Cut off jean shorts!

I just made some cute cut off shorts for the girls.  I just took some jeans that had worn out knees and instead of tossing them as I was doing laundry today, I turned them into irresistible jean shorts. They are excited about wearing them after church tomorrow.

Knot Dress

I got another good picture of Kai wearing her dress. 

This month over at Project Run and Play the challenge of the month was this adorable 

Knot Dress pattern.

When I saw this pattern I immediately knew I wanted to make a lightweight jacket or cardigan, and this is why.

There is this gorgeous little keyhole in the back.

I just thought it would be beyond divine to have the dress fabric show through the keyhole of the jacket, which coincidentally is held together only by the knots.

Plus, even though it's spring it's never warm enough to go without a cardigan on Easter Sunday.

I wanted this to be her Easter dress, so I just had to make it.

This gave me the perfect opportunity to make her that ruffle bustle dress I've been wanting to make her too.  I also wanted to make an open backed jacket for it when I got around to making her a ruffle bustle dress.  I got to do both in this project, and we both love how it turned out.

I used the same pattern for the cardigan, but used a new tutorial for drafting my sleeve pattern.

Here it is at Leena's.com.

I thought about cutting the jacket to be the length of the dress, but she likes the way it looks with her cowgirl boots and jeans too, so I left it this length.

 Here is the dress without the cardigan.

 Now Carolina wants me to make her one.  Don't know if I'll have time.  We'll find out.

Thank you for checking out my blog!

Christmas Pajamas 2013

So, for 2012 and 2013 I rarely found the chance to blog.

I was getting diagnosed with and trying to gain control of my Grave's disease and Type 1 diabetes during that time and I can say I was totally exhausted all that time.

Funny how now that I have a newborn I seem to have tons more energy.

For one thing, the pregnancy sent my Grave's disease into remission, so that was a blessing.

Thank you Lord!

Here are the Christmas pajamas I never blogged about for the 2013 Christmas season.

Now, mind you, I just took these pictures within the past few days.

Actually, Daniel did this photo shoot with Kai.

He did a good job of making it fun.

When I made the night gown it was longer on her.  I wanted it to be sort of like Cindy Lou Who's nightgown. Coming in toward the legs at the bottom.  Kai wears it often, but asked me to never make her another nightgown with elastic in the bottom again, please.

Guess it's not that comfortable to walk in.

Carolina's pajamas were a two piece. 

The top is made with two different prints of flannel.

I didn't have enough of either to make the whole set, so the sleeves and missing pants have a pink Easter Bunny print on the fabric.

The bodice of the top has frogs and pink Gerber daisies.

You can't see the buttons.  I'll probably get a better picture once the pants turn up.

But the buttons are pink and purple Gerber daisies too.  Perfect.

I don't know how long I've had those buttons in my stash.

Very cute together.

Enoch and Delsin simply got pajama pants.

 

 Enoch is posing.

I keep seeing Delsin's in the dirty clothes, but can't seem to catch him actually wearing them long enough to get a picture.  Gotta get up early to catch that boy.

Delsin's pants are exactly the same, only his size.

If I get a picture I'll update the blog post.

Make Your Own Custom Shoelaces Tutorial

A few days ago Kai told me she needed a new pair of shoelaces for one of her pairs of sneakers.  Tonight I happened upon a tutorial using old t-shirts.  We don't have any unwanted t-shirts around, but I have lots of fleece leftover from Christmas PJs, so I used those. (UPDATE: I finally made some with an old t-shirt.  Grandma used a shoe lace to tie up a bathing suit and long story short we needed new shoelaces.  So here is the picture of Enoch's new shoes with new shoelaces. After you cut the strip of t-shirt pull it tight so it curls up.  Then tape your ends tightly.)

The first thing I did was to cut 30" of fleece 1/2 inch in width.  I cut two of those.  

Then I wrapped a piece of scotch tape around the fleece close to each end.

Finally, I cut the left over fleece off the end, catching a little bit of the tape in the cut too, to finish the ends of each laces off.

Voila!  Custom shoelaces on a shoestring budget!
In addition to working with old t-shirts you could use ribbon too.

New shorts for Kai

A friend of mine recently gave me some clothes that had outgrown her daughter.  I believe they were headed to a donation bin when she decided to see if I wanted them.  I'm not one to pass up hand-me-downs often.  I always figure I can take them off to a donation center myself if I don't want them.  As you can see these jeans are not in great shape.  The knees were plum worn out.  However, Kai's best friend has a great little creek in the backyard and she could always use some shorts for playing in it, so I cut 'em off and added a couple ruffles just for fun.  I love it!  Despite how this picture may look, they actually are even.  I bet I could Oxyclean those stains right out anyway.  That stuff is great.  I like the spray.

A Summer Outfit for Kai

Project Run and Play is doing a remix challenge each month.

This is my entry for January.

I wanted to make Kai a balloon shirt, but also wanted it to be sleeveless.

So I made a pillowcase style shirt.

Basically you make a pillowcase dress and shorten it to about hip length.  

Then hem making the hem wide enough to fit 1/4" elastic in.  You want to cut the elastic to the size of your person's waist, feed it through the hem with a safety pin in one end of the elastic.

Then sew the ends together and voila!

I put a little bow to match the one at the top of the shirt on one side so it looks like it's got the same ribbon on the bottom of the shirt, instead of elastic.

Then I took her favorite pair of pants that had worn out knees and cut them into shorts.

I hemmed them, and added some cute fabric flowers just like the ones I made for the girl's Christmas Dresses seen here. 

And I used embroidery thread to hand embroider the leaves and stems of each flower.

She loves her new outfit for summer!  

We are very much ready for warmer weather in this house!

