From the category archives:

sewing

Easter sewing :: part two

April 3, 2010

The last piece of the Easter outfit puzzle for Emma – a super easy headband made from leftover fabric using this tutorial.

The flower is just a mixture of flower shapes and circles held together with a pink button and embroidery floss – nothing fancy and straight out of my head. I hot glued a safety pin on the back so that it can be removed and applied to a dress or a shirt or a purse or a different headband. Plus, the headband is reversible, so I pretty much had to make the flower removable.

Throw in a pair of white sandals from Target for $7.99, and we’ve got a complete Easter outfit for less than $10.

Yes, I’m totally patting myself on the back right now.

{ 5 comments }

an Easter dress for $1.25

April 2, 2010

in emma,sewing

I’m a good Southern girl who loves seersucker for Easter. I think my bloodstream is 2 parts seersucker, 2 parts madras and 1 part linen. So when it came time to think about Emma’s Easter dress, I decided to raid my Goodwill pile of clothes that’s been sitting there for ~~months~~ a while. Sure enough, I found a skirt that no longer fits me. And not just because I’m pregnant, either. *ahem*

It’s a green and white seersucker wrap skirt that I bought off of eBay years ago, and I wore it religiously as soon as Spring reared it’s allergy-ridden head. And then I had a baby and … well, my hips don’t lie.

In about 45 minutes, it became Emma’s seersucker Easter dress. It mostly took that long, because Emma wanted to cut the ribbon and choose the color of thread and iron the hem and break the rowing machine and catch the shards of fabric and string that fall out from under the industrial serger.

By the way, it’s not crazy longer in the back – the wind was blowing and due to the way it was hanging on the hanger, it just looks that way.

Total cost was $1.25 for the roll of light pink ribbon I used at the top.

I still need to fray check the ends of the ribbon and get her some white sandals, but other than that, she’s ready for Sunday!

Since it was a wrap skirt, it was very easy to just cut enough width for a comfortable dress and serge the sides together. A double blessing was that the skirt was cut on the bias, so the dress has plenty of flare. Then, I used a mixture of this and this tutorial to make the actual dress. And lucky me, the hem was already finished.

I can’t wait to get pictures of her in it on Easter morning. I’m thinking about making a matching headband with the leftover fabric if I have time …

{ 19 comments }

while she sleeps

January 25, 2010

in sewing

Yeah, I know I should be resting and all of that, but Ken took Emma downstairs this morning around 8am, and I said, “I’ll be down in a minute,” and then promptly slept until 10am. Wheee! So I had more energy today than I’ve had in a while!

Instead of catching up on cleaning, which I so badly need to do, I sewed a couple of skirts for Emma.

These are SO SUPER EASY to make using this tutorial. On the first one, I followed all of the instructions just as they were (except I constructed the skirt with an industrial serger, so I didn’t have to sew and then overlock). But on the second skirt, I pieced together two pieces for the top layer and 2 pieces for the bottom layer to make the right width, because the fabric I wanted to use wasn’t wide enough (most of my fabric is leftover from converting prefolds, so I rarely have selvedge to selvedge).

I also added a few inches to the width of the bottom layer to add more ruffle. We love ruffles! I may add even more width to the next skirt, because I’m wild and crazy like that. ;)

When Emma puts them on, she says, “I look like a princess!” so that’s a winner in my book.

I also made her a twirly skirt using this tutorial, but it’s too late to take pictures for tonight’s post. I’ll get some action shots tomorrow.

{ 14 comments }

sewing for baby

January 3, 2010

in emma,sewing

Wow, I’m so surprised at the “I could have written this” responses to my last post. I honestly sat on that post for quite some time before I felt brave enough to share it, but now that I have, I feel like talking about it more! It’s always comforting to know that there are others out there just like me.

This morning’s message in church was about plugging into the power of God, and one of the ways we receive it is through the power of love. Well, my spirit has definitely been renewed just reading that we’re all going through similar things, and we all have our battles to fight. We have such love for each other, even though many of us have never met in real life.

The online community is such a powerful thing.

On that note, I took another baby step towards simplifying. Instead of going to a store and spending money on some cheap Made in China crap, I took some fabric and a sewing pattern and made a dress for Emma’s Baby. That’s her name – Baby.

{Emma was real original when she got the doll last Christmas.}

You see, Emma got a new doll and a gorgeous papa-made bed this Christmas, and included was several outfits made by Emma’s great-grandmother (my Mema). Well, now that this new baby doll (which Emma has named Princess) has wardrobe choices, Emma changes her clothes at least 10 times a day.

But as much as she loves Princess, Baby is her most favorite doll. So she asked me to make some dresses for Baby. ACK! I’m a fairly decent seamstress, but I have never made a baby dress, so I kind of panicked. Because if you’ve ever dealt with a two-year old, you know that you must finish the project they have assigned to you by the time they get up from their nap or they will flip the freak OUT.

Luckily, I did have a dress pattern that I had bought from Sarah at Bit of Whimsy Dolls last October when I had all these glorious plans to make all of Emma’s Christmas presents *ahem* – so I mocked up one from the original pattern and then figured out where I needed to enlarge it to fit Emma’s doll.

Lo and behold, it fit!

And then I made Emma a smiley face pancake for supper and she stabbed and ate the eye first.

The end.

{ 15 comments }

easiest skirt ever!

April 20, 2009

in emma,sewing

lazy days skirt from oliver + s

took me all of 30 minutes to make this skirt, and that was only because i sewed up the waistband before i put the elastic in — it should only take about 25 minutes ;)