Wrap Dress

We were invited to my friends daughters one year old birthday party a few weeks ago so I decided to make her a dress as her present. I actually made two because I had enough fabric. I used this pattern and it is such a great pattern. I love that it doesn't have real sleeves to sew in and no zipper! This is one my favorite little girls dresses I've ever made. Although I think it's because I'm in love with this Amy Butler fabric.

Little Girl Patchwork Skirts

I made these little girl skirts a long time ago, but am now just blogging about it. Awhile ago I was at a quilt shop and they had charm packs for 1/2 off so I couldn't resist getting some. I used this tutorial and whipped up these skirts in one night. Actually I convinced Matt to help sew some of the squares together for me to save me some time. He is the best! I absolutely love these skirts and really want one in my size. I wonder how many charm squares that would take?

Junebug Dress Sewalong

I decided to take a break from sewing skirts to join Craftiness is not Optional's Junebug Dress Sew Along. Mostly because everytime I do a sew along with her I learn a ton. Yay for free sewing lessons! She even provides a free pattern for this adorable dress. I was going to give it to one of my nieces, but I love it too much so I think I might just hoard it for when we have a girl. One less dress to make later right? I didn't hem it yet because I'll just wait till I have a model to get the right length.

The dress came together really quickly except when I reached the buttonholes. My Bernina has an automactic button hole foot that memorizes the length of a button holes after sewing one of them so that you get the same size button holes everytime. However it wasn't working consistently no matter what I did. After playing with it for over an hour I looked it up on the internet and realized this just happens if the foot is dusty. So note to self dust off your buttonhole foot before using it. After I dusted it it worked like a charm. I'm just glad there wasn"t something seriously wrong with my machine and it was an easy fix.

I love how the dress turned out especially the daisy buttons. Thanks Jessica for being my sewing teacher for the week.

Easter Dress

Right before we left for Hawaii I made a new friend in our ward. I found out that she loves to sew too. When we were over there, her husband bet her that she wouldn't finish her little girl Easter dresses on time. Well, we couldn't have him win that bet so we got together the next week and finished two of these adorable Easter dresses. I'm happy to report that not only did she win the bet and get a free dinner, but her girls looked adorable on Easter Sunday. We used this free pattern and tutorial.

Charlotte Dress Sew along

One of my all time favorite craft blogs is Craftiness is not optional. She is amazing and makes the most adorable kids clothes. Once I saw she was throwing a sew-along for a dress she made her adorable 9 month old daughter, I had to join and make one for Jenna's new baby girl on the way. Here is a link to her tutorial and she even emailed me a free pattern for the dress. How cool is she? I was keeping up with the sew-along until day 4. I was serging a seam and my thread snapped. I wanted to cry! It took me 2 hours to figure out how to thread my serger when I first got it and I hadn't touched it since praying that I never had to re-thread the beast again. After another hour looking at the manual and the poorly made video I got the thing working again. So I didn't finish the sew-along on time, but I did finish the dress eventually. It really only takes 30 minutes a day. It was shockingly easy and the final product looks professional. I even installed my first zipper thanks to Jessica's easy directions. I want to make more now!

With the scraps and I mean scraps, I made Sara Jane a matching skirt. I followed the directions for a skirt from this book I bought with an Amazon gift card I got for Christmas from Matt's parents. More baby presents coming soon.

Baby dress from an old skirt

The other day I went through my closet and threw out all the old clothes that I didn't wear, were ugly, or didn't fit anymore. It wasn't a pretty sight. I had stuff from 7th grade that was way out of style. Yikes! Did I really wear that? I was about to donate them to DI then I thought to myself that it would be a shame to waste so much fabric that could be used to make something else like doll clothes, baby clothes, purses, baby bibs, etc. However I don't want to have a pile of old clothes laying around so I made a goal to make something weekly from my old clothes. This little baby dress came from an old skirt I had that was too short for me. I used this tutorial and free pattern. It took a little longer to cut out because I had to make all the pattern pieces fit onto the fabric which wasn't easy, but after that it was a breeze to sew together. I'm proud that I recycled and saved money. It will make a cute baby present to give to someone. Plus I'm learning how to construct clothes which isn't my strong point right now. What better way to learn than on fabric you don't care about right?

