Month: May 2019

Tutorials

My Favorite Sweatpants

ann marie

We all have them, that favorite pair of sweatpants we like to lounge around the house in. For me it’s these hot pink sweatpants!!!

Well, not sure if you can tell but the waist on these has stretched out because I’ve had them for years and worn them possibly through all three pregnancies. 🙂  Yup, pretty sure the elastic on these pants has been over stretched a few times! But I love the pants and that’s truly the only thing wrong with them. So being the sewer that I am I tossed them on the mending pile and pushed the project aside. Finally, I got the room back in order from the holiday craziness and put these pants at top of to do list! So without further ado I’m going to show you how you can fix the waist in your favorite pair of sweats too!

First I removed the tag as this was sewn over the elastic in the waistband.

Next in the same spot as the tag I cut a small slit in the band I did this on the inside of the pants to expose the existing elastic. However, I discovered that the current elastic was sewn into the waist band on one side. I took a pic (second pic below) so you could see the elastic will come out on one side but the other is definitely stitched into the band.

So rather then pull out all that stitching I chose to leave that elastic there. It’s not hurting anything and won’t interfere with the new one. Plus, this made it easier then it would have been to have to completely re-stitch the waist.

Next you want to decide how much elastic you need. I used a 3/4 no roll elastic I had on hand and just put it straight around my waist and then tightened it some to where I thought it’d be comfortable. You can measure your waist and subtract an inch and that usually works too.

Take that elastic you cut to size put a large safety pin on one end and then pin the other end close to the opening. You want to do this so as you pull the elastic through and you don’t lose your  other end and have to start over again. Then take that safety pinned end and push it into the opening and use the safety pin to help guide the elastic through the casing/opening.

Now once you get it through I recommend you unpin the free end and then use that same safety pin to pin the two ends together over lapping them by about an inch. Take your pants and try them on!!!!! I say this because you never know with the type of fabric or the amount of stretch in the elastic how they will fit. Mine ended up being to big as you can see in the picture above, so I had to cut off a few more inches before sewing. I simply tried them on decided they were to loose and then moved my pin to adjust the elastic and tried again until I liked the fit better. Trust me it was worth the time because you don’t want to do the next steps and find out they aren’t the way you want them and have to undo the hard work. Adjusting the safety pin is much easier to do!

Next, take your pants over to the sewing machine and stitch that elastic together! I like to make a square and then an x or a diagonal line threw the square. Just stitch it together where you feel comfortable it won’t come apart while wearing.

Once that’s done you let the elastic sit flat inside the waistband again and your going to want to stitch it back closed again. Technically, no one will see this and if it’s a material like knit or fleece that doesn’t fray you could stop and leave it open. For me,  I was worried it would fray so I overlapped one side of the fabric on top of the other and pinned it. Then I went back to my sewing machine and set it up to do a zigzag stitch (pictured below). This helps seal that fabric up and keep everything together nice and neat!

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You can see in the images below I didn’t bother trying to match the thread that was on the inside of the pants, I did use my clear thread for the outside that someone may see. The stitching doesn’t look perfect.  Especially over the elastic sometimes the thickness makes my machine mad, but the finished product is what I loved!!!! Now my pants are all nice and fitting my waist again so this momma is a Happy Momma with her favorite pants ready to lounge in!!!

I hope this helped out anyone looking to bring new life back into some well loved pants!!!

Ramblings

Every child is different…..

ann marie

Every parent of more then one kid has definitely heard the saying “every child is different!” It’s one of those sayings you get told. If not as soon as you’re pregnant with #2, you’ll hear it the moment they do something your first didn’t do.

For me, my first two kids had a lot of similarities as babies. They both started sleeping through the night by 6 weeks, both ended up being bottle fed at some point, both were big babies to start. Well, I thought I hit the jackpot of babies bc especially sleeping through the night most parents don’t get for awhile. BUT number 3 she has been the epitome of being a different child. She still, at a little over 2, doesn’t sleep through the night every night.

It doesn’t end at sleep either, she’s been a climber since she could crawl, she’s wearing clothes in the 3T/4T range (which my first did some at this age), and she’s a stripper!!!! This girl loves to strip down and be naked! She’s stripped everything off in her crib to include poopy diapers for several days in a row! So now we’ve had to get creative to keep from having to do complete crib sanitizing sessions daily.

This doesn’t stop in the crib though. She’s been known to strip her shirt off while watching tv, at an older friends house (this honestly mortified me), and now she’s showing interest in the potty. BUT can we just pull our pants down and take off the diaper to sit on the potty???? Oh NO WE CAN’T!!!!! She gets fully naked to sit on the potty so it’s a huge production! While I want her to start getting potty trained, who has time for their kid to strip naked to sit on the potty?!?

This girl is amazing and hilarious and a light in my life, but she’s giving me a run for my money and is definitely showing us she’s going to be her own little self! So I’m going to keep letting her be herself and pray I don’t lose my mind in the meantime.

Ramblings

My oh my what a day

ann marie

I’m not perfect, but I don’t know anyone who truly is. We have moments of perfection, yes, but never always.

This is currently the view from my couch!!! My husbands due home in an hour and I’ve spent the day going from urgent care to massively cleaning my downstairs. My middle girly has a rash and they think it’s a contact rash, so a reaction to something that her skins being exposed to. The kicker is she’s been home since it started!!!!!

So that leads me to vacuum the crap out of our house, mainly downstairs as that’s where she’s been when the rash pops up. So cue vacuuming, then mopping, and vacuuming the couch she sat on and the other one for good measure. I also gave the dog and our poor cat a bath too.

I did the dishes in there somewhere, took dogs kennel outside to clean it as well and replace her blankets with clean ones. Hoping this crazy clean session helps my lil cutie.

Saying all this to explain that the view of my rug may look like a hot mess, but it’s one of those organized chaos situations. All the baby toys had to be moved to rug to mop and clean off the couches. Next, I really need to go through them as I know this kiddo doesn’t play with all these still.

Here’s hoping the ol ball and chain doesn’t say anything about it lol

Ramblings

What’s your Motivation?

ann marie

I’ve had a lot of ups and downs these last two and a half years while adjusting to having 3 kids. We all have them, but what’s your motivation to keep going?

Currently my motivation is centered around myself and my 3 girls! I’m motivated to get myself healthier and in better shape, because it not only will help me it will help my girls. If your thinking how is my getting healthy going to help my girls I’ll tell you! If they see me making positive choices and healthy choices they are going to follow my lead. Kids are little sponges they soak everything in and apply it to their life.

Because I’ve been in a rut working out at home, I’ve started walking more in mornings. This weekend instead of staying home while I walked my 6yo asked to ride her scooter and pushed me to go further then I normally walk too. Did she get tired? Yes, but she pushed on with some encouragement from me. She’s my biggest cheerleader when it comes to working out and it’s awesome!

Then my 11yo whines that she didn’t get to go with me and she HATES cardio of any kind lol. So she felt like she missed out on something by not going and wanted to join us. Next weekend we plan to all go for the walk instead!

Same goes for healthy eating, if we shove our faces full of Oreos all day, they will too. But if we keep healthy choices and we eat them as well, the kids will follow suit. It’s amazing how simple it is if they just see it and think it’s normal then it becomes normal. I’ll admit my 6yo has started expecting candy every day because we let it slide some during summer. Am I trying to reign that in? Sure, but it’ll take a little time to shift her from expecting it every day.

So find that motivation! Make the choices right for you! Even if you start super small with something like getting all your water in for the day it’s a start!