Super Simple Baby Blankets

When K was a tiny baby he hated being swaddled. He was also an awful sleeper. Before baby T was born, I was dead set on the fact that he would be swaddled and he would like it. I thought that maybe swaddling T would help him sleep better. So, before T was born, I did some research into what type of blanket is best for swaddling. I know there are specific swaddling blankets, in fact I have a few different ones (that K hated), but I thought for how expensive they are, if the baby hates being swaddled it would be such a huge waste. I would do this the old-fashioned way!

I found that 1 meter by 1 meter is a good size for a blanket and given that it is hot, hot, hot here I thought a thin gauze would be nice. So, before T was born I headed to the fabric store and got 1 meter each of two fabrics.

The blankets were super simple to make. I just washed the fabric and ironed it. Then without measuring, I ironed the edges in twice, about 2.5 centimeters each time. Without even pinning it, I just sewed on the very edge of the fold.

When I got to a corner, I went all the way to the edge of the blanket, turned to follow the edge, turned again at the corner and one last time to make a square.

I think each blanket took less than 15 minutes from ironing to finished product. They look pretty simple, but I wasn't going for anything crazy here. I figured simple would be best.

It turns out T hates being swaddled as well. He might also be the next Houdini. He has broken out of every swaddle I've ever put him in. In fact, he has even broken out of the swaddles when I've used the actual swaddling blankets that I had bought for K. I don't know how, but he got his legs out of the pocket and arms out of the blanket and then had the whole thing wrapped around his waist. It was fairly impressive.

Luckily these blankets aren't a total waste. I use them to simply cover him up or for him to chill on. He seems pretty oblivious to them.

In other news, I have been seeing more and more neighbots recently. The other day as I was taking out the trash, I saw a little neighbor boy and his mom. The mom asked about the T - was it a boy or a girl, etc. The little boy then goes, "Wait! You already had the baby? Why is your tummy still big?" The mom explained that it takes a while for the mom's tummy to shrink back down. I felt like saying, "Listen kid, it's been two and a half weeks. Cut me some slack!"

Birth Day Cake??

OMG! It is hot. I am uncomfortable. I want this baby out of my body.

We asked the doctor if there was anything we could do to speed up the process, but he just kind of laughed and said that outside of medicine we are out of luck. He did recommend walking a few weeks ago and I have been walking about 6 kilometers a day, sometimes twice. Y and I even climbed the 14 flights of stairs in our condo the other night. After our appointment on Saturday, my friend  sent me a link about a "labor cake".  (Thanks, B!!) Apparently the idea is that chocolate might bring on labor - sounds as good as any other random idea out there and hey, it's cake!

The problem with the recipe in the article is that it calls for both a Devil's Food cake mix and a box of instant chocolate pudding. I won't be able to get either here, at least not without some major searching (my mom, who is visiting, won't let me leave my neighborhood in case I go into labor, so that's not happening) or paying a lot of money for it and then having to wait for it to be delivered. Instead I tried to think up the most chocolatey cake I could remember and I came up with a perfect one, which happens to be Y's favorite!

The recipe is written in the link above (just click on Y's favorite), but it starts with eggs and sugar, flour and cocoa powder, and butter all in separate bowls.

You mix the eggs and sugar for 8 minutes. My mom and I split the work.

Then fold in the dry ingredients and finally the butter.

Throw it in a pan and bake that bad boy up.

While it is baking you have to get cracking on the truffle filling. Melt cream and chocolate in a pan.

Get it so it's nice and smooth and all mixed together.

Beat more eggs and sugar over a double boiler for 6 minutes to cook up the eggs a bit. Pull it off the heat and add the melted chocolate. Beat for another 6 minutes and then cool it in the fridge.

By that point, the cake should be done. It should have pulled away from the pan while cooking, but if it didn't (mine didn't this time), give it some help with a pallet knife around the sides.

Once the cake and the filling have cooled a bit, slice the cake in half horizontally. Wash up the cake tin and then put the bottom layer back.

Cover the bottom layer with half of the truffle filling.

Top with the second layer of cake.

Finish off with the last of the filling and then put it in the fridge for 5 hours. The goal is to have the filling flow down the sides of the cake, so before putting it in the fridge, I give it a few good slams in hopes that will help - it's always worked.

