Help! I run out of thrifty T-shirts...

Today it happened. The boy (22 months old now) asked to take off the diaper in the park to pee in the  bushes. And he stayed out of diapers all day long actually wearing pants. He was running butt naked around the house for several weeks now doing his business on the pot all by himself. But as soon as he'd wear undies he just would not go to the toilet or ask for help. So I left him in diapers when out of the house. Now I bought him some undies already, but heck, a single size 2T boxer brief costs more than a pack of seven girl briefs the same size. That is if you even can find them in that size. Seems like boys around here are not expected to be out of diapers until they wear a size 4. What is wrong with this world?

Anyways, I considered today a major breakthrough in the potty training department around here so I used the almost last thrifty t-shirt left in my recycle drawer to make some boy boxers to add to his cute big boy manly underwear collection. You can never have enough undies at this stage!

I used this tutorial from Max California. The boxers come together quickly, the only change I made is that I cut the cod piece in one piece (minus some seam allowance) instead of sewing two pieces together. And I cheated and left the T-shirt hem on so I didn't need to sew the hem on the legs (one of the reasons I love repurposing old clothes... you can always re-use some of the features and safe some time and hassle). They look really great I think and the size seems right when compared with the store bought versions... I can't tell yet about the fit since the boy hasn't agreed on wearing them yet. They only been around for about 7 hours as I post this... so no need to stress about that yet. I felt inspired to blog so I had to use the momentum and blog it anyways. This place here is neglected way to much. Not that there is nothing to share, it just never makes it on the blog. Blah.

Well, on a side note: The reason my thrifty repurpose T-shirt stash is running low is very simple... I am working on a rag rug, snapping pictures on the way to finally get that tutorial for baskets/rugs together... and it actually feels pretty great to use up a bunch of T-shirts that were waiting to get a new life for way too long.

The fun is in the making

While turning these wonderful fabric yarn balls above into a small basket I discovered something about myself. For me the greatest fun is in the making. It doesn't matter if it's crafts or cooking or even office work or breastfeeding. The greatest satisfaction for me is the process of figuring things out, how they work, why they work and how to improve them. You see when I wrote breastfeeding up there, I didn't mean it to sound like producing milk is super fun to me, but when I got hooked on the awesomeness of breastfeeding I wanted to know the hows and whys and I learned every bit I could find about it. If you are a new mom interested in breastfeeding and you ask me, you'll get a bio-chemistry lesson on the amazing world of lactoferrin and friends. I love to discover and learn and figure out how stuff works. That's true for sewing projects as well as science. But back to yarn balls from recycled t-shirts. I came across a bunch of shirts in my stash that had some prints and stains on them and I almost threw them out in a moment of spring cleaning, because I had forgotten why in the world I kept those. But thank goodness I didn't throw them in the trash right away because that is what some of them have become...

A scrappy fabric basket. And let me just tell you, it didn't involve any sewing or crochet... I pinned some rag rugs and baskets a while back, but I really didn't like the idea of monotonous hand sewing of long braided chains, and actually I preferred the look of crochet baskets anyways, but me and the hook never became friends. So I had some fun figuring out a way to make a basket that doesn't need any sewing or crocheting or complicated weaving... and no tools either other than a pair of scissors and a totally optional safety pin.

So watch out guys, I had some fun figuring this project out and I got some more ideas and variations in the works... tutorial coming soon.