Like Father, Like Son

With the Spring weather has come a whole new batch of inspiration for me...I've put the knitting needles down for a time and opened up the ol' sewing machine.

Before Landis was born, Luke and I were cleaning out closets, and I gathered up some of his discarded clothes, tossed them in a bag, and stuck them in my closet for later use thinking, "Surely these will be good for some boy clothes, right?" So the time came.

We bought this awesome romper for Landis a few weeks ago that looks just like a shirt Luke would wear (minus the snaps at the bottom!), and so I got inspired to turn Luke's old shirt into one. While it was a mind-stretcher for me, since I've never actually done anything like this before, it was super fun, and I was quite pleased with the result, even though I told everyone not to look too close because it was definitely full of imperfections! But that's okay, it gives it character right?

So it started like this...

(the only pic I could find of Luke

wearing this shirt, and no, he does

not play the guitar, he just dreams...)

I laid out the outfit, tucked and turned,

and added seam allowance, front along front,

back along back, to make use of button holes and seams,

sleeve on top of sleeve, to make use of hems,

and collar on top of collar...

pinned, then cut and sewed away...

I also added some cute pockets and sleeve tabs

and switched out the buttons.

So here's the final product....

and a handsome little baby, I might add...

I learned a new saying that fits quite well with

my experience, "What you sew, you shall also rip."

My Favorite Sling

I thought I'd share a picture of the sling I made for Landis. I love, love, love it! I found instructions here, and the cutest fabric at Joann's (which is so close to my house I can walk there, how cool is that). It was so easy. It took me a week because I had a newborn, and I sewed on it for 5 minutes at a time, but if I had 2 hours I could definitely do it in that amount of time. Jan Andrea suggests not using calicos, but the fabric she recommends offers no cute prints. So I chose a calico, and then doubled it and added a contrasting fabric, which she offered instructions for. You have to order sling rings here, but they're super cheap. So Landis loves being all snuggled up with mommy, and it's much better than carrying that heavy baby carrier around.