Sewing Baby Clothing and Life Lately

Life last weekend moved a little bit slower. My husband and I headed up to his family's cottage for a long weekend to spend fishing, boating, and enjoying the sunshine. The weather was a balance of rain and shine each day. We were able to spend the days on a little bit a slower pace, sans the early mornings, traffic, and busy schedules that come with our typical workdays. Since I knew that we were headed up north Michigan and that the activities that I can participate in at this point in my pregnancy are becoming limited, I opted to bring my sewing machine and some supplies along with a goal to sew at least one baby item.

Using free patterns found through blogs, I spent a few hours sewing up two new diaper covers, one with a floral print on a gray background and one with a fun pink and blue rocketship print. The rocketship printed fabric was leftover from the first set of pajama pants I made when I was back in high school (!!!). I clearly purchased way too much fabric for those PJ pants, and I STILL have the fabric in my stash. I don't know if I should be proud or not that I have held on to that one so long.  I feel like I'm giving off a hoarder impression! ;-) These diaper covers will come in handy under dresses and pairing with onesies to make an outfit for our baby girl. You can find the free pattern on Sew Caroline's blog here.

When a couple of other rainy hours hit, I spent some time in the cottage sewing up this cute baby girl dress. This wasn't the first time I've made this dress, and with a little bit of prior practice, it was much easier to sew the lined bodice this time around and conceal all of the inner bodice seams so that there are no exposed raw fabric edges. Even though no one will ever notice the interior of the dress, I like that the interior is clean and finished, as it means less loose threads that might annoy the baby.

I purchased this white floral print cotton fabric at JoAnn's, and with the leftovers, I found a headband pattern to sew up a retro headband with a small elastic stretch on the back. Unlike typical baby and toddler clothing, this is made from cotton, not knit, so there is no stretch. I'm not sure how easy it will be to get on the baby, but it's cute and if she never wears it, maybe she will keep it for her own kids. You can find the free Little Geranium baby dress pattern on Made by Rae's blog here.

In other news, we are almost 7 weeks away from my due date, and I'm feeling a lot of different emotions that often change based on the day. I'm still sewing when I can, both to stock up on inventory for the Etsy shop for after the baby arrives and for my own stress relief. More and more of my time has become about preparing for the baby, and with less than two months to go left, I'm hoping for a smooth next few weeks. Summer is here, and I'm looking forward to continuing to sew up until the baby's arrival. If you have any free baby sewing patterns to share, please post them in the comments! I'd love to add them to my growing Pinterest board.

Have a great weekend,
Erica

DIY Baby Girl Nursery Decals with Silhouette Cameo

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been thinking through a few ideas I had to decorate our baby's nursery, and one that kept popping in my head was flowers. I knew I wanted to do something with flowers, and if possible, I wanted to make something myself using my Cameo. There is one far wall across from the crib that was pretty empty, with just a framed mirror hanging. After searching Pinterest and other decor sites, I had the idea to make 3D paper flowers and place them randomly around the mirror to give the wall some interest and texture without making the room too busy. Our nursery room is small, and the last thing I wanted to do was introduce more decor when I knew that the room would soon fill up with baby supplies.

Late last week, I was browsing the Silhouette blog contributor list, and I came across the blog, Classy Cutter, created by two women mainly focused on DIY projects using an electronic cutter, specifically the Silhouette Cameo. By luck, I came across their DIY Floral Faux Wallpaper post, and thought it would be a great alternative to paper flowers on the nursery wall. I loved the large floral print, and I knew that I could manage to make something similar with supplies I had at home.

While I purchased the same decal template used in the Classy Cutter post ($1!), I modified my application a bit by scattering different size dahlia flowers over the top portion of the wall with more negative space in between. I did this partly because I didn't have very much white vinyl on hand and partly because I was again nervous that adding too much would make the wall too busy. I am focused on keeping the room as simple as possible to evoke calmness and serenity. (Somewhere an experienced mom is laughing at me, I know. We can all hope, right?!)

Applying the decals was tricky given that the vinyl is quite thin with many cutouts. I would describe it like applying a spider web sticker onto a flat surface at a large scale - there were several areas that would fold over from static cling and stick together which I had to spend time carefully pulling apart. With a little help from my husband to apply the decals high up near the ceiling, this whole project took about four hours total spanning a couple of weeknights. Aside from the image purchase, I had all of the supplies already on hand.

There is still a lot to do with this nursery, but it is coming together slowly but surely. By the end of the month, I hope to have much of it complete, with the exception of the organization of the closet, which will take some time and may change when the baby arrives since I'll quickly figure out what I will need access to the most.

I hope this DIY project inspires you to tackle a project at home that you have been wanting to complete but have been hesitant to start. Make Pinterest your friend and start small - when the inspiration strikes, you will be surprised what you can do!

Thanks for letting me share my latest baby DIY with you!
Erica

Plymouth Farmer's Market 2017

Hello, friends! It's been a couple of weeks, and things have been busy! This past weekend I participated in the downtown Plymouth Farmer's Market. It was great to be able to meet many local customers, hear feedback on our burlap bags and pillows, and see some familiar faces from last year's farmer's market. The weather was warm, sunny, and beautiful so it was a great morning being able to be part of the local community here in Plymouth. Although this past weekend will be the only time Lina and Vi will be at the market this year, I hope to have a table next year with baby along for the ride. I'm sure my husband and I will be walking the market later this summer, and I hope to run into some of you then as well.  Speaking of my husband, a huge shoutout to him for helping me unload, setup, and repack everything yesterday despite the heat!

Aside from the market, I have been working on a number of custom burlap pillows these past few weeks both for local customers and customers in other states. It is fun to see where our Etsy orders originate, especially for our Michigan-based stenciled burlap pillows. It always sparks my curiosity to know how someone in another state has a connection to Michigan, so it can be really interesting to receive orders from around the country, not just local Michiganders. Keep them coming!

I announced on the Lina and Vi Facebook page a couple of weeks ago that we will be pausing all custom wholesale orders after June 15th. We are a few days away from that date, so if you are interested in placing a wholesale order for delivery prior to August, please email us at linaandvi at gmail dot com. I will be taking a couple of months off from wholesale orders to welcome our new baby in August, and I hope to be back accepting wholesale orders by the end of September. In the meantime, our Etsy shop will remain open as we have a number of ready to ship pillows, bags, and zipper pouches. Thank you for understanding and your continued support of our small, handmade business!

This week I will be focusing on a sewing a large order of our popular 4" by 6" burlap zipper pouches. We are thrilled to be working with Bundled again, and these are headed over to them to include in their ladies gift bundles later this summer.  I'm working with solid and printed fabric in a variety of vibrant colors, perfect for the summer months. Stay tuned for more updates on progress through our Facebook page.

I hope you are out enjoying the start of summer. I will be back soon sharing a new baby nursery DIY project that involved my Silhouette Cameo - I can't wait to share this one with you!

Erica