Patriotic Baby

Poor Lenore, I feel like I've hardly sewn her anything.

My mom has recently brought a lot of clothes to the girls when she visits.

This is a blessing.

And it has helped me be able to sew something for Lenore instead of focusing on making summer clothes for Kai.  Lenore needs things because she doesn't have hand-me-downs to pull from.

We thought we were done having kids, and she has been a little surprise blessing.

By the way, have you any idea how hard it is to take pictures of a 6 month old modeling an outfit?
Most of the pictures turned out blurry.  The best pictures were taken AFTER my precious model spit-up on her new outfit.

I just finished it, and want to be sure to get it in by the deadline for Project Run and Play.

They said we have until May 22nd.  Since I'm not sure if they mean by midnight tonight or on the 22nd, Eastern Time Zone or some other,  I'm putting this post together quickly with the pictures I just took before putting her to bed for the night.

I guess I'm about to find out.

The project for this month was this cute little top by The Crafty Cupboard.


Isn't it sweet?
It wasn't sized for a 6 month old, but I was able to make it smaller with no problem.
I used cotton knit to make this outfit.

The first thing I did was make a wider skirt portion so it would be much fuller.
 I just love flutter sleeves, and decided to do two on each side, since I knew I'd be adding two ruffles around the whole thing.

My favorite feature just may be all the stars I sewed into the skirt of the dress.
It's called reverse applique.

I drew some stars onto the white knit, cut them out and then sewed it to the wrong side of my dress fabric.  Then I trimmed around my star shape on the back.  Finally, I cut out the dress fabric, inside the star shape on the front of the dress.  Voila!  Reverse applique!

My second favorite thing is the peek-a-boo back on the back of the dress with the ruffled bloomers showing through.

My third favorite thing is that it took 3 unwanted t-shirts to make this outfit.
My sister recently asked me if I wanted to go through a box of clothes she was taking to the local thrift store to donate.  I scored several new looking t-shirts her husband didn't want.  Love to upcycle!

I had a lot of fun making this outfit.  Whew!  It's getting more challenging to sew at this stage of her life.  She got her first two teeth this week AND started crawling in the past two days.  So I'm busy to say the least.  But it sure is fun to sweat over.  And now my sweet baby has a festive outfit to wear to this weekend's Memorial Day celebration.

One of the reasons I love participating in Project Run and Play is that it continually motivates me to push my creative envelope.  I can tell I've gotten better at the little details since stumbling across PRP.  I'm very thankful to get to be a part of sewing with all the ladies that participate with me.

I wish I had gotten my diaper bag finished in time.  You can read about it here if you want to see what I came up with.

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!

Tiered Bubble Dress

When I saw the Project Run and Play challenge this month was a bubble dress my mind immediately drifted to this red polka dot fabric I had used to make Lenore's Christmas outfit.  

I knew it would make a cute bubble skirt and be perfect for a Valentine's Day outfit too.

But I also knew a lot of people would be making skirts.  Whether or not they would be tiered I wasn't sure.  But I wanted to submit an outfit that would be different from the rest, so I decided to go ahead with Kai's bubble shirt. 

After reading that you could submit more than one entry I decided to see if I could find the time to make a tiered bubble dress by the deadline.  I had fun playing with the design.  Deciding how long to make each tier, whether or not to add sleeves, and what kind of sleeves I wanted it to have was a lot of fun.
  Between the Cub Scouts Space Derby, Kai selling 800 boxes of Girl Scout cookies, and the flu hitting our family for the second time, to say that I've been busy is quite the understatement.  But I burned the midnight oil and managed to get this pretty little dress finished in time.  

I made a tutorial for this dress.  You can find it here.  I did take pictures along the way.

I decided to shirr some white cotton for the waist, because the thought of gathering 6 layers of fabric for the skirt to sew to the bodice just didn't sit well with me. Instead of using elastic thread I used 1/4 inch elastic.  And we just love the flexibility it gave me with playing around with the bodice.  I was able to shorten and widen it a bit to give it a blousy feel.  Carolina loves the way it hugs her abdomen so comfortably. 

My husband recently removed some shirts from his closet, that he no longer wanted and thoughtfully cut the buttons off to save for my sewing supplies before making rags out of the shirts.  

I was glad too, because I wanted small white buttons for the back of the dress, and thanks to him I already had them.

When I was sewing I happened to toss the dress on top of another project I had on the sewing table that had this turquoise fabric and thought it looked so well together I decided to make a little flower to go on the dress.

Thank you for looking!

Christmas Projects: Picture With Santa Outfits!

Kai and Carolina's dresses are Peasant dresses.

 I used a couple of tutorials to make these.

Here http://www.sweetestbugbows.com/bohemian-peasant-dress-tutorial/

and Here http://www.scatteredthoughtsofacraftymom.com/2013/11/freel-long-sleeve-peasant-dress-pattern.html

For both of the dresses I changed the sleeves up a bit.

On Kai's red chevron dress I put a 5 inch ruffle on the ends.

On Carolina's Houndstooth dress I cut the sleeve off at the elbow and made it ruffle by doubling the width of the sleeve.

For Lenore's baloon onesie I combined the top of this tutorial (making the sleeves the length of Lenore's arms) with the bottom of this romper tutorial.  

But I made a mistake, because I didn't measure Lenore's legs to make sure the pattern fit.  The darn thing turned out like shorts.  If you look close you can see tights hanging off her feet.  The smallest tights I could find were huge on her, and I couldn't find her shoes or hair bow when we were scrambling to get everyone on Santa's lap for the picture.

  

This is the tutorial I used for their hair bows.  I almost always use this website for hair bow instructions.

I used this tutorial for the flowers I made for Carolina and Lenore's dresses.  I put them on a clip and clipped them on, so there wouldn't be any pins and they could use them as hair bows at another time.

I used ribbon for the green part and fabric from Lenore's outfit for the red around Carolina's flower.

I wanted all of the outfits to be tied together, so that they matched without being matchy-matchy.

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!

Hey Mom! Remember that dress you gave me last summer?

The one that I wore from the hotel to vacation bible school and told you it ripped up the front seam while we were standing and sitting repeatedly during worship service?

Well, look what I did with it...

This week's Project Run and Play is called the 

"Hand Me Down" makeover.

The idea is that you make something new and modern from something old or upcycled.

I kept this dress that my mom had given me last summer, even though it ripped at the seams the first time I wore it, TO CHURCH no less!  Boy was I a funny sight trying to get all 4 of my children and get out of there without anybody noticing my dress ripped in the front above the knees.

I thought this fabric was too interesting to just throw away.

Then again, I think that about most things.

I couldn't decide if I wanted to use this project for this week's challenge or next week's denim challenge.  I think I'll just use it this week and maybe not have anything to enter next week.

I'm hoping to make a Barbie doll dress for one of Kai's friends by Sunday, and some new gowns for the baby after that.  Well see what happens.

The apron is also upcycled from a fitted bed sheet.  I really had fun with this challenge.  

I also made a petti coat out of tulle and elastic.

Carolina absolutely loves it! 

She wants to cook something wearing it. 

Ha!  I'm like, "NOOOO!"

She reminds me of Lucille Ball in it.