ballet dress for a little girl

we have a birthday party today, for a 3yo girl... like most, she likes pink and ballet, so when I saw this ballet shoe fabric at my Bernina dealer, I snapped up a yard, and made this last night...

I don't have a pattern, but I used the peasant top tutorial from indietutes as a jumping off point...
I added the three little bias-tape roses because the top was too plain...
this might be too long, but it can be a nightgown now, and a dress later; the neckline is elastic, so it should fit for a while...
hopefully she likes it!

Spring Top, more animals, more roses

I whipped this sucker out in 2 hours tonight. LOVE IT. I used the pattern from the new issue of STITCH magazine (though I tweaked it a bit)... the turquoise is a rayon/spandex tissue jersey remnant from Joanns, and the eyelet is an AMAZING silk cotton from Mood. (I treated myself to a stop there today, since I drove past it TWICE to have lunch with the kiddos and C's dad)...

I have a whole day left to photograph it for real and enter it in the contest!

of course, it needed a rose to really make it awesome... luckily for me, I have plenty of fabric roses!

fabric and felt! (and a kitty, hiding in there, see him?)

now do you see him? this is the felt version of Kieran, the darkest kitty ever. I'd photograph him more, but he's very very dark, and always very sleepy, so all you'd see is a dark blob... (the brown bits lower left are going to be Guinness (our dog, not the beer), hopefully tomorrow night...)

and here's Babe, the Gallant Pig. We just finished reading it (D and I both LOVED it, he wants to start it again RIGHT NOW), so he needed his own Babe...

I've been doing 1 toy per night, and then having me time for the rest of the night... tonight was the pig and top, last night was the roses and kieran... and tomorrow afternoon, my husbie comes home!

he's been gone for most of the month, so we're pretty excited to see him... i just have to figure out how to keep sane in the am... we can't leave for the airport till at least 1:45, and D is DYING to see his papa....

"cute" skirts...

Last weekend, I went dancing, which I'm trying to get back into after 7ish years off...

I had 2 kids since I was a hardcore dancer, so I definitely don't fit into all my old vintage or repro skirts and dresses... I currently have TWO skirts that are "cute." (not stained from kids, fit well, etc). I can't just switch back and forth between these two, I need more!

right now, though, I'm between sizes, and losing more, so I don't want to go buy... plus there's that whole wardrobe refashion pledge... plus I want to MODIFY everything I see that I like, so why not just make it the way I want it from the beginning...

so I've been looking at Anthropologie and ModCloth, and I really like this skirt, especially the shirred back...I love the shape of this one, and I like the pleats here... this one looks like it would be fun to dance in, and this one is super cool, but I think too hard for now... and I like this one too...

so far, I've found these tutes...

I like this one, it seems pretty easy...

and I like the godets here, and this is an obvious jumping off point...

(I'm being entirely selfish and just posting so I can easily find all of these bits and pieces later, but maybe other people want skirts too?)

summer clothes (to be) for the Bean

My daughter has begun to be very aware of her clothes, she is determined to choose her own outfits... (she'll be 18 months at the end of the month.) She's obsessed with PINK! such a girl! I've been so careful to ensure that all the colors of the rainbow recieved equal representation in her wardrobe, but now she is ALL about pink. and layers. (legwarmers, pants, shirt, dress, sweater, hat, necklace, socks, sneakers, no matter how hot it is!)
We went fabric shopping yesterday for quilt fabric, but I caved and finally bought some pink double gauze for her... I'm thinking ruffled long tops, to be worn over leggings (to protect her knees, she's such a climber/runner that she scrapes her knees A LOT)

the red moda on the right is just a regular cotton, but it was really cheap, and she actually pulled the bolt off the clearance rack, and there was only a yard left, so....

this one is actually for D... if you look closely, there are traffic cones in the circles, and race cars, tow trucks, and ambulances with sirens blaring... PERFECT for a little boy equally obsessed with construction, cars, emergency vehicles, and disasters!

here are the cutest for the bean, the frog print in pink from Heather Ross' Far Far Away (double gauze), some really cute apple dots (japanese, also double gauze, with the occasional leaf and adorable worm sprinkled in there), and a pinkish linen (also japanese) with duckies, flowers, and umbrellas. (the bean LOVES ducks)
so I need to pick some patterns and get to it, right?

A shirt for my dad...

