ACU carrier

seat straps cinched all the way
for baby mode

While the stitching is rather sloppy in several places, they seem to be functional. Perhaps an industrial machine would help in a few steps, but I'm making due with what I've got. I changed a couple more things with this carrier, and still have one more addition to make once my digital camo elastic arrives (with the webbing for my next wrap conversion). 

This new ACU carrier
will work for both
present toddler
and incoming baby

The waist belt padding is one solid piece instead of three separate pieces. Not only is this easier to work with, and more esthetically pleasing, it seems to be equally comfortable.

The shoulder straps are still big and fluffy, which I love. My strap padding is a little longer and wider than Kinderpack standard straps, almost as long as their plus straps. However, my buckles are single adjust, and sewn so the buckle stays on the strap (or at least once I get the elastic on it should stay put). With our Kinderpack, my husband needs the plus straps in order to not get choked by the sternum strap, while I'm perfectly comfortable with the standard straps. This resulted in needing a special Dad carrier or he never wanted to wear it. I've noticed that with my first SSC (Dandies) wrap conversion, we can go back and forth wearing the same carrier and it works for us both.... or my dear husband is making more of an effort in making me believe I've improved our carrier situation. Our Dandies currently serves as the resident van carrier since it works for us both with our current crew of toddlers.

Proof that this is becoming a bit of an obsession, I want to make "just one more." My husband really likes the pockets on the waist belt, and the uniform label I transferred to the inside of the belt that keeps him from putting the carrier on backwards.

Almost finished...but not quite done

Another naptime, and I was able to get the belt and hood sewn onto the body of the carrier. I tried something a little different on the belt, and while it's tighter than previous seams in this area, the stitching, when examined up close, is not impressive. Having the stitching up close to the firm padding is very hard to accomplish, and so the feeder foot doesn't move the fabric as evenly as I'd like when I'm doing this seam. It hardly moves it at all, so I have to sort of tug at it to keep it feeding through, resulting in a very teeny stream of stitches. While they're quite functional, it's not appealing to the discerning eye.

The straps clash with the ACU fabric in the exact same fashion that the current uniform regulation desert camel boot clashed. I gave my husband a choice between the kaki or black straps. He choose Kaki, staying true to the look of the uniform indeed. The buckles will be black though, as I've yet to run across any other color in all the sizes I require.

Today's sewing...

I wouldn't usually sew in the middle of the week, but as the school children were out for a field trip all day I was home with the little folks, which allowed me to revert back to the good old days when I could sew during nap time.

This is my third soft structure carrier effort, at this point, turned inside out, and not totally assembled just yet. On this one I'm trying to do as much fabric sewing as possible before I start adding the buckles and stitching the webbing ends. It feels like it's going together a lot faster than the first two carriers.

More hints....

Much of my time prepping this project involved a seam ripper. I think I've finally got all the pieces cut out, and couldn't help but pin a few together to get an idea of what it would look like.... because we don't have enough of these laying about the house, I've got to have more of them. Actually, this one is going to be for my husband.

Recycled sheet dress

This weekend's sewing project is operation clear out the sewing closet supplies by doing the project stacked up in my mind. Two worn out sheets are being turned into a dress. The purple Egyptian cotton sheet will be the lining and the butterfly print cotton sheet will be the outside.

Cutting fabric is kind of tedious, but perhaps the most important step. Tomorrow we'll see how much I can get done.

Wrap Conversion

I'll start by saying my sewing machine did not like this project. I broke more needles than I could keep count of sewing this soft structure carrier, and there were things I wanted to do that just weren't going to happen with my machine. Finally, since hatching the notion to convert my wrap, it is done!
I even had enough wrap left over to make a ring sling , though not enough for a padded shoulder, but with fabric this thick, it's not necessary.

The wrap was Dandies by Natibaby, size 6. Now it's a toddler sized soft structured carrier conversion with plus sized straps (so dad can wear it too) and an adjustable panel (for my tall torso kids with short inseams). Yes, that's solarveil in the center. Admittedly, even though I adjusted my Personal Fit adjusters up an inch from the carrier I mimicked, the hood is essentially useless when the PFA's are cinched all the way down (which I have to do for me. But since this carrier's body panel is so tall, I don't think I'll ever actually use the hood for head support. Perhaps we might use it for shade...or not. I'd have to rethink that aspect of it should I ever take on a project of this magnitude again.

Use for old textbooks

Whenever my husband needs a weight for something, the first thing he reaches for is my old nursing school textbooks. When he needs to go on a ruck march, a few of these quickly add up to the 30-50 lbs he needs to weigh down his backpack. Unable to use a vise clamp for glue work, such as the time when he wanted to apply pressure to our t-molding strips over the newly installed kitchen floor, a couple of hand bells and my nursing text books were called up for duty. So if you're about to graduate from nursing school, unless you want to retain those books as really expensive weights, sell them back. On second thought, do they even print up these monstrosities anymore? Perhaps there's now an apps instead of textbooks.

Upcycled dress

Part of the reason I haven't made as many dresses lately is because I haven't needed to. Our neighbors frequently clean our their closets and grace us with a lot of clothes for the girls. The dress in this picture was made from one of the summer dresses given to us. In it's former life it was a big girl dress that was too wide up top and not long enough on the bottom. However, the fabric and print were wonderful and I had just the right yarn colors to match. 

In case you're wondering, this is not the mystery knitting project I posted a few days ago. But they will go together.

Recycle that sweater

I realized that my girls did not have many pants today...because it got really cold at my house today. Yeah! Bring out the wool and heavy blankets, hot coco, wool lined slippers.

I turned my husbands discarded sweater into a pair of sweater pants for one girl and had enough left over to make a skirt and matching hat for the other girl.

I found really good instructions for making pants like this at:

www.greenkitchen.com/blog/2008/09/sweater-sleeve-kid-pants-tutorial.html

However, I must confess I made my pants before finding this site.

Electra Repurposed

Yes, you can take a beat up boys bike and turn it into something a 5 year old girl would love to ride. A little simple green, black spray paint, new white wall tires, new seat, and new basket cover, and it's almost better then the girls' version of this bike. Seriously, we're thinking of writing Electra and telling them our bike is better then theirs.

I made the basket liner, but Daddy Saint Nick did the rest.

While I wait for my yarn

I've got a large pile of clothes and rags sitting by the sewing machine. I really need to keep combing through it and get rid of it all. However, there are some gems in that pile and I just need to fix them and get them back into our drawers.

This rose embroidered dress I made for Charlotte when she was two years old. Then the waist ribbon came off and I needed to hand stitch it back on. Well, now that Felicity is three it's not a moment too soon, ah?

Now, there's this pair of pants that used to belong to Peter. Thankfully, I pulled these out of his drawers before he thoroughly thrashed them. Only one knee was ripped. I'm working on a little applique so that Charlotte can get some wear out of these. Poor girl, most of her pant and short collection are cast down from Peter's thread torn pile. However, she seems to like these already and keeps asking if they're finished yet. No, still more hand stitching to be done, don't you think.

Genevieve's Dress

This sweet little number is another trade dress. Sweet Grocery Bags is making me a sweet little bag. I can't wait!

And I lined it...I'm pretty pleased with how that turned out. There are many cute fabrics I've been tempted to use, but wasn't happy about the fabric's thickness. Well, if I line them it's not an issue. Though I don't usually keep lining fabric lying about. This dress is partially up cycled, as I used a sheet that I'd had cut up for some other project before.