I Should Be Sewing

My first sewing box, still being used today

I have always loved sewing. As a kid- I want to say my 7th or 8th birthday- I asked for fabric to sew things for myself. Wishes granted, and I even got a sewing box for my supplies as well. Over the years my mother taught me simple seams and mending here and there using her 1970's Singer, which proved to be incredibly useful as I grew to almost to almost 6 feet tall and needed to alter pretty much
every garment I had.
When my husband and I married in early 2006, we were given a sewing machine. It proved to be the most useful of all our wedding gifts!

My first baby in the first outfit I made her

Aside from the continued mending and altering for both my husband and myself, when our first child was born I found my sewing machine even more useful. There were Gerber burp rags I embellished, MORE burp rags I made myself with flannel and fleece, onesies to alter and make into lap tees to be more cloth diaper-friendly, and wool sweaters I cut apart and turned into upcycled wool diaper covers in the form of soakers and pants. Then I started making clothes. My girl was already such a chunk, but adding in the fluffy cloth diaper
rump, and she was incredibly hard to fit clothes on. We usually bought clothes 3-4 sizes up, then I altered them with sewing. One day, though, it struck me that I did so much sewing to make her clothes fit right, why didn't I just try sewing her actual garments and save some money, since fabric is so much cheaper than ready-made garments I had to sew anyway.
I was hooked. It was so much more fun to shop for fabric and make things myself- things that ACTUALLY fit- than to shop discount and thrift stores for clothes that fit in our budget. From there, things unwrapped themselves. Friends- both online and in-person- saw the outfits I made for my girl and begged me to make some for their kids. By October 2007, I opened my first online store on HyenaCart(the smaller, lesser known, strictly hand-made cousin of Etsy) with the name KumfyKozies™. Things grew and grew and grew, and soon I was operating mainly from my own original patterns, both knitting and sewing, and was involved in group shops with several other vendors, an Etsy shop, and had goods in several stores on consignment.
Over the years my business has changed, as time, number of children, and commitments outside the home changed, and in November 2013 we moved across the country and I closed my shops down altogether. Since then, I've gone into a bit of sewing depression. In March my machine broke and I bought the needed part, but I have yet to install it or sew anything. Since March. That's the longest I've gone without sewing in 9 years.
I promised my first son that if I ever found How to Train Your Dragon(his favorite movie for the last three years) fabric, that I'd buy it and make him something. I found some fleece, and bought it with a
coordinating solid to make him a new twin-size blanket for his bed for the winter. I told him I'd make it for his birthday. That was yesterday. It didn't get done. I'm a jerk.
But I'm determined to break out of this funk. TODAY I will sew his blanket. My goodness, I have no excuse anyway. It's two rectangles sewn together in a straight stitch, then turned and top-stitched in a straight stitch again! It WILL be done.
For further motivation, I join Kids Clothes Week. I have ogled KCW for YEARS, dreaming of having the time to partake, because in the past I was always too busy producing for my shop and never had time to make for my own kids. This year I do. This year I WILL. And it starts today. My plan: First up, cleaning up my machines. Then, a pair of jeans for my littlest guy. He's a super-chunk

Dark wash denim for jeans

just like his older sister, and conventional jeans have never fit him. Add in his cloth diaper booty, and he's the perfect candidate for one of my shops' top sellers: Kumfy™ Jeans. Custom-made wide leg jeans using a pattern I created myself in 2009. I'm excited and determined! This will happen. IT WILL! :-D I'm planning to do a daily post about what I get done, but in case I don't, here's my KCW profile in case you want to see if I stick to it: MRBLayaw on KCW