Summer sewing: speed sewing

I’m a slow seamstress. I’d like to think I’m speedy, but really, I”m not. Things always take me so much longer to complete than I think they should. DH is always hearing: “Oh, let me just finish this up real quick. It should take me about 15-20 minutes.” An hour or more later, I emerge from my sewing room with the finished item. I’m realizing that I”m just too meticulous to be a speed sewer, and stuff just takes time.

I did discover, though, that I AM capable of churning things out quickly when I really need to and if I don’t put mass amounts of thought into it. So I present to you, my list of speedy sewing.

DS2 started using a pillow back in the spring. It was actually one of the decorative pillows from our bed that we never used. One night, I got the bee in my bonnet to make him a pillowcase while DH was giving the babes a bath. This project took me 15 minutes from “Oh, I NEED to make him a pillowcase!” to “Ta-da! Here it is!” That includes finding the fabric (the battle is oftentimes won and lost here for me), getting the measurements, cutting and sewing. He loves it!

At the babywearing conference that took place in D.C. this summer, I taught a class on how to make ring slings. In order to brush up on my skills, I made ring slings for each of the babes, using a different shoulder style for each one. I did a hot dog shoulder, a gathered shoulder and a SBP-style pleated shoulder. Ring slings are pretty fast to make if you aren’t doing anything fancy. I made all three slings in an hour and a half, so about 30 minutes per sling.

The night before going to the aforementioned conference, I decided that a HAD to have a little business card holder. I whipped this up in 5 minutes!

That same night, I also HAD to make a carseat protector. DS2 is 26 months old and is still rear-facing. When he gets junk on his shoes, then the back of the car seat gets all dirty and gross. They are leather seats, so they clean up easily, but it just looks bad and is hard on the leather. So I put together a little protector. I made it out of laminated cotton and added some ties to the sides and bottom so that I could tie it to the back of the chair. It took me 30 minutes, with the most time-consuming part being sewing on the ties.

Before it got horribly hot this summer, the babes and I would go to the park rather often and then just stay for lunch. Sandwhiches were the usual fare. I realized that I only had one reusable sandwhich wrapper thing, so the day of a park playdate, I quickly made two more. I made my original one about 3 years ago, and ended up having some trouble getting the velcro properly lined up. I changed the design a bit this time, and it worked much better. These two wrapper things took me about 15 minutes each.

Bathing the babes is DH’s task since his back is in better shape than mine. His knees, however, were taking a beating having to kneel next to the tub. I made a bath mat/knee protector thing for him and now his knees are thanking me. It took me about 30 minutes to put together. You can see pics and read more deets about the mat over on my other blog.

The last item on my speed sewing list are carseat strap covers. I know some people will say you shouldn’t go changing things on the carseats. Generally, I agree. In this case, I was willing to make a change and get rid of the fire resistant strap covers that came with the seat. I figured if I was in an accident bad enough that the fire resistance of the strap covers mattered we’d have much bigger problems. So, DS1 and DD wanted something more colorful, so I made these strap covers for them in about an hour for both sets. I think I need to add a bit more padding, though, so I guess that will add another few minutes to the project.

So there’s my speed sewing list. Next up: general summer stuff for the babes.