Sweatshirt to Tunic Makeover

I have a quick project to share today.

It was time to retire this high school sweatshirt, and I have been excited to try my hand at a sweatshirt remake. I have done a few remakes in the past, mostly with mens' dress shirts, but I haven't loved how some of them turned out.  They work, but sometimes working isn't good enough, you know?

 

With this sweatshirt, I decided to really focus on the fit and make it work well. So here is what I did to it.

First, I removed the emblem and pocket and cut out the hood. I wanted to narrow the shoulder line, so I cut out most of the space where the emblem was, and I added two back darts in alignment with the neckline. These darts also helped narrow the neck because the hoods on sweatshirts is always nice and roomy (not so nice for a new collar). I added a 3" shawl collar in a neon fleece I had leftover from making cloth diapers.

I cut off the sleeves to make the arm hole in the bodice a little smaller, and then I tailored the sleeves a bit by adding a sleeve sloper (the sweatshirt had a boxy sleeve as seen in the before photo), and by narrowing the arm. The sloper made the sleeves much shorter, so I removed the wrist ribbing and added more fleece as an accent. The tunic would have worked just as well with 3/4 length sleeves, but I like having the full length.

I added length to the sweatshirt with another fleece band. My final step was to add an empire waste just under the shawl collar base. It's at an empire level now, with my pregnant self, but I'm guessing it will drop a bit without a belly.

 

Since this baby is almost here, I wanted to make something that would be useful all winter. I think this fits the bill. Now I can be cozy but not look as sloppy as a big bulky sweatshirt!

(trust me, there are other big bulky sweatshirts that will also see plenty of use too :) )

Baby Showers & Mobiles

It's been busy around here! We had future grandparents visiting among two baby showers. It is pretty clear that this kid is well loved by lots of people around us :)  We received many necessities...diapers, bottles, books, clothes...but I'll be honest, the best was an owl cake from our local bakery, SugarBakers, which my sister so kindly "sent" from 1,500 miles away because she couldn't be here in person.

I also received a lot of support for my love of Hideaway.  One friend made us this wonderful set of three paintings inspired by objects found within the Hideaway line. Part of the decor at another shower included the adorable bunting found in this photo as well, made out of, you guessed it, Hideaway!

I even got some extra shapes, pre-backed with wonder-under, to add to some of our plain onesies.

I loaned out the remainder of my Hideaway stash, part of which became this set of wet bags for our on-the-go cloth diapering.

And while I'm hiding away, here is a close-up of the mobile I made for Little One. It is inspired by the Pixar movie "Up" (which we love - old men have a special place in my heart) but with a Hideaway theme. I just made a small model of the Fredricksen house out of mat board, covered it in fabric scraps with glue, and hung it from an embroidery hoop. I added extra strings coming from the chimney to attach balloons, but they are hung with thin thread from the hoop to keep them "floating." This is the back of the house, technically. It kept spinning away from the photo :)

I think that about wraps up our nursery (which also happens to be part unused-dining-room in our one-bedroom apartment). Since it's only part of a room in a rental, there really isn't a whole lot of decorating to do!