Blairs Dress

This is a dress I made for my niece.You can find the free pattern here. It was really easy to put together and only took me 2 hours including cutting time. Just as a warning this dress ran big. I originally made it for Sara Jane who is 2, but it didn't fit. It fit Blair who is 5. Maybe I didn't use the right seam allowance? Not sure since this wasn't included in the tutorial. Oh well it looks adorable on Blair and I'm sure if you had a child's measurements you could figure out how to make it fit right.Originally the bow was supposed to tie in the front, but it looked better tied in the back. Maybe I'll make a flower to go on the waistband and send it to them. She wore it to church today and she said she loved her new outfit. What a cute model! It's fun sewing for kids and how excited they get. Blair was so happy when she saw the dress. Also I got this fabric on sale for $1.00 a yard on fabric.com so this dress only cost $1.00! Not bad eh?

Belle Costume

Matt's friend Levin asked me to make a Belle costume for his 2 year old daughter Ansley. His wife died in a car accident a year ago so I thought it would be nice to make her a costume. I used this New Look Pattern for the bodice and used this belle dress tutorial for the skirt. My mom helped me me make the pretty sash and rose. My mom is so talented! I think it turned out well. It fits her perfectly. Ansley loved it and cried when she had to take it off. She also kept wanting to carry it around when it wasn't on and saying, " Oh what a pretty yellow dress."

While I went to work on the Belle dress. Levin went all out on a beast mask which you can see in the picture. He made it using resin, plaster, paper mache, and fur from old Teddy Bears. I was pretty impressed. It isn't completely done yet so that's why you can see some newspaper. He told me his brother was going to go as the candlestick. I will have to post a picture of the whole clan when they send it to me from Halloween.

Tomorrow I plan on finally posting my felt food that I finished back in August from my pattern testing. Whoops I've been awful about blogging.

Baby Present for Neighbor

My neighbor had a little girl last Friday so I thought it would be nice to make her something. So I whipped up this onesie and skirt to give to her. I used this tutorial for the skirt and then just appliqued (use heat and bond then sew on) some pears and apples from the fabric on a onesie. I made it to fit a 3-6 month old baby. This entire outfit only took me 20 minutes to make. The skirt was probably the easiest thing I've made thus far and it turned out so cute. So give it a try it's super easy I promise! Another thing I love about this skirt is it takes hardly any fabric. You could get a fat quarter or dig through the remnant bins at Hobby Lobby and make these skirts for $1!

*One tip to make cutting easier is to use wrapping paper to make a pattern for the rectangle. Most wrapping papers have 1 inch squares on the back so you just have to count and cut out the shape. I do this for every rectangle/square I have to cut out because I hate measuring squares/rectangles by hand and having the pattern helps me cut more accurately. Then after you are done you can keep your pattern to make it again later.

* Another nice thing about this skirt is that it can be made to fit different baby sizes. The smallest is probably 3-6 months using the tutorial measurements, but you could make it bigger by gathering less in the waistline. You could probably even play with the rectangle measurements to get it down to newborn size.

Andreas Baby Dress

I decided I wanted to be better about sewing stuff for my families new babies. I haven't done so well so far, but I'm trying to turn a new leaf. So sorry if you didn't get something from me yet. I'm not picking favorites I promise it's just how much time I have to do stuff like this. I found time for this during Christmas break when I had no school. I definitely wanted to make a dress for Andrea so that she would have something handmade for her new baby girl. I used New Look Pattern 6842 in the newborn size (although newborn translates to 9 months so it's a little big). I bought the designer mother goose fabric on sale at Joanns during their mega Christmas sale for $2.00 yd. So the dress only cost $6 with the pattern and zipper. Who said sewing doesn't save money? I think this dress could easily sell in a designer baby shop for $40. Thank you to my wonderful mom who helped with this project. I couldn't have installed those adorable, but evil puffy sleeves without her! I also made a flower to go on a headband for the babies hair. I used this tutorial. I hope she likes it because I'm in love with it!




I could not take a nonblurry picture of this flower. I tried like 7 times even though the dress pictures turned out fine. So sorry this is the best I could get. I need a new camera!

Twirly Skirt and Headband

I made this cute Twirly skirt and then used this tutorial to make the headband. And remember these fabric flowers? Came in handy didn't they? The size ended up being bigger than I thought. So you might want to sew this for at least a 4 year old. I'm making a variety of sizes so I don't care. The fabric is also a darker pink, but as I have learned my camera is not that great.