Finally sewing again!

It's been a long time since I actually sewed something. These past 6 months since Klaudia was born, I have been a few times behind the sewing machine, fixing and altering things, but have not really been able to actually sew some new things. It's not that I couldn't find the time, but for some reason I still had a post-partum brain, that couldn't handle a larger project. It's hard to explain. I could not get myself organized enough to actually start a project and finish it. The only creative thing I could do was some digi-scrapping. It's probably because it required only opening a software and some files and it doesn't create messes that have to be cleaned up afterwards. Also on most days I was happy when I was able to manage taking care of the baby, preparing all the meals, doing all the laundry and some cleaning.


But Klaudia has turned six months last Sunday, my health is improving and finally my pre-pregnancy brain seems to be returning. It's a wonderful feeling! So, it's time to stop dreaming about sewing projects and actually do them. My list of things that we need is very long and I have to get rid of my fabric stash by making it into actual clothes and items.  To ease into sewing, I have decided to tackle easy stuff first - things with straight seams - things that don't require lots of fitting or detail work.


So, here are some things I have done in the past two weeks. First a lampshade and some small pillow covers for our green kids room. Beni (8) and Abi (3) live there and I had this jungle fabric stored for years reserved for their room. In spring when we got a curtain rod for their room, I made the drapes and now I finally redid their lampshade to match. I love these wired lamp shades (we have them in all our bedrooms), because they can be "redressed" as often as we like to change the look of a room. All it basically takes, is measureing around the wires and sewing a tube that width with small tunnels on both top and bottom. Then I put a small elastic in the top tunnel and a larger one in the bottom and voila!

The pillow cases are made from the same fabric with zippers in one edge. I still have some fabric left and am considering how to use it without overdoing it. I think two regular sized pillow cases with zippers will be best, so they can use them for playing on the floor. I have some spare pillows which would work.
 
I also made a lampshade for the blue room where my 13y and 11y girls live. They had a Smurfs fabric on their lamp and now they have a cool one with fabric from Ikea. I still have some of that fabric and a piece of coordinating one, so might make a few pillow covers for their beds.

 I also made my first fitted bed sheet. I followed this tutorial and it came out great! I will be making more of these from flannel, since I have now two girl sleeping in the same size beds (crib and toddler bed).

I am so glad that I was able to sew something even these very simple things. I have lots of similar things on my to do list and hope to do them in the next weeks before I attempt sewing some more complicated things like clothes.