Thank you and a shop update

It's been a while since I've done a shop update. I've been feeling a bit stuck with pad sewing. I still believe in cloth and love sewing it but sometimes I start to feel like I should simplify my design. I start to think of shortcuts, maybe I shouldn't top stitch the entire pad, maybe I should use cheaper fabrics, offer less options, use only a single snap closure. I begin to think all these things so that I can make more pads, make them faster, produce more. Recently I was re-energized by customers who left me wonderful feedback like this...

"The ten pads that I purchased two years ago are still in good shape after many washings. I hope to stock up on enough to carry me through to menopause!"

"Beautiful! Thanks so much for the speedy creation and shipment of my custom order. These are my favorite style/size "light" pads of the many I've tried, so well made and attractive, and the original one I bought from you two years ago is still going strong!"

These comments remind me that my job is not to mass produce and although I may tweak designs here; the care that goes into each pad and the unique design and features of CCC pads are what makes them work so great and stand up so well. So thank you to my many wonderful customers! Here's a picture of a recent custom order....

I just stocked this nursing pad set today, it would make a great gift. Washable nursing pads are amazing. My daughter is 15 months and I still need nursing pads, imagine all the money I've saved using cloth nursing pads over the last 15 months! These ones are made of organic cotton sherpa, they're very absorbent.
Simple bamboo velour topped pantyliners, these are so soft. I hope you can see the detail on the snaps, they each have an embossed daisy on them.

Win a County Cloth Creations pad!

Andrea at Glimpse Reviews recently gave birth to her third baby and has written up a review for a County Cloth Minky topped postpartum pad. Head over to Glimpse read Andrea's review, post a comment and you'll be entered to win one 10" flannel topped pad!

http://glimpse-reviews.blogspot.com/

A vintage pillowcase dress

My aunts are avid thrift shoppers with a weakness for vintage linens. This pillowcase was one of their finds, and I've hung onto it knowing I'd have a use for it someday.

This project was so easy and so fast. There's lots of tutorials out there on how to sew one up here's the one I used
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art55523.asp

This pattern uses elastic across the chest and bias tape to close up the raw edges around the arms and create the ties. It turned out perfectly and this will fit our little girl for a long time since it starts off as a dress and can be used as a shirt as she grows. You can put a shirt under them too for cooler weather. Versatile clothes are the best. I've got a few more vintage pillowcases I'll be making into dresses.

just a tip, this pillowcase had some little stains on it but I washed it and hung it in the sun and the stains are gone.

While I was searching for a tutorial for the little dress I re-discovered this site http://sewmamasew.com/tutorials.php#i6 it's loaded with sewing information and inspirational sewing projects. I love this idea for a patch http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=922 it's making me want to put away my knitting needles for a while and do some hand sewing.

Freshly collected (and just washed) eggs.

Shining again

It's so nice to feel the sun again.

New life to some jammies...

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about up-cycling and re-purposing clothing. I've got plenty of projects swirling around in my head so I'm really hoping I can blog some of them out. This project is honestly kinda boring but it's practical. I do have funner projects brewing :)


So fixing up some jammies....the toes on this pair of sleepers has blown out. But this tutorial may also be helpful if the legs on your kiddos sleepers have gotten to short or if your little one (like mine) is going crazy in footed pj's. Now that our daughter is walking footed jammies are also driving me crazy. After getting this pair fixed up I realized I could also cut off the legs and arms of the sleepers and turn them into summer sleepers.

You'll need scissors, a sewing machine (you could also hand stitch too), thread, and some scraps of knit fabric (an old t-shirt with some stretch would work well). I used my serger but a sewing machine will work just as well.

First cut off the feet of the sleepers *be sure that you cut down far enough from the bottom snap to allow you sewing room below the snap, otherwise you'll be hitting the snap when sewing and that's just a pain* On this pair I left about 1.25" below the last snap and it was perfect. Baste along the bottom edge about 1/4" this just helps keeps the pieces aligned when you sew the cuffs on later.














Cut two rectangles from your knit scraps, these will become the cuffs. Make them approximately 5" by 3.25" (the pair of sleepers I'm working on are a 24m size so depending on the size of your sleepers you may need to make the rectangles smaller or larger). Fold them in half so that the two shorter end meet. Sew along this end, leaving 1/4" seam allowance.














Then fold the rectangle into itself so that seam becomes hidden (I should've taken a better picture of this). What you'll have is a cuff so the raw edge will be sewn onto the raw edge of the leg of the sleepers and the folded edge will be the bottom of the cuff.














Now pin the cuff to the sleeper legs. Pin them together so that the raw edge of the cuff and the raw edge of the sleeper meet and they're right sides together. Then sew along the cuff, leave a seam allowance of 1/4" or so. Remove your pins and fold down the new cuffs.














See, good as new! I know my daughter is going to love her new found foot freedom in these jammers :)