Ok, so we have 2 big dogs... our XL dog door cost over a hundred dollars, and the flap ripped within 6 months... supposedly that's just what happens. So I found a tute on the internet showing how to make your own dog door using various wooden things and then cutting down a car floor mat for the flap, and I made C make a new flap that way. It lasted for about a month. and fell off completely yesterday... so we looked into buying a new flap, but they retail for $60!!! and some reviewers say that they replace every few months! YIKES!

So i thought about using leather, and I thought about using vinyl, and then maybe ducttape... so at Joanns today, I bought some duct tape (black, with a 50%off coupon, so totally affordable), and I also noticed the "outdoor canvas." I bought yellow to match the walls, even though my plan is to coat the canvas with layers of woven duct tape... for now though: tada! duct tape to hold up the cut canvas flap!

luckily it's almost summer, we mostly just need the flap to a) keep flies/chickens OUT, b) keep the bean IN. this will, at least temporarily, do both... hopefully....

In OTHER news, both C and my dad love western shirts... and have requested some custom ones...

I found a Simplicity Pattern for $.99 last week, and, having looked at the pieces/construction, am using it more as a sloper than as the actual pattern... It's just a little too over done, while being simultaneously really oversimplified... So I took apart a really really really old threadbare shirt of my dads, and used the Simplicity pattern as the base to build off... I've made new yokes, pockets, etc... I'm trying to use Shirtmaking so I can actually pull this off...

I went shopping with my dad, last week, and had him choose fabric (it's a very bold orange and black African geometric print). I steered him away from stripes and plaids, thinking they'd be hard, but, of course, that's actually recommended for your first attempt, as it's easier to check grain... so I went back to joanns, and bought more fabric, this time in a nice simple "homespun check" of forest green and tan... it's working up quite quickly (I cut it all, and have sewn up the body/collar in 3-4 hours, just the sleeves left for tomorrow!)

I cut the pockets/flaps on the bias, which I love, and I cut the front yoke at an angle (because I didn't have enough fabric to match the stripes, or to do straight bias). I like the angle though, I think it's interesting...

the matching on the back is so perfect as to be practically invisible! I think I need more intense top-stitching, but I'm not sure what to do... maybe thicker thread? maybe a fancy stitch? with more forethought, I could have used my embroidery machine, but it's too late now, as its all sewn up...

I'm really looking forward to a) using the pretty pearl snaps, b) playing with the decorative options in the future!

Sunhat for a baby with a big head.

D's head is already bigger than mine,(he's outgrown his adult small
bike helmet already), so it's hard to find sunhats that are appealing,
age apropriate, and will fit him. I made up this pattern last year,
but he outgrew it, obvi. Here's the new version. Green cotton
seersucker on the "inside," (it's reversible, but I think the linen
will be shown more), from joanns remnants, linen on the outside. The
train fabric was from Momen, today, but I only got 1/4 yd, so I did
the crown with the linen print, and the rest with natural linen I
already had... If anyone is interested, I can post the pattern... It
would fit an adult, and take about 2 hours to make....

Rainy day #6...

First the baby took her morning nap, so I was able to start a granny square with one of the green yarns I dyed last night...

isn't it purdy?!?!?!?

Then I managed to get the boy-o to nap (unfortunately after his sister had already woken up), so I backpacked her, and cut out the envelopes to make this. My envelopes will be of light blue linen (left over from a pair of boy-o pants), and the linings will be different for the kiddos. (I'm making one for each.)

The cards will be linen/cotton, again, depending on the child...

right now they're just boring linen squares, so no pictures yet...

BUT, I did make my first attempt at enlarging the pants pattern for the boy-o, and cut the new pattern out of the hideously ugly sheet...

see:

another future refashion is this awesome fabric, again from my gram (LOVE HER!!!!)

the dress was HIDEOUS, but this fabric bit is sorta cool, and will make an AMAZING pair of psychedelic baby pants! (stripes will be horizontal)

I've been staring at these old baby boy onesies for a while... they're stained, so no use for hand-me-downs to friends, but too small to cut up into underpants, and pretty boring, so... not sure what to do with them right now...

must ponder longer.

vintage boys pants...

