Lacy diaper covers

At a close by town center I saw a woman/teen wearing lace shorts, maybe these, or similar. Those shorts inspired me to make another set of bloomers for Likka. I have had scraps of lace just waiting in my crafts stash and now the pants were a perfect use for those. I used the same pattern as I did for the previous bloomers. Some of the lace scraps I had were just a centimeter wider than I needed, just perfect, no leftovers anymore.

There is lace covering only the bum. There is eight pieces of lace, which of only two are exactly similar. Not all the lace I had was white, there is also yellow, pink and blue lace. The pants turned out bit more funky than I had envisioned, but that is ok, I like funny clothes.

Seat cushions on the galley

Remember I had some mattresses and cushions to recover for our boat? I have not got all of them done. The only ones that are done are the seat cushions for the boat's kitchen. There is still the mattresses to cover for the peak and the rear. That makes six mattresses altogether. But five is done too, so about half way there. Yay! I finished these many weeks ago and I took these photos long ago. I had hopes I'd take new better photos but every time we've visited the boat I have not had the good camera with me, so I'm afraid you'll have to settle for the dreadful pictures I took with my phone. Sorry. 

This is the only photo showing the colour about accurately

What has been slowing down the sewing of the covers is the fabric. I think we chose a bit poor quality fabric. It frays really easily, plus it stretches on the other direction which makes it very difficult to sew and cut accurately. Also the old covers for the cushions are broken and stretched too, so the pattern I have cut out from the old covers are not very accurate either. So I have been bit disappointed with the quality of my sewing and it has not inspired me to move on with the project. In my opinion the covers look really bad from some places, but luckily adding the shank buttons on the cushions makes them look more professional than they are.

Once I get a few more of these covers done I will take better photos and maybe change these terrible photos on this post.

A's mom sewed curtains for the windows. Those are made from black striped cotton. The curtains fit really well to the boat. She did a good job.

Mattress cover

When I made the toy basket from the cradle I was left with a mattress with no home. I could not throw the mattress out, like I cannot with any craft item, and needed to place it somewhere. It does not fit in my crafts cabinet and so I decided to recover it with nice fabric and give it to Likka to use. She can later perhaps lay on it, while drawing, painting or "reading" or what ever children happen to do while then don't run around.

I covered the mattress with the carrot fabric from an old sheet which I have used before on Likka's stuff too, like for her duvet cover. The black zipper is from an old shirt of mine. So far Likka has not been too interested in the mattress, so I hid it in the toy basket. It's there out of the way but available when even these sort of things like pillows and mattresses start to interest her.

Mamelukes

Babies and dresses are a bit difficult combination. Since babies don't tend to stand upright, at least not all the time, the dresses do not drape nicely over the bum. Instead babies crawl in various ways and try to eat the hem of their dress. If you don't dress the baby with pants or tights the diaper can be seen. Not that the diaper is such a bad thing to see, but I feel like it bit ruins the look of the dress and tights or pants are a bit too much on a hot summer day. And that is why I made Likka underpants to wear over the diaper. I had the lace and the fabric already at home and used a bit modified pattern from an Ottobre magazine 1/2013 pattern 2. I think they look super cute on Likka and my dad asked if they sell lace diapers in stores nowadays, hilarious.

In case you are wondering about the title. These style of underpants are in Finnish called mamelukes (mamelukit). I do not know why.

Rainbow quilt

A very good friend of mine is having a baby on late July and I wanted to make something for the baby. I made a quilt for Likka before she was born and in use I noticed that a quilt (or any blanket) is very convenient to have for a baby. You can use it in between the baby and a hard floor at home, friends' places, at hobbies. And so I made a quilt for my friend's soon to come baby.

My friend is a railway engineer and so I was tempted to use pieces of the train sheet I still have left. Then I used various other fabrics I already had at home. I did not bother to make all the pieces the same width, it is much easier to sew them together if the pieces do not need to align. I was not going to place the pieces as I did, I actually cannot even remember how I was planning to arrange them at first but once I laid them on the floor this rainbow arrangement looked the best.

At first I was thinking of hand stitching the front to the back, because the last time I made a quilt I really disliked machine stitching it together. But it seems the hand stitching is even more annoying. I gave it a shot first but it was slow and boring and I soon lost my interest in it. In order to get the quilt done I went with the machine stitching, still I did not like that either but it was done faster.

On the backside of the quilt I draw washing instructions for the quilt with a fabric pen. Since the quilt is for a baby to lay on the quilt might need to be washed quite frequently. Hope my friend's soon to come baby enjoys the quilt.