My mom and I ended up waiting 3 hours. Dude, it was getting late and I needed to at least try to go into labor last night. I pulled the cake out of the tin and plated it, but I didn't like how the sides looked.

Once I ran the pallet knife over the sides, I thought it looked much better.

So shiny and sleek from the top.

Then we cut into the cake and gorged ourselves on dark chocolate. Yum. Fingers crossed my contractions start soon - my mom leaves in two weeks!! That being said, I had a piece of the cake last night, one for breakfast and I am about to have another right now. No signs of baby yet, but my fingers are still crossed!!

One-Trick Pony

I fear this pregnancy and my lack of clothing is turning me into a bit of a one-trick pony. Here is (yet another) maternity t-shirt. I actually made this one (and took the photos) a while ago, but kept forgetting to have Y take a photo or two of me in it. I wore it maybe three times and this last time, while washing it, a dark brown pair of pants bled onto the white fabric and it is now unwearable. I am a tad bummed. Does anyone have any tips to get the tan out? I soaked it for days in Dawn dish soap, but I am a bit at a loss. I would just bleach it, but the back is patterned and then that will be ruined. Gaaaa...

Anyway, since I wanted the front to be white and I had some spare white jersey laying about, I just used that. It was a bit thin, so I cut two layers for the front and sleeves and basted them together.

When basting I used a stretch stitch so that the seams wouldn't rip. This meant, however, that I skipped over the segment to be ruched. Then I went back and ruched it up. It was a bit of a process, but it worked!

As per usual, the shirt was a breeze to whip up. The one minor issue that I keep forgetting to write about when posting about this shirt is the fact that I find the sleeves too long before sewing. It is very possible that I cut out a different size sleeve, but to be honest it doesn't bother me much and I am a bit too lazy to open up the pattern again and check. As a result, I gathered the very top of the sleeve to give it a tiny bit of a puffed look at the top. I figured the puffiness added to the femininity of the shirt, which would look cute with the flowered back.

 

Seriously, I really want to wear this again...any suggestions regarding the staining issue? Also, I only have about 5 weeks before we get to meet this little one. I am so super excited!!!

Maternity T-Shirt - Take 2

A while back, I posted about a maternity T-shirt that I made since I was getting a bit bored of my current clothes. The excitement with that shirt has run it's course and I was ready for a new one. I am just over 33 weeks now and everything is looking good (medically, anyway). I haven't been gaining much weight recently, but my stomach is getting huge! The doctor was quite surprised when I went in for my appointment this week given that I technically lost weight, but my stomach grew by 5 centimeters. Eeeks! The baby doesn't seem all that huge either, so he was at a bit of a loss trying to come up with a reason for my massive growth.

Anyway, I started with some grey jersey fabric that I realized didn't have much stretch to it. So when I was cutting the pattern, I added about a centimeter or two to the outside of the shirt so it would actually fit me when I put it on. I also added a bit of length since I realized I didn't love where the original shirt hit me in back.

Same as the last shirt, this was really fast to cut out and put together. I think that it took less than 2 hours in total. The first step was to ruche the waistline of the front. Once that was ready, just sew it to the back using a ton of pins to keep the ruching where you want it. Then just sew up the shoulders and add the sleeves.

Once the shirt was made, I decided to switch things up a bit and added bias tape to the neckline instead of just folding it under and sewing. A grey T-shirt just by itself seemed it needed a bit of sprucing up to me. I folded the sleeves and bottom hems under and sewed as usual.

Since I was already on the sprucing up kick, I cut out a little pocket and hand-sewed it on for a little extra fun. I made it a real pocket, but now that I think about it, I don't know why I did that. It looks the same as if I had just made it a faux pocket and I am certainly not going to stick anything in there. At least it is fun for K to poke at and pop pebbles into.

Just a few weeks left and we will get to meet the little one - I am so excited!!

7 Months In and I Need New Clothes

I am 28 weeks pregnant today and I am already bored of my maternity clothes. Since K was born in April, I didn't have many summer items going into this pregnancy. My lovely mom and my best friend from home each sent me a few items which have been wonderful, but I am on like month two of wearing the same four items. It was time for some new clothes.

A while back I bought a Megan Nielson pattern so I could make this dress. I figured I might as well throw in a pattern for a t-shirt as well - one can never have too many t-shirts. I had extra brown fabric from the dress I made a while back, but I didn't want the shirt to just be a brown t-shirt - kind of boring, I thought. I decided I wanted the back to be lace, but also did not like the idea of having it bare under the lace. As my solution, I started by cutting out a piece of brown jersey, as well as stretch lace for the back and sewing them together.