Christmas PJ's 2012

So I just realized that I never blogged about these PJ's from two years ago.

In fact, I never posted any sewing projects in 2013 at all!

I was teaching a sewing class for two years and posted a few things on our facebook page, but didn't have time to post on the blog page.

Now our old computer crashed, and I don't know when I'll be able to get back the pictures I took.

So, I may try to take some pictures over the next few days of things I haven't blogged about.

I know I'll never get it all though.

Here are some photos I have of Christmas PJs from 2012

Iremember thinking I was too busy to make anything but some pajama pants.

 Above are Deslin's PJ's.  

Below are Carolina's PJ's.

Nevermind the wrinkles on Kai's PJ pants.  I just grabbed them out of her drawer and threw them on the floor to take the pic.

Enoch outgrew his long ago, but I remember them being light blue, and I put a yellow cord coming off the side with snaps on it so we could attach a toy.  I remember him going through a phase at the time where he couldn't keep from dropping his toy and then having a meltdown.  

When I find a picture I'll post it.

Aunt Becky's First Halloween Costume Party & This Year's Homemade Costumes

 For weeks Kai has been asking for an Elsa costume, either for Christmas or sooner.

I was planning to make her one, but didn't have the fabric.

Delsin has changed his mind a zillion times since summer.  

I was going to try to make him some kind of Wild Kratts costume,

but he changed to some kind of zombie Incredible Hulk.

When we got home from the hospital Daniel announced that Mama would not be sewing any costumes this year and they would either stay home on Halloween night or figure out something from the huge costume box already in the playroom.

At first Delsin was in shock and so I told him one year I dressed as a hunch-backed person with make-up and a hoodie with a pillow in my back.

Immediately  he wanted to do that.  So for the costume party this past weekend at Aunt Beck's house he dressed this way, and also for the Cub Scout Halloween party last night.

Enoch was easy.  We already had a couple of Spiderman costumes in the costume box.  He was happy.

For Kai and Carolina, I had to go to Walmart today after Lenore's first pediatrician appointment.  I had to pick up a few essentials, so I grabbed a couple of yards of turquoise tulle, and a roll of 10 yards of turquoise tulle with glitter on it, and a roll of glittery turquoise ribbon (1.5 inch).  I was going to make hair bows with the ribbon, instead of crowns, but I just ran out of time.  I should work on those today, perhaps.
So, I took the 2 yards of tulle and cut two perfect length capes out of it.  I used this tutorial as a reference for the style of cape I wanted.

Being reminded of this tutorial,

I decided to use Carolina's old beauty pageant dress we still had in the costume box, as the skirt to her Elsa dress.
I had Kai cut up the rest of the blue and white tulle we had on spools and I tied it onto some elastic to make the skirt for her Elsa dress. 
For the bodices I made a tube out of that 10 yard toll of 6inch tulle with glitter on it and slipped that over their heads.  Underneath it all I picked up some turquoise long sleeve shirts and leggings at Walmart earlier in the day.  So I did a tiny bit of sewing, but not much really.  I was able to put a couple of Elsa costumes together, WITH breastfeeding breaks I might add, in about  2 hours.
I'll make the hair bows soon and post pictures of those too.

Lenore and I thoroughly enjoyed staying home and cuddling.  I just couldn't take her out in the night air, being less than a week old and all.  I'm not sure if the kids will get to go trick or treating at all this year.  If Daniel is working late I might wrap Lenore up in a baby carrier under my coat and let them walk up River Street, which is just the next street over.  We'll see...

Edited to add a few pictures from Halloween night.
The bottom picture in this collage shows Carolina's expression when she found out Daddy wouldn't be able to get home from work in time to take them trick-or-treating.
But I had already come up with a back-up plan.

I didn't get any pictures of anybody wearing their costumes together, because once I announced Daddy couldn't come home I quickly announced that I'd take them to the street behind our house (where 6 houses were giving out candy).
So I put Lenore in my ring sling and wrapped her up with me in my coat.

 She wasted no time in falling asleep.

 Before she knew what happened we were back home in warmth for cuddling.

Signature Style Special Occasion Wear

This week's project for Project Run and Play is the signature style challenge.

My signature style has always been special occasion wear.

This may seem like an eliminating factor to some since most people wouldn't let their daughter play in a pageant dress, but my girls have the pleasure of playing dress-up in their dresses after pageant day. 

I found my signature style when I found my calling for sewing.

As a child I wasn't able to wear the dresses I longed to wear because my family was pretty poor.

I wanted to wear dresses like Carolina's Lucille Ball dress every day of my life.

I got hand me downs and wore the heck out of the prettiest dresses, to gather the eggs out of the hen house, chase down the ponies, and feed the hogs.  

When the county pageant came around each year I couldn't enter because we couldn't afford the dress.

So, I just knew I would learn how to sew so my daughters could enter the county pageant every year if they wanted to.

The first dress I ever made was my little sister's prom dress.

I wish so badly I had a picture of it.  

That was over 20 years ago though.

I might have to make a replica of it someday.

The second dress I made was for the Homecoming Queen.

It just goes on from there.

A few weeks ago I made this dress for Kai to wear in the county fair pageant.

She's really into Barbie dolls right now, so I made her Barbie a matching gown.

Kai said all of her friends told her she reminded them of a Disney Princess, which makes this dress a total winner in her eyes, and therefore mine as well.

Afterall, she is my inspiration. 

I think the curly ruffles is what sets this dress apart from the others.

I made them by adding 80lb test fishing line to the hem, as can be seen in my tutorial here.

The best part about looking at these pictures is knowing she just got through winning first place in the bicycle race right before slipping into her dress and sashaying out onto the stage.

Atta girl!