Things have been very busy here lately. E passed her driving test! We bought a new car (well, an old car, but new to us) and M started a job doing nightshift. The boys have all had man flu. I have done some sewing though. Mainly just finishing off the things I've started. I've had to remove all the Rocket Bottoms nappies from my shop because a customer who bought some contacted me to say that they were all leaking. Eek! I need to figure out what's wrong with them. It could be the design, or it could be the fabrics. Or maybe it's something I did wrong. I must have sewn around 200 nappies in my time, so I'd like to think I wouldn't have made some kind of stupid mistake. I'm sending one to someone else to check out and see if it leaks for her. I'm remaking the customer's order using the Opulent Monsters pattern, which is wider through the crotch so should work better with the inserts she has. Hopefully I'll be able to salvage the Rocket Bottoms nappies I've made.
So yeah, that's not an ideal start. The worst thing about this is that certain people in my life have been unsupportive about me starting up a business so now they can say I told you so. The lack of support and the fact so many things are going wrong has made me want to quit.
These are the latest items I finished. Since I ran out of white PUL I've been embroidering on coloured PUL and I don't like the way it looks as much. I think maybe plain one colour designs, like the one I did on the navy PUL might be best.
The colours here were purple, lilac and magenta. For some reason they look more blue and red. It must be the pink background.
Same design again but in white only. I think it looks better in real life than in the photo.
A rainbow medallion for your hippy baby!
The last of the white PUL. This didn't turn out as good as I planned. The yellow needed to be darker.
I like the way this one looks. The feathers might be nice in pastels on a pale pink or lavender too. It is actually a heart shape but you can't really see that very well. I still think it looks good though. It might also be nice all in one colour, like white, on a dark background.
Here's a bunch of them. A few of them have athletic wicking fabric for inners. It's a new fabric I haven't used before and it wasn't quite as bad as I thought to work with. It was slippery but not terribly stretchy.
Disaster struck. I put studs on the wing by accident where it should be sockets. That's not really a big deal, all you need to do is remove the snap and replace it with the right one. Removing snaps is pretty hard though because they're not meant to come off. M usually takes them off for me with a pair of nail clippers. Because he's been working nightshift he hasn't been around, so I thought I'd give it a go myself. As you can see I managed to nibble the stud part down a bit, but couldn't do much else. Then I saw a video on youtube. It said if you put the snap side ways in your press with the socket die in place and press down, it'll split the snap in half. They demonstrated it on a thin piece of fleece so I wondered how it would work on something thicker (spoiler alert: it doesn't). I put the nappy in my press as instructed but the whole thing slipped out. It looked as if it might have damaged the fabric slightly, which was probably a hint for me to give up, but I thought I'd give it one more go. I ended up with the die cutting a die shape into my fabric, so now there's a hole in my nappy! What am I supposed to do now?! It really sucks because the windpro was an expensive fabric. I know I only just started this, but maybe I really should give up and go back to writing? I could just sew things for my family instead, or as gifts for friends like I used to do. At least there wouldn't be so much pressure for everything to be absolutely perfect.
So yeah, that's not an ideal start. The worst thing about this is that certain people in my life have been unsupportive about me starting up a business so now they can say I told you so. The lack of support and the fact so many things are going wrong has made me want to quit.
These are the latest items I finished. Since I ran out of white PUL I've been embroidering on coloured PUL and I don't like the way it looks as much. I think maybe plain one colour designs, like the one I did on the navy PUL might be best.
The colours here were purple, lilac and magenta. For some reason they look more blue and red. It must be the pink background.
Same design again but in white only. I think it looks better in real life than in the photo.
A rainbow medallion for your hippy baby!
The last of the white PUL. This didn't turn out as good as I planned. The yellow needed to be darker.
I like the way this one looks. The feathers might be nice in pastels on a pale pink or lavender too. It is actually a heart shape but you can't really see that very well. I still think it looks good though. It might also be nice all in one colour, like white, on a dark background.
Here's a bunch of them. A few of them have athletic wicking fabric for inners. It's a new fabric I haven't used before and it wasn't quite as bad as I thought to work with. It was slippery but not terribly stretchy.
Since the leaky nappies, I'm not sure I want to continue making pockets. I thought maybe I'd try making fitted nappies instead. They do need a lot more materials, expensive ones too but people put covers over them, so there's not the same leak factor. I've had the Rocket Bottoms one-size fitted pattern for absolutely ages but never used it. I seem to have a bad habit of buying patterns and not using them... I think I mostly made sized nappies for my babies. One size wasn't really a big thing like it is now. Motherease was about the only one size nappy around, but even then you had to buy sized covers to go over them.
I made this nappy up to see how I liked the pattern. It has knit on the outside and velour on the inside. There's a layer of Windpro sandwiched in between, making it a hybrid fitted nappy. Apparently you can use them without a cover for a while. I'm not sure how well that would work though. Considering it's turned and topstitched there will be absorbent outer fabric on the inside, which will surely cause wicking around the seams? But I think it'll be a good nappy for night time with a cover over it. The Windpro will be like an extra water resistant barrier. It is lovely and squishy and I keep petting it and looking at it. Maybe I should say it WAS lovely and squishy...
Disaster struck. I put studs on the wing by accident where it should be sockets. That's not really a big deal, all you need to do is remove the snap and replace it with the right one. Removing snaps is pretty hard though because they're not meant to come off. M usually takes them off for me with a pair of nail clippers. Because he's been working nightshift he hasn't been around, so I thought I'd give it a go myself. As you can see I managed to nibble the stud part down a bit, but couldn't do much else. Then I saw a video on youtube. It said if you put the snap side ways in your press with the socket die in place and press down, it'll split the snap in half. They demonstrated it on a thin piece of fleece so I wondered how it would work on something thicker (spoiler alert: it doesn't). I put the nappy in my press as instructed but the whole thing slipped out. It looked as if it might have damaged the fabric slightly, which was probably a hint for me to give up, but I thought I'd give it one more go. I ended up with the die cutting a die shape into my fabric, so now there's a hole in my nappy! What am I supposed to do now?! It really sucks because the windpro was an expensive fabric. I know I only just started this, but maybe I really should give up and go back to writing? I could just sew things for my family instead, or as gifts for friends like I used to do. At least there wouldn't be so much pressure for everything to be absolutely perfect.
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