I was expecting the lace to strech a lot more than it did. It really wasn't too difficult to deal with at all.

After cutting out the front, I ruched it up the sides and then pinned it to the back like crazy. Once that was sewed up, I tried it on to make sure it actually fit. It did and I was so super stoked! The final step was to add the sleeves and then deal with the raw edges.

This shirt was super fast to work up. I love projects like that! In fact, these photos are taken from last Friday when I had to go on a field trip with K. I had nothing to wear and decided two nights before the trip that it was time to make the shirt. The first night I prepped the pattern and cut out the fabric. The second night was sewing it all together. I don't think it took more than an hour and a half to sew. I love the fit and can't wait to make another one!

As a note, I am not much one for selfies, but I almost never wear my hair down and am almost always wearing my glasses. Because of the field trip, I did it up a bit so I decided to just take the photos when we got home and use these in this post. Y offered to take new photos the next day, but I was already showered, hair up, contacts out, i.e. not as cute.

Wrap Dress

I know I have been a bit absent recently - things have been busy. Aside from the standard things that keep a mom busy, K had his Preschool Opening Ceremony (入園式） today and I had nothing to wear. Ages ago, I came across Megan Nielsen's maternity patterns and really liked the wrap top and also the ruched t-shirt. I bought both of them and was so excited to make them. Soon after buying them, but before they arrived, I found this blog about using the wrap top to make a dress. I figured it was serendipity - this was the dress I would wear for the Opening Ceremony!

I started by cutting out the pattern and drafting the skirt pattern from a maternity dress I already own. I also took the length of the top of the dress I currently own and used that for the length as opposed to what the blog had suggested. I also kept the sleeves the original length as it is spring and I was hoping for a nice, warm day.

I was super excited to get started on the dress, but I really wanted a double needle to do the seams. I couldn't find it anywhere here and my friend that also sews a lot here had never heard of it. I finally had my mom buy a few and send them to me. I started with the skirt bit since it seemed the simplest step. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the needle to work well and it skipped a lot of stitches.

It helped a bit to put tissue paper to stabilize the fabric, but still skipped a good amount. I was really bummed! I thought this needle was going to be the answer to all of my knit issues. I was wrong. To be fair, I do need to give it another go. I was in a frenzy to get this dress done on time and didn't have a lot of time to try other methods or really research about this issue. The seam did sew together, and as this was on the inside, I figured it would be fine. It did give the seam a lot of stretch, which was great!

Once the skirt was done, I got moving to the top. It was simple to put together - shoulder seams, side seams and then add the sleeves.

I tried the top on first, because if that didn't look right, I knew the dress would be a disaster and it would probably be best to just stop while I was ahead. I tried it on and really liked it. I should say here, that I ended up using the blog I linked above for inspiration only. I put the dress together completely differently, but love the end result. I really wanted the top to be a true wrap-around top, but the original dress made it just a faux wrap top.

To finish the neckline I figured best not to chance it with the double needle and just used single fold bias tape.

I put the bias tape only to about the side seams. From there I just folded the top edge over and sewed a long seam all the way down the wrap bits.

I made the waist of the skirt bigger than the waist of the top so I could have a bit of space. Then, of course, I had to make them fit together. I sewed a long stitch across the front and back of the skirt and then pulled the bottom string to ruffle it until it was the same length as the top.

Finally I sewed the top to the bottom, leaving a few inches open on the left side seam at the join of the top and skirt so I could string one of the long strips through.

Finally I put on my dress and headed out to K's Ceremony. It was so cute. The kiddies in their tiny uniforms were just to die for. (K is in between the girls with the pigtails.)

 

Today we rode the train as a family, but the next time K goes he will ride the school bus by himself. I'm a tad nervous, but he really loved the school today. In fact, he cried when it was time for us to leave. I'm just hoping he doesn't lose it getting on the bus next Thursday. Fingers crossed!!

 

After the Ceremony, we headed home and had a nice, big dinner with Y and his parents who came in from Yokohama for the festivities. For the actual Ceremony, I also wore a brown and cream striped blazer from way back when I used to work. The browns matched perfectly and I think it looked quite cute.