive downtown the baby needs a diaper change and to be fed again. Getting out of the car and into the PO with boxes, a baby, and a toddler is so hard. My son can't keep a good hold of my toddler. She is squirmy and strong so I have to be the one to hold her hand. She listens well most of the time but she is a toddler and does throw some tantrums. I always worry she might try to run off in a parking lot or toss herself on the ground in the parking lot. I am always worried about her safety. When you add in a baby that has to be carried and packages it gets impossible to figure out! If I did get that far the waiting in line with my active toddler, baby, and boxes gets VERY UGLY! My baby is still nursing and she wants to nurse for comfort when she is in a strange new place. I am not the kind of person who feels comfortable nursing my baby in public. My toddler doesn't stand in line well so chasing after her is exhausting. I don't ever leave my children in the car. My husband told me that his cousin once went into a tiny country corner market and left her child in the car. Someone stole her car with baby in it!!!! The person wasn't trying to kidnap the baby he wanted the car. I don't think this is something that happens often BUT I can't get that thought out of my head so I will not leave them in the car. I hope once Rob is done with training and he has more weekdays off I think I will either ask him to mail my stuff or I will have him go with us and he can sit in the car with the children when I run in. Until I mail out my stack of boxes I have waiting to mail out I can't make anymore gifts to mail out! All that is happening is I am staking up boxes and then everyone moves them around room to room corner to corner out of the way. My family views them as in the way junk. Just a few more weeks and I hope to take care of this problem.

I now feel that I have so many things I need to work on. I know this list is very small compared to all the things I should be working on but at least it is a start and I am making progress. I hope if someone reads this they don't feel like I am saying this is what everyone should do and how you need to do it! I often think and do things that is not a good fit for others. I often do things that isn't good for me! I might look back at this several months from now and think WOW I was way off when I thought that way. I am only writing this because if it is what the Lord wants me to do I want to keep doing it. I often slip back to my bad ways I hope writing it down keeps me from slipping back.

I am feeling so happy that I have made so much progress in this area! I am so thankful that 2 friends inspired me to work on changing in this way. 2 loving gifts in one week at the end of last year has changed me so much. I feel that a lot has changed in my thinking and my doing in just a few months. I hope to keep moving along in a helpful, positive, kind way. Maybe someday I will get all my unfinished projects in boxes done and who knows maybe doing them all will improve my crafting skills enough that I can be proud of my crafting and not look at it as something someone makes nicer than I do. I now see that giving is so much more than the not telling your right hand what your left one does! I use to think everything about giving was simple and easy I now find it a bit more complicated but I also am finding it more enjoyable.

HAPPY COLORS!

I am trying to save up $700-1000 of emergency money. I have tried so many things and when ever I feel we are making progress something pops up! The reason for needing this money is for car repairs, home repairs, and emergencies. Rob is good at investing money but when the car breaks, a pipe leaks, or an appliance quits we have to wait several days to move investment money over to our bank account. Today our furnace quit. At this rate I might never be able to shop again. So deciding to use what I had I went searching for some dye. I pulled out some neon food colors a friend gave me a long time ago. I had so much fun!!! I made some deep purple, green apple, apricot, and sky blue. I didn't plan on using this yarn for anything but a few swatches so I went color crazy!

I have to say I forgot how much fun dying roving is! Even more fun than dying it is spinning it into some wild combos! I don't get to do it often because I hear a lot of talk about dye lot and repeating patterns in yarns from knitters and I can't get that when I use this method. I understand that is how some knitters likes yarn but I love the colored singles with all the different color changes along the way. My son Travis took a look at it when I had this amount spun...



He said to me "I like that yarn you're making for Demi's socks." I at first looked at him like he had 2 heads but after taking another look at my sample yarn I could see socks for Demi. I never planed to do anything with it but odd socks would be fun for Demi. Below you can see more color changes in the yarn.


When I got this far I had socks on the brain for my colorful toddler so I quit and wrapped it on the niddy noddy and gave it a soak. It is dripping dry right now.
I have never made socks for children. I have only ever made 3 socks. My first one was about the size needed for a 4 year old. I guess I will use that to scale it to size. I will let you all know how it turns out. My plan is to make a pair for Demi then spin the rest of fiber I have colored like this and offer it to a friend who has 2 small girls. I only dyed a few oz but I think it is enough for 4 children's socks. It has lots of pink, purples, and peach so I think it says little girls. It might knit up ugly and I will have to can the project but I am crossing my fingers and going to give it a try. I have a sock on my needles already so I will not get around to trying this any time soon.

