Baby Dresses

I've been sewing, I promise. A lot of it has been non-fun sewing (mending, repairs, etc) but for the fun stuff, some of it was not photographed. Bad on my part but I did take photos of the things I've been making my new niece. Here's two dresses I made for her, although I don't know if she will wear them before the warm weather ends.

I used the following tutorials:
Pink ice cream dress: See Kate Sew Easy Baby Dress
Cherry and gingham dress: Shwin&Shwin Summer Breeze Dress

All of the fabrics came from Joann's, the pink ice cream is from the Little Lissette collection and cherries and red gingham were found in the Keepsake Calico section (the huge wall of fabric by color).

For the pink dress I followed the directions exactly. I cut up the scraps to make bias tape for the raw edges and added the tag before sewing the bodice to the skirt. I didn't think about it until afterwards, but I could've done french seams on the skirt. I just zigzagged the edges to prevent fraying.

For the cherry and gingham I followed the directions for the bodice but added the gingham to the bottom to lengthen it. I did french seams on the skirt and used scraps for bias tape on the bodice to cover raw edges. I forgot to add a tag, so I wrote on the bias tape with a permanent fabric pen. For the hem I treated the gingham like bias tape, sewed it first to the wrong side and then stitched it on the front. The bow was made by folding two rectangles of gingham in half and sewing the edges to make a tube (I sewed at an angle on one end to get the points) then turning inside out. I made another smaller tube for the middle part. I stitched the longer pieces to the bodice with my machine but I hand stitched the middle part since I didn't want any stitches visible on the outside. Hope that makes sense. The buttons and buttonholes were done by machine, my first time using this function!

Big Boy Underwear

My son is two and half, and he's getting to that age where people start to ask if he's potty trained. And it certainly doesn't help that he has the build of a 4 year old (thanks to some tall genes from both Mama AND Daddy!).

I decided long ago that our next baby would be in cloth diapers and that whenever Alex was ready to potty train, he'd be in cloth trainers. I absolutely refuse to buy Pull-ups or any other related 'generic' brand of this glorified diaper. I honestly can't justify spending that much money on it, I'd rather do more laundry (which wouldn't cost me much anyways since I make my own laundry soap).

But I digress, so when looking for cloth trainers I wanted something that was padded. Didn't have to be super duper padded, but enough extra layers to hold a little accident.

I came across this tutorial on Pinterest:

For full tutorial click here

And I thought to myself that this option could work for my son. Now Heather from It's a Long Story has used cloth diapers with her daughter, so she has a one up on us. From what I understand this a pretty good advantage when transitioning to potty training, hence why we're doing this next baby. But I figured it was worth a shot and I'm hoping that Alex will learn pretty quick.

Anyways, I went to Joanns and bought my fabrics. You only need 1/4 yard of the PUL which is roughly $3.75 (a full yard is $14.99) and then I found two remnants of 100% cotton flannel, and if you shop at Joann's then you know that all their remnants are 50% off. So in the end the fabric didn't cost me much.

I found the training pants at Walmart and Target, and they both had the same price. I think $7.69 for 3 pairs of the white, and they come in 2T and 3T. I ended up buying 6 pairs so my overall cost jumped up a bit but I wanted to make sure to have several pairs ready to go in case of emergency changes. If these work out I plan to buy more, I have plenty of PUL and flannel leftover to make at least 6 more pairs if not more.

So anyways, without further ado here's my boy version of Heather's DIY training pants:

I think they came out pretty cute. But don't look too too close at the stitching, it didn't exactly line up in several pairs. Oops. Oh well, not like it matters it's underwear after all.

Heather used white flannel but I found this solid green and a green stripe in the remnant bin so that's what I used. Personally, I think it matches the dinosaur PUL perfectly. So cute! :)

Now here's hoping that my son will learn to use the potty by age 3! :)


Linking up here:

Maxi Dress -- Nearly Done

After a year plus of just plain procrastinating my maxi dress that I mentioned way back here is nearly done! To be honest, this project has taken so long because it was really intimidating.

My first hurdle was the bodice. I got the top portion done no problem but when it came time to attach the band I could not get it to lay right. So I stopped and put it away, thinking I would come back to it with fresh eyes a little later. Yeah, um...so a year and some change is still qualified as later right?

Well this past spring I pulled it out again, hoping I could get it done in time for summer but that didn't happen. But the good news, I got over the first hurdle! :) But after that was another set back and it wasn't until just recently that I pulled it out again to fix my mistakes and get it to the point it's at now.

Take a look. :)

The dress nearly complete - just need to hem the bottom and add the zipper

See that little pointy part on the band? That was the first hurdle

I did french seams on both the outer and lining fabric - no raw edges!

French seams just look so much prettier - it's my new favorite way to finish seams

Didn't want raw edges so made my own bias tape for the seam where the bodice attaches to the skirt

All that is left is the zipper -- my next hurdle!

I think I figured out how to get the zipper in there but it's being a big pain. The original pattern didn't call for a lining for the skirt (only the bodice) but because the outer fabric is slightly see-through for me I added a lining in a cream, unbleached muslin. Only downside is that it's another piece of fabric I gotta sew to the zipper and it makes the dress overall a bit heavier than I envisioned. But I'm hoping that when I hem up the lining to above the knee it won't be as heavy as it is now. Also, when I started this dress last year I was 15 pounds heavier. So now I have to take in the bodice to fit me again. But that's another hurdle that's intimidating me so I may just give up and let someone else do that part. haha We'll see, my mom has a seamstress friend that may be able to help me navigate alterations. I'll keep you posted with the final result!

Cleavage Cover-Up

Ever since I became a mom I've been more aware of low necklines on my clothing. I didn't care about it before, but after the baby I didn't like bending over and exposing the "girls". I still don't, 18 months later. So I added a little something extra to one of my dresses and a t-shirt to help out with the problem.

The t-shirt was by far the hardest, it had a low scoop neck that took a while to get the measurements just right. I took a scrap of unbleached muslin and folded it in half to get the coverage I wanted. I used one of the decorative stitches on my machine across the top at the fold and then machine-sewed the muslin to the shirt around the hem. The thread doesn't match 100%, but it's close enough that you wouldn't notice it without me telling you about it.
I chose this decorative stitch because it went well with the military theme of the t-shirt.

The dress was the easiest by way of measurements, but it took the most fabric. I used extra scraps leftover from Betty's quilt, but since the white fabric was still sheer after folding one piece in half I had to add a second. So there are four layers on the dress! It was also the more extreme of the cover-ups. The elastic banding is just under the bust, so this deep v-neck required more length than the t-shirt too. Other than that, it was the same process as the t-shirt.

I chose this decorative stitch because of its leafy pattern, perfect compliment to the flower on the dress.

So what do you think? I think I passed for doing on-the-fly sewing. :)

Loving the Maxi Dress

So right now I'm currently obsessed with maxi dresses, thanks in large part to the warmer weather. Don't know what a maxi dress is? Well, it is the name given to a dress that is very long (touching the floor for some people while others it hits the ankles but usually nothing shorter than that) and most brands have at least one in their summer collection.

I found two at Ross that are actually long enough to fit my 5"9 frame. But for the most part it's very hard to find dresses that are at least ankle length on me. So I decided to make one myself, that way I can get it the perfect length.

So I found the above pattern for $3 at Joann's and the fabric I believe was $7.99 a yard. I am so excited to get started and see how this dress turns out! I'll keep you all posted with the results. :)