My son is a very solid 3.5 year old. I'm told by the dr that I don't have to worry about his weight, but he's not a skinny minny. His shoulders are so wide, that if I buy a woven shirt, he needs a 7-8... (he's like his dad in that respect) His waist/hip (cause he wears his pants right about at his hip bones)measurement right now is almost exactly 22", which is an inch bigger than the measurement for this awesome pair of vintage boys pants...

plus, I'm not sure, when it says "size 4, waist 21" if that means the boys waist measurement, or the finished pant size...

granted there's elastic in the back, but I am planning on attempting my first resize to add an extra 2" to the width. I found this awesome looking explanation of how to do it here...

my gram gave me this old sheet, which maybe is the ugliest fabric I HAVE EVER SEEN (she didn't want to give it to me for precisely that reason, but it's free and totally fine for making boy pant muslins, right?

I guess my cat is color/pattern-blind, cause he thinks this is a great kitty bed...

toddler/boys boxer-briefs!

Look what I made tonight:

Cutie patutie boys underpants from old baby clothes!
Start to finish, including cutting time, I can whip one of these bad boys out in less than 10 minutes! (rereading this after posting, this sounds really dirty!)

These would also work as "boy shorts" for a girl... with girlier fabric... I just wanted to use D's old baby clothes...

Tutorial:

Materials:

*a knit cotton t-shirt that is too small (I used 18mo, 24mo, and 2t shirts for my size 6 3yo boy)

*scrap of cotton knit with Lycra/Spandex (same thing... the easiest way for me to tell if there's lycra/spandex in a cotton jersey is by stretching it... plain cotton=not shiny, lycra/spandex= shiny when stretched.)

*scissors, sewing machine, thread etc.

Start with the T-shirt... cut it apart just below the armpits, straight across.

The bottom of the shirt will be your boxers, the top will be cut apart even more to make the crotch gusset

(this tute is illustrated with 2 different pairs of boxers... I made the striped one first, then made the red one to get extra pictures of things I missed the first time)

So:

Using the leftover top of the shirt, cut out a crotch piece. (if your kid is chubby, make it wide, if your kid is skinny, make it narrow. I'd aim for about 3" by 7", (but it's better to cut a piece that's too big, as big as your shirt will allow, and then cut down later, rather than cut a little piece, and have to piece together the crotch)

You can see the outline on the red shirt of the crotch piece... cutting that gave me 2 matching pieces (one from the front, one from the back). The striped shirt had the front collar placket, so I could only get one crotch piece from it... I supplemented with a part of a sleeve from another cotton shirt...)

*Try to make sure the crotch pieces are 100% cotton (avoid baby yeast infections!!!)

so now you have the bottom of a shirt, and 2 matching rectangles...

Cut a strip of the cotton with lycra/spandex that's 2-3 inches long (I like thicker waistbands for my son, they're easier on him) that's 3 or so inches smaller than the actual waist measurement (rough guideline: I'd cut 15-16" for a 3-5y/o, 16-18 for a 6-8 y/o)

sew the strip into a band, right sides together

This will be your waistband, and the lycra/spandex will provide enough elasticity that you don't need to actually put itchy elastic in the underpants! Fold the waist band in 1/2, wrong side together, so the seam is in the inside, and you have a ring.

Pin it to the cut/unfinished side of the shirt bottom, matching the waist seam with one of the shirt side seams, matching the 1/2 and 1/4 points of both. The shirt bottom should be bigger than the waistband, and you will have to stretch the shirt to match the waist band as you sew.

Ok, now it should look like this: (you could stop here and have a toddler tube top, I suppose)

Now fold it in 1/2 like this:

Grab your scissors and cut out a little crotch "J"

I just freehanded it, but if you've never made pants before, cut out a little J shape that's about 2" high. (maybe start with 1.5" and cut off more if needed...

Here's what the red pair looked like when I opened them up:

They look underpants-esque already, don't they?

Now go grab those crotch gusset rectangles, and serge/zigzag them, right sides together, on the NARROW ends, like this:

Turn the gusset right side out, and zigzag a little topstitch on the narrow ends like this: (don't worry about making the beginning/ends look good, they'll be covered in the next step)

Pin one long side of your gusset to the curve on one side of your boxers, right sides together. I find it easier to pin on the gusset side. First put the edges together and pin each corner, then the middle, then the 1/4 points, like so:

Flip them around and sew the other side, again, right sides together, pinning on the gusset side.

Clip threads, iron (if you care, I didn't bother, obvi).

Flip them right side out, and admire.

Wasn't that easy?!?!?!

Here's the set I made tonight... all have the same waistband fabric, therefore, obviously, they're a "set."