Trying to blog again.

I am going to try to get back to blogging here again. I had a much harder time recovering from delivery than I expected. I am still not myself. I still have a bit of pain from the rip in my bladder that happened from my C-section. Baby Zee has had reflux. I keep telling myself her reflux isn't bad (just mild) but I don't think that is true. She spits up all over everyone many times a day. On her best days we have well over an hour of straight crying. It does seem to be getting a bit better but she is still gets lots of tummy aches and heartburn. I always thought reflux only happened with formula fed babies. Boy was I wrong!!. Some nights she will sleep and not wake up screaming in pain (she and I can get up to 6 hours of sleep once and a while). BUT the nights that happens are the ones that I sleep sitting up on the couch with her laying propped up on my chest. I feel like I am always very tired but life with a baby is a happy kind of tired. KWIM?

I am not sure what I wrote about last. My wonderful hubby took me to our local fiber fest just before baby Zehira was born. He bought me 1 pound of merino, 8 oz of some nice blue fiber, and an angora bunny! I decided to split my merino in 1/2 to make birthday presents for 2 of my friends who knit. That took me until 2 weeks ago to finish up (4 months)! I think I finished the first 1/2 back around Oct. But the other 1/2 took much longer. I don't think that my life was so busy that it had to take me so long to finish it. I kind of think sometimes I take my time spinning my fiber up because I am worried I will run out. I would like to think that I am a person who cares so much about my friends that running out of fiber wouldn't cross my mind. BUT if that was true why did I stretch out my last project until my hubby gave me more for Christmas? I am going to try to keep focused on my friends more this year and not be worry about running out of wool to spin. OK that is easy for me to say now because I have a 1 pound ball of merino fiber sitting in front of me. LOL! See the Christmas gift my hubby gave me! I think I might be able to get another pound in March. I guess I have no worries about running out of fiber for now.

I need to sew up some new diapers for Zee. She is quickly outgrowing the ones I made up before she was born. I will get to that in the next couple weeks.

OH! BIG NEWS! I learned to knit and I made a pair of socks! I am so excited! I always thought knitting socks would be very hard to learn. My children gave me a set of size 3 double pointed needles for my birthday (end of Dec) . I didn't want to try using them because dpns looked scary to me but the excited voices and looks my 2 yo and 7 yo gave me saying mommy now you can make socks like grandma does! I felt like I had to at least try (couldn't let them down). I am so happy I gave it a try! I had so much fun making my first pair! I see many more socks in my future! I am still at the beginner level knitter and I might not ever advance any because my dream was to learn to knit socks. Now that I can knit socks I don't know that I will ever try to learn anything else. Below is my first pair of socks. I only made ankle socks beacuse I was worried I would run out of yarn.

Other than spinning up that pound of wool I got from the fiber fest. I made some small baby things. I made a couple soakers and a few baby booties. This is my favorite pair.

I didn't use a pattern I just did my own thing in a size to fit her foot. LOL! They work well she doesn't kick them off. My soakers still need buttons on them. I have been using them with a snappy. I will take pictures after I take the 5 minutes to put buttons on them (they don't look nice with the snappy on the front).

My husband and son have been using the computer a lot playing games so I have been having a hard time getting much computer time. I hope to set up our old computer sometime in the next couple weeks. The computer can't run the games my husband plays but it will work for me to blog (I think). I hope when that is set up I will be able to get more computer time!

OH! I joined Ravelry. I signed up to join before Zee was born. I waited for my invite but by the time I got it I was either giving birth or recovering. Then the holidays hit and things got very busy. I went to accept my invitation and I had lost it!! I was happy to get another invitation right away and this time I accepted it as soon as I got it. I am a bit confused about what it is and how to use it. I am putting my projects in it. I think it is so nice being able to put a list on the computer of things I am working on. I think it will help me remember what I have planned. I have a bad habit of forgetting what I am working on. Things get busy and I often put things in a bag and tuck in a closet and forget about them. I then start something new a few weeks later. I think this is the perfect solution for me to keep on track! I don't have any patterns or friends on it yet. I don't belong to any groups. I hope to figure it out as I get some computer time to read and explore. I hope to run across a spinner and find out how they use it. I am not sure how to list my projects because often they are yarn. Not knitting just yarn for friends. KWIM? I signed up with the name schoolnsuch because I wanted to be able to remember my name. LOL

Well my baby is no longer happy being rocked in this office chair. I need to go walk her to sleep. I hope to be back soon.