Christmas Eve

I should be knitting.. Ben's gift is 3/4 done and there's still MissB and MissC's to go. Today was not a knit-friendly day, though. MissC came down with a stomach bug yesterday and has been in diapers for the day! That got me to finish replacing snaps on old diapers and adding snaps to 'new' diapers (are they still new if I made them just before the last child was out of diapers and ended up not needing them till today?). A few days and she'll be out of diapers again.. But, now we're prepped for emergencies and maybe set for new baby.



Ben and I were reading where some of the Christmas traditions come from. We haven't decorated much in the past. Maybe some lights and always the nativity scene. This year, we read the story of Christmas stockings. A few days ago, he told the children to make stockings. I had MissA working on the knitting loom, but I only had the mitten set and it was coming out the size of her foot. So, we bought a new set and started MissB on that. But, she has a minute attention span and the others were hoping she'd get her stocking done so they could do theirs. Needless to say, it's Christmas Eve and we've no stockings.



Out came the handy tub of fabric. The children chose as simple/plain a fabric as there was. MissC took a lengthy nap, so we had time to make a pattern from a pair of Daddy's socks (placed next to each other, traced, then evened the lines -seam allowance was considered included). MissB sat on my lap and pulled pins as I sewed hers. MissA pinned hers, sewed the straight lines, then pulled the pins as I sewed the curves. MasterT made his stocking himself. I added the hanging loop, otherwise it was his project.



I'll have to put their names on them before I put them away!

Diaper

I had to search, but I finally found my pattern! It was in a box of all sorts of diapering stuff, way down under everything.

My MIL asked what I use to make diapers. My favorite pattern is the Side-Snapping PooPockets by New Conceptions. Why? Aesthetics. I like the extra cuteness factor of the smoother front (the tabs get hidden behind the front layer instead of covering it over). They take a touch longer to make, but the fit is great.

(this is AJ, 4 years ago: about 11mo)
See? Smooth front, much cuter than bulky overlapping tabs.

Personally, I think it's fun to get old sweatshirts from garage sales for these, but any good absorbent fabric works. Hemp is *great* for diapers! (Explanation of why hemp's good.) The last time I made diapers, the outsides were shirts, sweatshirts or pants, and the insides were hemp. (In the photo above, the turned layer is hemp terry and has the soaker pad and elastic sewn to it, the blue layer will be the outside of the diaper and the hemp jersey will be the inner layer. I could just do the terry and outside because that terry is very durable!)


I've bought hemp at
Full Moon Hemp