Why didn't I do this sooner?

I bought some pants back in September from the outlets with the plan to turn them into maternity pants once I needed maternity pants. Since I"m in the 3rd trimester, obviously I've needed maternity pants for a while!  I still had a couple of pairs of non-maternity pants that I could wear in early December, but since then, I've been making do with one pair of work pants and one pair of jeans.  I have some skirts and dresses, so I wasn't wearing the same pants every single day!

After all that procrastinating, it took me about 45 minutes to turn both pairs into comfortable maternity pants.  Honestly.  I took some heavy duty, medium stretch white knit fabric from my stash and tried 2 methods of attaching.  For the brown pair, I cut a U in the front and filled it in with a U of fabric and on the black pair, I removed the waistband and replaced with a knit waistband.  Both styles are very comfortable, but I think that I cut the U on the brown pair too low.  I was being lazy and cut under the zipper instead of removing it first and cutting across it.  Oh well, I'll just wear long shirts with that pair.  I can also dye the white knit with some Rit dye if it's too noticeable.

The brown pair with the U and back waistband intact

The black pair with a new knit waistband

Wearing the brown pair at 28 weeks.  I look a little tired.  I wonder why?

Long weekend of ... cleaning

This weekend was a long weekend for me and I spent the vast majority of my 3 days off cleaning and organizing.  I wasn't locked in the house, Janda and I went to a friend's Saturday and Sunday evenings, Emma had a little birthday party on Sunday and Janda and I did a little shopping- mostly house and baby stuff.  Come to think of it, this was a really packed weekend!

I spent 2 days cleaning and reorganzing the kitchen and mudroom.  Then today I got to work on the sunroom which now holds my sewing room, desk and some of Janda's toys.  There is a substantial amount of recycling in our bins, trash in the can and assorted items to be given away.  Not a bad cleanout.

Hopefully now that my sewing space is organized I can start attacking my stash and making baby stuff.   Here's a look at the sewing space:

The dresses hanging on the door can't be finished until I have a waist again, but they are mostly done.  Underneath them is a tote with maybe a third of my stash- mostly wools, linings and heavy fabrics.  On top of the tote is a pile of UnFinished Objects and mending to the left and a pile of knits to the right.  Hanging on the wall are 2 awesome sequin fabrics I got from fabric.com- hanging b/c the sequins get out of place when folded.  On top of the cutting table are my three maternity projects- 1 skirt and 2 pairs of pants.  The 2 three drawer cabinets holding up my sewing table are chock full of fabric- woven cottons, more knits and assorted quilting/craft fabrics.  I tried to count how many cuts of fabric I have and stopped  at halfway-ish and closing in on 50.  I NEED the stash busting sew-along!

Here is a close-up of the sequin fabric hanging on the wall.  I got aqua (big surprise) and there is a dark grey hanging behind it.  Really awesome.  I can't wait to embellish some projects with a bit of these 2 fabrics.

I am planning on using every 50% off coupon that I get from Joann's between now and the baby to get PUL fabric for diaper covers.  And all of my mom's coupons too!  How cute are these monsters and dinosaurs?  This boy is going to be fashionably diapered!

Stashbusting Sewalong 2013!

I'm excited to be joining the Stashbusting Sewalong proposed by Cation Designs and EmSewCrazyfor the year of 2013.  It's not going to be super easy, since I have a baby coming in 3 months, but I plan to do the best I can.  The Sewalong promises to be fun, with a flickr group and contests- not that I can be sure that I'll be up to participating!  ;)

I am pumped to be making a long term plan to diminish my stash, though.  I don't even want to estimate the yardage that is stowed away in my sewing room!  It falls into 3 main categories: lightweight cotton for summer dresses, skirts and tops, wool for work-style dresses, skirts and trousers and knits for t-shirts and dresses.  Of course, I have other miscellaneous cuts, but those 3 categories have to be at least 80% of my hoard.  I have/had general plans for each fabric that I have purchased, it's just a matter of matching up fabrics to patterns.  I would like to get at least 1 project in a month, but we'll see. 

Part 2 of the challenge involves buying less fabric.  That shouldn't be too hard at far as the 3 categories above are concerned, but I will need to get some baby fabrics since I plan to make my own cloth diapers and covers.  My main focus is sewing up the fabrics and patterns that I have and if I buy more fabric, I'll be ok with that.  Hopefully I'll be too busy with the baby to buy more!

My first project is going to be a maternity skirt made from tan corduroy that came to my stash via my grandmother's stash.  Since I have almost no bottoms to wear, I need to get moving on the skirt!!!

Holiday Season

I was planning on writing my resolutions and putting up some holiday photos around the New Year, but unfortunately I caught the stomach bug that has been going around.  I only was seriously nauseous for about 24 hours, but my stomach didn't feel right again for a week!  And then the next week I spent catching up on sleep.  Maybe I'm caught up now,  or maybe when you're pregnant/have a small child you never catch up; at any rate, I feel better.

Michelley helping test out the white lights that never went up!

Kong hanging out by the Christmas tree

 A family photo; there was a way better one but it was blurry!  Do you know how hard it is to get a picture with three cats!

 In case you were wondering, I'm still getting bigger.  Here I am at about 24 weeks.

I have, as have many others, been doing some New Year resolving lately.  I actually makes resolutions all the time; I try my best to keep them, but I usually don't.  They are more like goals I guess.  Someday I'll do it all!

Until then, here are my New Year's Goals:

General:

        1.  Have a baby!

Household:

        2.  Do everyday chores everyday- that way they don't become large cleaning jobs.

        3.  Stick to a better schedule for the large cleaning jobs.

Hobbies:

        4.  Actually finish projects.  I think I finished about half last year.  The rest are waiting to be completed, but then I got pregnant and can't fit any of them.  Oops.

        5.  Stop accruing endless amounts of fabric.  

        6.  Knit something.

        7.  Take more photographs.  The past couple of years I have hardly taken any, aside from trips.

Athletics/Fitness:

        8. Workout more consistently during pregnancy.  At least 5 days a week.

        9.  Stick to planned workout routine after pregnancy and run a race this summer.  6 days a week, cardio + lifting should add up to 60 minutes- basically getting back to pre-pregnancy routine.

        10. Fit into my normal work clothes when I go back to school in the fall.  Only having a few (lackluster) outfits to choose from is frustrating when you have nice clothes in the closet.

Garden:

        11. Plan my vegetables better- I had too much of some and not enough of others last year.

        12. Can more tomatoes!  Bread and butter pickles were a big hit too.

        13. Fill in more permanent landscaping in the flower gardens- especially trees and bushes.  We're looking at a new picket fence, some hydrangeas and rhododendrons and a magnolia tree.

13 goals from 2013.  That seems like enough!  None of them are hard or expensive, so we'll see how I do.